Thimbleberries Jewel Box II - a February finish

Too late for Finish it up Friday, my usual linkup, but I did have a finish in February which I thought I should show you now, before I get distracted by something else!

I mentioned that I was very good in January about focusing exclusively on quilting: this virtuous resolution carried over into February in that I layered several more tops in readiness, but I only actually managed to quilt one of them.  My excuse is that we had the plumber in, refurbishing our bathroom, which is a different sort of finish for which I cannot take credit.

Yes, it may look familiar to readers of this blog: I made another Jewel Box quilt from old Thimbleberries collections - probably 15-20 years old - and blogged about that one here.  Amazed to see it is almost exactly a year ago.  How serendipitous: I couldn't have told you if you had asked me when it was, so it's great to have this blog as a record.

As I said in the previous post, I had quite a few blocks left over, as one inevitably does, and once again I trawled through all my tucked away stash fabrics, chopping up anything which looked as though it might fit in with the country palette into 5" or 2 1/2" squares.  

This is a great scrapbuster quilt and there are lots of favourite old fabrics so for me it's something of a walk down memory lane.  It's also a great one for clearing out odds and ends of neutrals from other projects as variation in the neutrals adds interest.  As ever with a scrap quilt, the more different fabrics the better, as it is surprisingly hard to get a layout which doesn't repeat the same fabric in too close proximity.  Laying out the blocks satisfactorily always seems to take longer than actually stitching them together!

Don't you think the old patterns are sometimes the best?  Quilts like this one are really easy to live with; undemanding and comfortable, they just fit in with family life.  No-one minds if something gets spilled on them or they drag on the floor.  I guess that's why I keep coming back to this palette of colour and traditional blocks, even though I love the bright fabrics and modern aesthetic too.

At some point during 2017 I must have put the blocks together, and then had a pause till I found a suitable backing fabric in the Cowslip Workshops sale last summer.  I love this backing: it is from Moda's Collection for a Cause 'Nurture' line, and it has just the right country look.  Also the colour was perfect as it gives the quilt a warm and cosy  feeling.  So good to get the perfect fabric at a discount - who doesn't love a bargain without the need to compromise on artistic standards?!

I found enough of an old red Thimbleberries fabric (a useful favourite, also used in other quilts) for the binding.  Job done!  I do love shopping my stash and feeling thrifty: the fact that at some time I had to buy all of the fabric to be able to have a stash to shop is beside the point....

The quilting I did the same as for the first version: crosshatching through the diagonals and then a curving quatrefoil shape in the diamonds.  Easy to do with a walking foot and not too many ends to tie in, especially as this large quilt didn't need a border.

Quilt stats: 80" x 88".  One hundred and ten 8" blocks set 10 x 11.  The blocks are each made up of two 4" HSTs and two 4" four-patches (all measurements are for finished sizes).  I think I have now used up all my made blocks with this quilt, though the few fabric leftovers have gone into the makings of another scrappy quilt which still has some way to go...  Carry on quilting!

Friday finish- Sunkissed Jewel Box

Hooray for finished quilts.  If you have been visiting this blog the past few weeks you will know I have had a run of finishes to share but I have now almost come to the end.   That doesn't mean I have run out of UFO's, but I have done all the ones which were easiest to finish/where I had fabric already set aside for the back. (In the photo below you will see I didn't have quite enough of the main fabric so I joined in a pink spot in a very similar shade).

So here is my finish for this week, Sunkissed Jewel Box, so-called because that was the name of the tutorial by Mary Lane Brown from Moda Bakeshop (here). She called her Jewel Box quilt Sunkissed because that was the name of the line of fabric she used: I made mine with a mixture of Lizzie by Anna Griffin and Verna and Hunky Dory by Moda, but I am sticking with the same name as the Bakeshop tutorial for my quilt. Those are all old lines of fabric as I pieced the top way back in May 2011, almost 6 years ago,as you will see from this post....

Never mind, it's finished now, and I am pleased with how it has turned out. The quilt measures 67" x 82". I quilted it in the same way as the Thimbleberries Jewel Box quilt, also a recent finish, blogged about here. However I used a different method for the border, the start of which you can see in the photo below.

