An unexpected finish

Sometimes quilts seem to hang about for ages.  This is especially true for quilts that start off as demo quilts and then have to make way for a new design. Working full time means quilting time is precious and shorter than I'd like. Sound familiar?  Such a quilt is the Sands of Time. I made the block as a demo. It was called Sands of Time because the pieced block is an hourglass.  The addition of squares allows the eye to make more patterns - an eight pointed start and another shape I don't know the name of. It looks like two sweetie wrappers.

The easiest one to see is all yellow - count two squares from the bottom left  and two squares from up from that

I pulled the quilt from my 'pile' when I was looking for something else (ha - can't even remember what that was now!). I thought I'd do a bit more quilting because it seemed quite close to being finished. And now it is!

I didn't have anything to bind it so I just sewed some brightly coloured strips together which has turned out more interesting than a single coloured binding.  This and two more are destined for Quilts for Comfort. 

When I was looking for the binding fabric I came across two mini quilt tops that were ready to be quilted

A black and white collection and a pretty flowery collection. 42  two and a half inch squares in each little packet stitch up to a 14" x 12"quilt - perfect for a table mat.  Such a small project is perfect for sewing by hand.  It is much easier to match the seams when sewing by hand.

You can also get the seams to lie flat.  These just required a bit of wadding and backing

I haven't quilted the coloured one yet - maybe criss cross would look nice. It's sitting underneath my laptop at the moment.

John is on holiday this week so I get Wednesday afternoon off. (Thursday evening too as Hilary is away and there is not class). It's quiet in the clinic without him there. At the moment he is nursing a cold - how often does that happen - you take a week off work and spend the first half feeling grotty? I should be able to get some sorting out done on Wednesday though. I bought a couple of little storage units from Ikea yesterday in an effort to tame my collection of yarn and fabric.  My house is starting to look like one of those reality hoarder programmes on the telly. 

Well I better get going to work or I'll hit the traffic - it's raining which always slows things down.

Until next time. xx