Compulsive Quilts

The orange, lemon and lime quilt is almost done, but first it has to be road tested.....by the cat. She doesn't look happy here. I don't have a design wall, I have a design bed, which is why Zali the cat loves it so much.  I tried to make it so that the bright orange quarter circles were distributed evenly, and the greys, where they meet are all different pattern. I nearly succeeded. There is one spot where there are the same pattern, but I'm not going to tell you where. This quilt is even too big to lie flat on this bed. That is why I have used a QAYG method and  quilted the spirals separately. See my QAYG tutorial here.  I think it is a good trade off, as the back is not as perfect as I would like.

Today we had our first swim of the season. It is early spring here, but the weather is warm, it is 28 degrees and sunny. Perfect beach weather. We only live 500m from the beach, 100m above it. With the ocean only at the bottom of the hill, there is really no excuse not to swim. We were pretty warm by the time we got to the beach, we stripped off and stood with our waves lapping our toes. My husband, went in first, he called me from beyond the breakers, "Come on in, it's fine", so trusting him, I waded out, it was cold, but I thought it was the temperature differential. I dived under, my breath was taken away, it was cold! I came out of the water with a shocked look on my face. "I lied", he laughed. I laughed too, it was wonderful, it makes me feel alive. We should all count our blessings every day.

I have now pieced all the drunkards path squares for the quilt. Each drunkard path square is 8 1/2. inches, then 4 of these are sewn together to form a big circle, 17 inches square. The quilt is 5 x 5 big circles, making it big enough for a queen bed. Because it is this big, I. Have chosen to quilt the squares as I go. This means I cut a piece of backing, a bit bigger say 1/2 inch larger than the 17 inch square. I cut some batting the same size. Then I pin the sandwich together. This size piece is really easy to quilt on the machine, as you don't have to manipulate the whole quilt around the machine.  I have chosen a simple spiral, starting in the centre. I use the darning foot, with the stitch length turned to 0. I have to change the tension to make the stitches correct. It isn't perfect, but I am getting better. After this is done, I get two squares, trim the wadding, pin them together, and stitch just through the top layer and the wadding. On the back I hand stitch t...