Basically the border is stitched with a zigzag which is then filled in on either side with parallel lines echoing the zigzag, spaced an inch apart. Easy to mark and easy to stitch with not too many ends to tie in.

Here are a couple of photos to show you the huge variety of fabrics available when you mix several compatible collections: my recollection is that I used some yardage and some charm packs rather than the layer cake suggested in the tutorial, and that I tweaked the method and made four-patches rather than using the strip piecing technique shown. I always think that part of the fun of patchwork is finding solutions which enable you to achieve the result you want with the materials you have to hand, whilst being inspired by the wonderful work of others and the information so freely available in books and on the internet.

The quilt is bound with striped fabrics from the Anna Griffin/Lizzie collection.  I didn't have enough of the blue stripe so the quilt is bound half in the blue and half in the green.  I made the binding when I pieced the quilt so it's a miracle that I was able to lay my hands on it after all these years. Which is not the case for another quilt I have recently finished quilting but can't complete because I just cannot find the binding strips I know I have put somewhere 'safe'; I am going to have to hope that they turn up when I am looking for something else! 

And here's a photo just because I am so pleased with how my pots of tulips are looking at the moment - I am particularly delighted with the soft golden apricot one with the pink feathering, which I believe is called Jenny (I bought it from Sarah Raven).

Despite good progress on tackling my WIP backlog since January, I still have many UFOs at various stages and need to push on with them in the months to come. I am off to the Nantes quilt show in two weeks' time and must take stock of outstanding projects so that I don't go too mad buying new kits and fabric.

I promise to take lots of photos and do a roundup as I have done the past two years (here, here, here and here, if you'd like to look at previous photos, lots of photos!) - it is so lovely to look back and be inspired all over again by the amazingly talented people there are who share our passion for making with fabric.

Enjoy your weekend wherever you are and whatever you are doing. We have sunshine forecast so hope to be out in the garden as much as possible, enjoying the tulips while they last. Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday - do go and have a look as Amanda Jean has a tulip mini quilt for her finish.

A jewel of a finish

Hi everyone, hope you have had a good weekend.  I managed a finish for Finish it up Friday - I stitched down the binding late Thursday night - but bad weather meant I failed to get the photos done in time for a link up.

Here it is anyway: my Thimbleberries Jewel Box quilt.  I've been working on quilting it all this week, but it is yet another top which I pieced a long time ago.

I have seen the design called Buckeye Beauty in Marsha McCloskey's book Quick Classic Quilts - this may have something to do with the placement of darks, mediums and lights in that featured quilt. I don't have time to research the name properly at the moment, sorry, and mine is just scrappy anyway.

The quilt is quite large, measuring 76" x 91". There are 80 blocks set 8 x 10, plus a narrow inner border finishing at 1 1/2" and outer border finishing at 5".  The blocks are 8" finished, each one is made up of two half square triangles and two four-patches.

This is a great way of using up scraps - you will need lots of 2 1/2" strips or squares, and 5" squares, so it is good for pre-cuts or leftovers from other pre-cuts projects. I have put all sorts into this quilt although it is predominantly country style colours and textures, with lots of old Thimbleberries prints from other projects.

I had such fun making these blocks and scouring my stash and scrap bags, that I find I have made enough blocks for another, equally large, quilt - so there will eventually be a pair.  Slightly embarrassing, but better to use the fabric than have it sitting around forever.

The backing was from a sale many moons ago, and I was thrilled to find a moody purple Kansas Troubles fabric in my stash which works perfectly with front and back. I'm not really a purple person - I think I may have said that before - but I am coming round to its charms and the useful place it has, being not red nor blue, neither of which would have been right for binding this quilt.

I had fun with the quilting, having done cross hatching for the last few quilts and getting ever so slightly bored with it.  I started out with the crosshatching here for stability, but then added the quatrefoil/fourpetal shape in the squares-on-point : this is easy to do as you can work it without turning the quilt more than three times (imagine a series of serpentine curves).

