Field Greens Quilt Finished

Yay, another finish while I was on break. I did want to do more but I am happy with two quilt finishes.

I went a bit old school on this one. I've been spending a small fortune on batting. I usually buy cotton but I wanted something a bit warmer as I don't have any quilts with non-cotton batting, which is fine for the majority of the year, but in the middle of winter, doesn't really cut it. So I thought why not use some of the many wool blankets I own? I have them in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. So I thought for this one, I'd go with a very thin blanket.

Here is a picture of me trying to iron the finished top before basting the layers together. Cleo really wanted attention that day. She followed me around everywhere, which isn't like her at all.

I have a large number of blankets which I bought to make clothes with (re-enactment) but I haven't gotten around to it, so I thought why not? Many of them a not the nicest colours or have some marks on them. Also, even nice well used ones can be a bit scratchy. Not a problem when inside the layers of a quilt.

I did a simple grid quilting at 3" apart. I wanted to do quilt dense quilting as the blanket has alot more movement than normal quilt batting. It would also put more pressure on the stitching when wet, so the more quilting the better. I managed to get the quilting done in one day, with a couple of breaks. While the wool sewed fine, it was a bit of extra work as it is much heavier than either wool or cotton batting. The finished quilt is quite heavy for a 72" x 72" finished.

And here is the finished product in use. Miss Cleo really does love snuggling in finished quilts. I think she really likes this one cause it's green and cause it's super warm.

Read More

Field Greens Quilted and Ready for Binding

I managed to get Field Greens quilted over the last couple of days. It was actually probably a bit easier than quilting with cotton batting. I quilted it at about 3" as there is a bit more movement with the woven blanket than you'd get with standard batting which is more like a felt. Also, the wool will be quite heavy when wet so I figured the closer quilting would distribute the weight over more of the stitching, reducing the chances of tearing or pulling seams.

There were a couple of issues with the blanket batting moving while it was being quilted. Because the blanket is woven it moves more than the batting. So I ended up with a couple of small puckers.

I decided to go with black binding as I think it really frames the design. I was thinking of using the backing fabric was binding as well, but it just didn't work as well. In addition, the black was already made up! And I had just enough. You can see the left overs below. Not just to hand stitch the binding - my favourite part!!

Read More

Field Greens Blocks Finished

I've finished all the blocks for the Field Greens quilt. Above is the layout the quilt uses. Only one block but it makes a great secondary pattern.

I've made enough blocks for the biggest version of the quilt, 72" x 72". But I haven't decided which size to make yet. It will be either medium or large. I plan on using an old blanket for the batting in this one, so I need to check what I have and that may determine what size I make.

Read More

Field Greens Progress

I am trying to be good about not starting new projects until I clear up my pile of WIP's. But I couldn't help but do some work on my Field Greens quilt. I had already cut up the strips into the 6" pieces needed. I then did a bit of mini-marathon and sewed on the 2.5" corner triangles. Then the boring job of trimming them all off. I know that some people find this method a bit wasteful, but it really is more accurate than working with cut triangles and sewing on the bias line. Also, since I had so many off cuts, I've kept them and added them to my mini-quilt stash for future use. Here is the pile of finished strips.

And here they are trimmed with the large pile of HST cut offs.

The small HST will become my headers/enders for my next project.

Read More