I discovered something new this weekend.

I love it when that happens. You're cruising along reading all your favourite blogs, you click a few links and there you are at some new and wonderful place. On Friday night I was reading Anna Maria's post about her new voiles (which I'm dying to actually touch but must wait a bit longer); she mentioned how good they'd be for doing a string quilt and I put "string quilt" into Google to learn what that meant.

I found a few basic instructions and pictures of diamond patterns and then I discovered mairuru's tutorial for a string quilt pouch (be sure to look around the rest of her blog - she has loads of cute tutorials for all sorts of things). Too cute! I loved the colours she chose. I loved the texture it made. I loved the way she did the whole thing by hand. I went immediately into my sewing room and pulled out my scraps box. Another quick look into my pile of leftover batting and I plunked myself down on the couch in the family room and quilted for the rest of the night.


I finished and trimmed my block Saturday morning and realized that I'd cut my batting piece the wrong size and was going to have a very shallow wide pouch. The pouch idea would have to wait. But I loved my block - that sweet wrinkly texture and the teeny bits of print - and I'd loved making it. So it's the beginning of a quilt ... not a fast quilt and probably not a big quilt but definitely a quilt.


I spent the rest of Saturday morning cutting little strips of fabric until my shoulder hurt.

New covers for some nude cushions in our living room. I am in love with laundered quilting right now. All that squashy wrinkled fabric between rows of neat stitches just makes me feel cozy. I didn't want my covers to shrink later on so I actually washed these before sewing the quilted pieces together to make the covers (I ran a zig-zag stitch around the raw edges to cut down on the amount of fuzz in my washer).

I'm loving patchwork too - especially the sort of random looking stuff. I wanted these to look a little more structured so they are based on two traditional piecing patterns. The green pillow uses a log cabin block and the brown one is stacked coins (turn your head sideways). It was a lot of fun to work randomly within the limitations of the two designs. I love the way piecing and quilting can transform fabrics I no longer really care for into larger pieces I love to see in our house.

I'm really pleased with the way these turned out. They add a nice warm feeling to our living room that works perfectly with the snow falling outside (off and on all day today - the streets are shiny with ice). They are a touch loose but I'm going to use them for a while before I decide if they are actually too big.

My quilt survived the wash ... and feels wonderful and warm. I am wrapped up in it as I write. That trip through the washer completes my reasoning for this quilt. I'm not sure if you can really create a quilt out of laziness but that is how this one started: I had this lovely bag of scraps from Erin but I wanted to wash them before they went into my stash and I was just too lazy to wash and press that many little pieces. I knew they would fray and leave bits of thread everywhere and it just seemed like it would be easier to wash them without any of the raw edges showing. So I sewed them all together and made a quilt.

I had no idea what this would look like when I started. The scraps are very random and range from tiny little calicos to novelty prints of candy and insects. There are two different hot chili fabrics. Some pieces were large strips while others were tiny rectangles. There was even a small collection of triangles. It was so exciting to see things come together that I could hardly stand to work on anything else. I owe thanks to Blair of Wisecraft for the idea of using a solid colour for the binding and flannel for the backing. The flannel is so soft and warm and the binding really pulls everything together.


I spent almost the whole time I was piecing trying to figure out how I would quilt this. With so many little seams I was worried that machine quilting would result in a stiff quilt instead of the squashiness I was hoping for. I liked the idea of tying the quilt but I know from experience that Abby will happily spent an afternoon pulling out every last one. My compromise was to tie the quilt with bars of satin stitch on my machine (there is a quilt finished this way in Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts). I love the effect but did not enjoy the day spent tying off and sewing in all those little thread ends.


This quilt will live in our family room and I plan to spend plenty of time this winter curled up under it with a good book. It finished up at about 160 x 200 cm (65" x 80") making it a perfect size for curling up under without being too big. Abby and Zeke have both show a liking for this quilt while it was under production and I expect it will be regularly covered in a layer of insulating pet hair (what a good thing I know it can survive the wash).