Vol 2 - Project 8 - Five Patch Chain

I finally started on this project, the Five Patch Chain.  I had my fabrics selected some time ago and decided to do something a little different with this one.

A red and white.  The plain red & white fabrics are actually cotton damask, which have a nice sheen and a tiny bit of texture.  Why damask?  Because I had rather a lot of it!  The printed fabrics are all simple cottons and yes, I seem to have too many.  A bit of a surprise for later.

The red damask behaved beautifully but the white is naughty!  It frays and stretches and refuses to do as its told.  I think I have it tamed though as I learned to work a little differently with it.

I really haven't got very far - just the cutting and strip sewing.  I did do a single block to check the size after struggling with the white damask, and with a bit of trimming, it should work out fine.

Ready for chain stitching..........

The sample block

It doesn't look much yet, but sometimes simple is exactly right. 

OTHER STUFF

I've been a bit lazy and taken a few days off here and there.  Sometimes we all just need a break. 

The show quilt needed some tweaking, a hanging sleeve and a label and is finally ready for delivery, and I can't wait to show it off - not long now.  The Tasmanian Quilt Show happens at the end of April - be ready for pics then!

Krakatoa, the bright yellow/orange french braid quilt continues to hassle me.  I started quilting it with a twin needle but it snapped and I didn't have another, so had to go to plan B.  I ended up with straight stitching in the braids, FM squares in the centres and a cable on the borders.  I'm now in the long process of unpicking the border quilting as it looked just awful, and some of the worst free motion I've done in a long time.  I'm sure this quilt is cursed, but I can't let it go and move on - I'm now challenged to finish it!  I didn't bother to take any photos of the process - just wasn't inspired to, besides it's not a QA project.

The other thing I've been working on is the Michelle Hill Bird wall hanging.  This one is coming along nicely.

Pre-quilting, but the borders look nice!

I've ditch stitched around all the applique, a job which had to be done s-l-o-w-l-y.  It took quite a while to do, but I'm happy with the result.  I must admit though, it was a relief when the last leaf was done!  At the moment I'm part-way through echo quilting it.  The echo is 1/4 inch from the applique and I plan to go around each piece twice then decide where to go next.  I may continue echo quilting or I may be brave and do a filler pattern.

Finally, I took another workshop at the Patchwork Cafe, this one for a foundation pieced Mariner's Compass table runner.  No pics of this one either.  I've only finished half of one star so far (there are 3 in total), but it was taking a while and I wanted to get back to work on the QA projects.  I'll return to this one a bit later.

Off to Melbourne this weekend for a look at the Tukenkarmen Exhibition and the Australian Quilt Show, so again a delay in progress.  Never mind, I'm enjoying having a bit of a rest!