Once upon a time - An ongoing Saga of The Quilt That Never Was

Once upon a time, there was a Big Idea.

An idea for an autumnal quilt. For me. The idea grew out of my BFF's quilt Hidden Star, the colours gave me a warm cosy feeling whenever I saw that particular quilt.

Now, I had some teal green material in the stash from duvets from my first house (29 years ago), but nothing had ever seemed quite right alongside it.  And then my parents bought new bedroom curtains, so there was part 2, bringing a variety of autumn shades.  Some orange from my very first foray into quilting, a log-cabin variant that I will show you some day.

I found an extremely simple pattern, and completed the main quilt top in a weekend! (more on that later). My BFF has since used the pattern on at least two further quilts where she was looking for an effective but simple top to patchwork.

Then my BFF and I got to talking. And as is our way with such things, the Big Idea got bigger. A quilt with side panels to drop down the sides of our double bed. Some rail-fence squares with sashing and a border, and I now had 2 sides.

So on a day where we could make use of the church floor for space, the huge piece got pinned and sandwiched with wadding.

I think I managed to get the hoop moved on my own only once, and it was so big that my BFF had to arrange it on my lap when we had our meetings (pre Covid so shows how long this has beenaround).   This is not conducive to sewing at home, where one's hubby is less inclined to hang around to arrange the quilt.

So, I needed a solution. The sides were to come off and be quilted separately. And the top would be split into two and quilted as separate entities, with a vague idea of joining the finished pieces, Quilt As You Go style.

Deciding to start the sides first, which was a good plan.  In those days there was a massive commute, as well as an OU degree to study, and my time to craft was limited.  This had the unfortunate effect that every quilting plan stalled along the way.   Nothing ever felt quite right, somehow.  There were complicated templates for hexagonal spirals, but having not drawn them on before starting the quilting, I couldn't get the layout right.

I settled on simple hexies in the end, spaced between the rail fence blocks. The borders used half hexies of the same template, resulting in an interesting diamond shape where they meet. 

And thus it began...6 months after moving house we finally got a bed runner.  I do love the pop of colour from it.

Loaded up the next piece of top, with a simple echo in the pattern squares. And once again life took over, not so much lack of mojo altogether, lack of quilting mojo.

The reverse is pieced too, and I have used a self binding technique my BFF taught me.

So it took from August 2021 till May 2023 to progress to the lap quilt above.  This represents the top half of a double bed, but will likely be adopted for a long while as my craft room quilt, as it's cosy for cocooning in my chair.

I intend to update the blog, and probably this post with progress.   But for now it is time to fancy a different quilt under my needle and take a wee break from the Saga.

I have christened the quilt Parts of a Whole, who knows whether that joining plan will happen or not, but it's been fun to be quilting again as well as my cross stitch.