Repro Plus and Cross Quilt Finished

Yay, my Repro Plus and Cross Quilt is finished. I decided on a solid red binding and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I am hooked on the #xplusalong I think I need to make another one.

Previous post on initial construction of this quilt.

It is actually square, just looks a bit skew if cause of the angles.

The back looks really great as well. I think you could definately use this one as a double sided quilt.This side is very minimalist.

 

And finally, the arty cover shot!!

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Repro Cross and Plus Quilt

So, I have always resisted Instagram, but last week I signed up for it and now I'm hooked. A couple of quilt-a-longs have been running on there and I sort of got hooked on the Japanese Cross and Plus one - #xplusalong! But I wanted to do it in something I actually had enough fabric for. So I started one in 1930's Repros, which is actually a good fit I think, as this is when the block is first dated to.

I have to say, I got a bit carried away. Most people are doing scrappy versions. This becomes a lesson in sitting down and thinking first, before cutting. I decided I liked the look of red crosses. I normally don't like the red in the repro palette. I tend to find it jarring against the pastels, but I am growing to like it and I think the contrast works really well with this block. Anyway...I cut up all the pieces, as you can see below.

For the most part this was not a problem. But I realised way too late that I could've saved myself alot of time cutting and ironing if I had strip pieced the red and white two patches that I needed. Lesson learned!!

The corner blocks produced many, many offcuts, which have now become little HST (used as leaders and enders in the string piecing!!). I think these will become several mini-quilts!!

Rather than joining the blocks straight to each other, I am using sashing. This sashing will then create secondary crosses between the blocks and make an all over pattern.

This is what the rows look like sewn together.

This is the completed top. No border is planned. The blocks are 10" finished. I had hoped to start quilting it this week but various things came up. I am determined to get it done this weekend!!

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Friday Finish - Repro Ninepatch Cat Quilt

I felt like I was creating problems by only having one cat quilt. So I pulled out my stash of 1930's repro ninepatch blocks. I have heaps of these, as I basically use these as my "have 5 spare mins" project. Always already cut up and just need to be sewn. They can be used for sew many things.

Finished 1930's Repro Ninepatch Cat Quilt

Annnyway, I whipped this up pretty quickly and decided to use it as a test run for some Free Motion Quilting. I literally have never done any of this. I practiced for about 5 mins and then gave it a go.I didn't really feel confident enough to do it totally free motion, so I marked a quite open meander on it. I think this actually made the regulation on the stitches worse. I was concentrating on the pattern of the stitching rather than the quality of it.

Below is the back of the quilt. There were only a couple of places where the stitching jumped. If it was anything other than a quilt for the cats, then I'd fix it.

This is the back of the quilt. I really love this pattern, but whenever I try to do it free hand (without marking the quilt) I always end of boxed into a corner or not getting an even coverage.

Here is the front before washing and binding.

Want to see what other people have done this week? Check out Link A Finish Friday over at Richard and Tanya Quilts.

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Old Fashioned Charm Hand Quilting

More work on UFO's today. It was a bit cooler and I wasn't feeling real crash hot, so I thought I'd pull out my Old Fashioned Charm quilt and work on the handquilting. I had hoped to have it finished by now but still working on it. I was trying to get the quilting done during winter but I never seemed to get into the swing of it. But I  got quite a bit done today, 6 squares.

 

I've done 3/4's of the pieced inner section. That leaves 4 pieced rows to go. Then the border. The border will be done as basic cross hatch, although I will probably outline the vines, leaves and birds as well.

It looks a bit rough, but I've been working on this quilt on and off for 5 years including quilting on a hoop. It gets roughly wrapped between quilting sessions, so it looks alot better than in the photo!!

Below is the quilt on a double bed. Just hanging off the left side is the other vined border.

 

And just for giggles, a close up of one of the corners.

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Productive Quilty Weekend

Overall, I had a pretty productive quilty weekend. No finishes, but alot of progress on several projects.
First off, I got a start cutting out all the light segments from my Omigosh Redux quilt. It is the same pattern but at a much more manageable scale than the original. In addition to getting all the triangles and strips of the light fabrics cut, I got about half of the darks done. Enough that I could get started on the HST. The first picture shows Miss Cleopatra "helping". Someone wanted some attention. The second photo shows the actual HST.

I am taking part in a Fat 1/8's swap, so I will be able to use some of these fabrics in this project as well.

Secondly, I finished up a heap of 30's Repro Nine Patches. I always have a heap of pre-cut white and repro fabric strips sitting ready to be sewn. I don't have any particular project in mind, but there are soooo many ideas for nine patches, I can never have too many! These are great when you have a spare 5 or 10 minutes to sew, as they don't require much prep or thinking about when sewing. As you can see, they are being supervised by the lovely Cleo, who loves to help!!

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Swap Blocks

Swap Blocks, originally uploaded by Jane Stockton.

I'm organizing a block swap on a quilting email list I am on. These are my blocks for the first six months of swaps. I wanted to get them out of the way so I don't have to be dragging the sewing machine out every month. Oh to have somewhere to permanently set it up.

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1930's Fabric

30's Fabric, originally uploaded by Jane Stockton.

Nothing exotic about the packaging but it is very appealing!! Another buy from the US while the exchange rate is so go. If I was to buy this fabric here, it would cost four times as much, even taking the postage into account. So I am stocking up while I can. This stuff was $5US a metre, as compared to $26AU a metre. Most of them are half metre minimum cuts. So if I cut them into fat quarters, keep one for myself and sell the rest, I could actually end up making money on the deal. But more likely I will just swap them with people.

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Applique Flowers and Leaves

Applique Flowers and Leaves, originally uploaded by Jane Stockton.

This is what I worked on over the weekend. All the flowers are done for the quilt. This is my second go at the flowers. I had the original flowers all cut out, but I wasn't happy with the shape and they were a bugger to prepare. So I dug out another flower pattern I had and they were the same size but a more symetrical flower shape. So now I have a heap of flowers cut out and I'm not sure what to do with them. I am thinking of putting some Vislofix on the back and machine appliquing them to make bags or something like that. I am now working on the leaves. Next step will be to start joining the block together. I am working on a design wall to help work out the placement of the blocks.

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Yellow and Oranges Blocks

Yellow and Oranges Blocks, originally uploaded by laren_oz.

Spent most of today sewing. Did a bit of house work, but really felt like sewing. I am working on two UFO's - Old Fashioned Charm (which I really want to get done so I can use it on my bed) and Moonglow (which I just want to get to top finished stage, I might even get it machine quilted).

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Old Fashioned Charm Blocks

Old Fashioned Charm Blocks, originally uploaded by laren_oz.

A few blocks from the Old Fashioned Charm quilt I am making. I don't normally use quilt kits but I really liked the pattern on this one. The blocks are about 4" square, cotton using 1930's repro fabrics. The are hand stitched, constructed the old fashioned way with templates.

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