I then did straight line quilting in the inner border - another favourite - before turning my attention to the outer border.  Here I felt I wanted to do a crosshatch lining up with the diagonal lines in the middle of the quilt.  But the spacing wasn't quite right to be able to stitch in a way which avoided too many ends to tie in.

Then I realised that if I doubled the lines I could stitch a series of overlapping V- shapes on and off the edge of the quilt which would create the design you see here.  Plus it is more interesting than just a simple crosshatch.  I love a solution which comes from necessity and/or utility, plus almost no ends to tie in - what a great result!

A nice big quilt to snuggle under on the sofa! Hope you have a good week and manage to fit in a bit of stitching.

Project roundup

Working on lots of bits and pieces this past couple of weeks.  Never seemed the right time to blog; husband hogging the computer or I didn't have the right photo and the light was dreadful.  We are still quite grey and chilly here, with only the occasional stunning blue and sunny day interspersed.  But Spring has been sighted, and the mornings and evenings are not so dark when I take my daughter to/pick her up from the train station.



I managed a small finish, having put together a baby quilt from squares left over from this quilt top, pieced in May 2011, nearly its third fourth anniversary, and still waiting to be quilted.

Would you believe I've just seen the same quilt design/block made by Lee of Freshly Pieced which she blogged about yesterday - that's happenstance!





It's the classic Jewel Box block and Lee has a tutorial or you can look at the pattern I used which was a free one from Moda Bakeshop called Sunkissed Jewel Box by Mary Lane Brown (here).


The fabrics I used were Verna and Hunky Dory from Moda and Lizzie by Anna Griffin, plus an assortment of neutral just-off-whites.  I like mixing collections for a speedy quilt which isn't too predictable.










I love being able to make something from 'nothing' and the little squares had been sitting around in a bag for far too long.

I was inspired by the huge Checkerboard quilt in Sunday Morning Quilts and quilted  it just like Amanda Jean, to one side of the seam lines in two directions.  Just enough quilting as the squares are 2 1/4" unfinished, 1 3/4" finished.

You may just be able to see the large pink spot on the back - not quite long enough so I pieced in a strip of plain white.  Stripy binding from stash - it was by Heather Bailey from an old collection. Quilt measures 28 1/2" x 44 1/2".

I also quilted the fresh and fruity Not-quite Bargello top from here - I stopped because I was waiting for the border fabric and then was waylaid by other projects.  I haven't had a chance to sit and hand sew the binding - I like to save this sort of job for when I am not able to use my sewing machine - maybe a finish by the end of the week.  I don't have a photo so that will have to wait till next time.

Plugging on with my EPP Lozenge quilt.  At the last minute I decided I needed the quilt to be slightly longer than it is wide so had to make a few more lozenges.  It is almost square - but I couldn't bear it being wider than it was tall, it just didn't feel right.  Again, I will save the reveal on this one till I have squared off the top.

What I will claim as my WIP for the link up today is that I have finished hand piecing all 16 of the Rose Chain blocks which I started back on last November.  I am ready to join the blocks and then tackle the applique borders, so it's not going to be really finished for a while yet.  However it is satisfying to have got this far after a 10-year lay off....

Now for confession: today I went shopping for a white cotton wadding, full of resolve to quilt the Jewel Box quilt top mentioned above, having dug it out of the cupboard, and equal resolve not to buy any fabric, having been inspired by Crazy Mom Quilts' 6 month fabric fast.  I can do that, I thought...

Maybe not.

I don't feel too bad though as I didn't buy any fabric when I wasn't well - hah!- and didn't go to the sale at Farnham Maltings or the Ardingly Quilt Show in January, so this was my first splurge in a while.  I LOVE what I bought, the 'plains' are Peppered Cottons and have a real depth of colour, and the spots are so subtle I couldn't pass them by.

The musical instrument fabric is by Fabric Freedom (no name on the selvage, I'm afraid) and I couldn't resist: my younger son plays bass trombone in a brass ensemble so I have to make him something with this!

Linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced today - always great to see what she is up to, and all the other link ups.  There's so much making going on out there - what are you busy with?