scratching that itch

The quilting itch that is.

Since I made those Bushfire blocks a couple of weeks ago it made me realise how much I've been missing simple patchwork and quilting. So..... despite the list of 'to do's' I started cutting out a new quilt, that is, another baby quilt. I know, I can't help myself.

You see this is the thing. I'm in the middle of hand quilting the hexagon stars quilt for baby but I have the embryo of a feeling at the back of my mind that I'll run out of time. It may be a different story once I finish work (3rd April) but I don't want to take that chance, and like I said, I wanted to do some new quilting.

I remember quite a few years ago when I was living in Smithton and was a member of the local quilt group. I had taken part in a few of their shows and at one I was part of the 'working display', hand quilting a saw tooth star quilt that we still use on our bed. One clever bloke asked me what was the attraction of cutting up fabric just to sew it together again. Well it's true isn't it, when you break it down to base elements like that. However if that's how we only thought about quilts then we'd never make them, and buy a blanket instead.

But thankfully we don't think of quilts that way. We revel in the creative process. We love choosing just the right fabrics, either new or from our stash, that will make the quilt sing. Cutting and piecing may get a bit monotonous but we keep plodding along (or else it ends up in the UFO pile.....), and start to feel the first tinglings of joy at seeing the top finished. Then the fun of deciding which quilting pattern will complement the piecing. The neck ache from machine quilting or the long winter evenings hand quilting in front of the telly, and finally the race to get that binding on. Of course these days the process isn't complete unless we take copious photos of the finished product and share them on our blogs, and hey, why shouldn't we? We're proud of our little creations and want to share them with the world.

So, I'm hand stitching down the binding at the moment, and once finished I'll post the proper photo or 2 and gloat over my little creation.

Oh and I haven't forgotten about the nappies, I'll post a photo of a finished one that's all ready for a wee botty to fill it..... literally.