The project-a-month resolution: January

Although it usually takes me a long time to get around to finishing a quilt, when I do finally decide to tackle this stage, I generally get obsessed and finish it pretty quickly. This project was like that. I've put in a couple of hours every day, mostly in front of the TV but occasionally when I should have been editing a cookbook, and it's done.


My favourite parts of quiltmaking are constructing the individual blocks (especially when they can be chain-pieced, a process that combines production-line efficiency and speed with the satisfaction of hand work), and then sewing down the binding. I know that many other quilters hate this bit, but I find it really pleasurable. For one thing, it means the quilt is almost finished, and that's always a relief (and frequently a surprise). For another, it's the kind of repetitive, basic hand-sewing that I find really meditative and therapeutic. And once I work up a rhythm, it's surprisingly quick. I can get through metres in no time. Very satisfying.


The quilting on this quilt is basic, but that's how I like it. The object of this exercise is to finish things, not to labour intensively over intricate heirlooms – so job done, I think.  

I've outline-quilted the centres of the blocks and run a line of quilting 
down the sashing strips.   

The border and binding. The finished size is 105 x 130 cm (41 x 51 inches). 

Three spare blocks, randomly placed on the back of the quilt.

So that's one unfinished project down, eleven to go. A good start to the crafting year, I say. 

New Year's craft resolutions

Lately, I've been seized by an uncharacteristic urge to tidy things up and sort things out, and by an even more uncharacteristic urge to act on the first urge. As a result I've completed and lodged three overdue tax returns and, less important but more relevant to this blog, I've sorted out my wool and fabric stashes. This is useful in one way but does rather hammer home what a ludicrous amount of it all I have. 


Although goal-setting has always been an alien concept to me, it occurred to me today that there might be a way to both whittle down my hoard and revive this moribund blog. 


So, here is my New Year's craft resolution: finish one neglected project a month. 


It's the quilts that are really bugging me at the moment, as they are so large and represent so much money, time and storage space. So first up is one that I started five or six years ago. The fabrics are jaunty 1930s reproductions.

The design is by Ruth van Haeff and is from Handmade Style: Quilt by Murdoch Books.

There are two different blocks, one of which has a retro fabric in the centre showing a slightly harrassed-looking woman washing and ironing, supervised by a small black dog and what appears to be one of the Flowerpot Men.

I've just noticed that I've cut the fabric in such a way as to leave two feet macabrely dangling at the top of the block. Oops.

I last worked on the quilt about three years ago, and had finished piecing all the blocks. Today I cut all the sashing strips and sewed them to the blocks to complete the quilt top, as well as preparing the backing and sandwiching the whole lot together. 


I ended up with an odd number of blocks, as I ran out of fabric and refused, for once, to buy more. I've machine-appliquéd the three spare blocks to the plain white backing, so as not to waste them (or, worse, hoard them in a drawer for the next twenty years in the hope of finding a use for them). 

As a bonus, I found everything I needed among my stash rather than having to go out and buy anything extra or new. The background fabric isn't the perfect colour – a cheery aqua would have been ideal, but I decided to go with what I had, which is a gumleaf green. That means the only extra thing I will need to buy is a small amount of fabric for the binding. 


Now it's all ready to start quilting tonight while I watch Grand Designs on TV. I call that a pretty productive and thrifty crafternoon.