Twelve Mystery Blocks of the Month

Over the past year I’ve been making mystery blocks of the month to complete Sherri’s mystery block a month quilt alongside the charity quilts I’ve made from the test blocks, which I named my ‘stretch project’.

Twelve months, or more accurately twelve blocks later I’ve realised that now the real work starts! My quilt hasn’t miraculously come together of its own accord, that’s clearly down to me. Sherri shared detailed instructions on how to assemble and finish the quilt, and I am broadly following them, but broadly is the key word here.

If you’ve been following my making journey for each of the blocks you’ll have seen each one on its own, but you won’t have seen them together.

Until now that is.

Don’t they look great?

I’m so glad I chose to add a second ‘green’ log cabin border option early on in the block assembly road. I know now that I wouldn’t have had enough of the original greens to keep them consistent throughout the quilt, and as they were designs I’d had for a while topping up my supply wasn’t an easy option.

The spacing between the blocks in the photo was to help me decide which sashing and borders to add, but before we get to that, here’s a reminder of each month’s blocks:

• January’s house

• February’s vintage star

• March’s heart

• April’s friendship star

• May’s flower bud

• June’s happy friendship star

• July’s churn dash

• August’s patchwork star

• September’s basket

• October’s Ohio star

• November’s Dresden quarter circle

• December’s scrappy star.

My plan to finish this quilt

Each of the log cabin (outer) strips on the monthly blocks are 2.5 inches so with seam allowances each piece is 2 inches wide. Sherri suggests using two 1.5inch sashes between each block, so the overall finished width would be 2.5 inches, but I wanted to maximise the width, as far as I can without it looking daft - but also to use the material I already had.

In the end with a fair bit of ‘mathing’ I worked out that my sashing (internal borders) between blocks could be 2 inches at the most, so with two sashes the same width, that’s 3.5 inches when complete, which I’m happy with.

By far the trickier decision was deciding on which fabrics to use, and I spent a lot of time staring at fabrics on my kitchen floor.

A lot of time.

And a lot of time swapping in and out different colourways and patterns. But I have finally decided, and my sashings are cut. They’re not sewn yet, but they are cut so there’s no going back now!

I have also decided on the colours for, and sewn, the ‘posts’ which will be at the intersections of each block, and while the colours complement the internal border colours they aren’t from the same fabrics, so you’ll have to wait until the quilt top is completed to see it in its entirety.

I’ve decided to add three outer borders around the whole quilt, which will add to the width of the quilt, and I’ve chosen the fabrics for these. I haven’t decided on the width for each border, but my instinct is to start with a narrow(er) border nearest to the quilt blocks and widen the borders as I go. More ‘mathing’ will be needed when I reach this stage, as my remaining material is limited, and while I think it’s enough I don’t have an endless supply.

It’s been a decision heavy time for this quilt, so while I was in decision making mode I even selected which fabric to use as a binding, eschewing my usual scrappy approach. Even I’m shocked at myself!

There’s still plenty of sewing to be done, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how this comes together.

Sue Jennings' Colourwash Quilts

As well as her amazing One Block Wonders, Sue’s Colourwash Quilts were also on display at the show, they too were quilts not to miss. As many quilters will tell you quilting projects generate a lot of scraps and Sue said she started to make colourwash quilts after watching technique videos online by the Canadian quilter, Terry Rowlands.

The quilts are perfect for using up lots of small scraps - which is the point in which I should stop reading (and looking) as this will only encourage me to save every last scrap, the challenge is though of course, where to store them and how to make them look as fantastic and as ‘put together’ as these by Sue.

Sue says she uses prints, solids, batiks, silk, wovens and in fact anything goes, and the only time she uses a ruler is to square up the blocks and the quilt, so everything can be rough cut, and any shape can be used.

This really isn’t what I wanted to hear!! But I agree and the lack of regularity makes the quilts more interesting and when Sue says it’s a joy to look at these quilts and remember which fabric was used in which quilt, I’m totally with her.

Her first colourwash quilt used all colours of scraps, and when it was done she wondered what was next. Let me tell you now, what came next was even more stunning, with her colour inspiration coming from artwork and photos, and you’ll see just what I mean.

ORIGINAL COLOURWASH, SUE JENNINGS

The inspiration for her Autumn quilt was the ‘wonderful fall colours’ she experienced while living for part of her childhood in Canada, and she thought ‘it would be a joy’ to recreate those using her scrap fabrics, and that resulted in another wonderful quilt.

AUTUMN COLOURWASH, SUE JENNINGS

WATERLILIES COLOURWASH, SUE JENNINGS

You’ll not be surprised to learn that Sue’s inspiration for the Waterlilies quilt was a photo of a Monet painting. It’s a vibrant but calming palette, and a fabulous quilt isn’t it?

SARIS COLOURWASH, SUE JENNINGS

The inspiration for the Saris quilt was photos of ‘beautiful bright Indian saris’ and Sue ‘particularly wanted to wash oranges, pinks and reds’ from her scraps. These are colours that I love together, though I veer more towards oranges and pinks with yellow, rather than reds - and this quilt does remind me of the colourful saris we saw women wear in India, particularly those when we visited a stepped well. The contrast against the natural elements was stunning, as is this quilt - and I think of all of Sue’s colourwash quilts, this is my favourite - which is yours?

Haberdashery of every shape, size and colour at MacCulloch & Wallis

I do like a mooch around a good shop when I’m in London, and this trip was no different. After a day in Islington I headed to a haberdashery extraordinaire just off Oxford Street. Now why I’ve just discovered this is a mystery to me, though it’s probably a good thing that I hadn’t found this shop while I actually lived in London!.

Yes, not that far away from Oxford Circus tube I found myself standing outside MacCulloch & Wallis admiring their window displays, and having an internal smile of how they’d displayed balls of wool on models of sheep.

There was every kind of haberdashery item you could possibly wish for, plus wool, plus fabric and with a lot of vintage charm.

I couldn’t help but think wouldn’t it be lovely though to have a similar unit for my own craft supplies, though the wooden storage unit above also reminded me of a school uniform supply shop, just me?

Throughout the two levels of the shop there was a rainbow of colour.

At the very back of the shop on the ground floor I found the cutting table, and even that was a cutting table with a difference as the centre was filled with buttons.

Thankfully though, buttons weren’t in short supply - just look at the range available. And to think I thought the selection in Liberty was extensive when I visited last year!

I was tempted by some of the Tailor’s Chalk, but I resisted - I have some, though not as beautiful as this, and well, there’s only so much of it you can use isn’t there?

In the basement, alongside the tempting Tailor’s Chalk were rows and rows of needles, cards of every type of fastening you could ever want.

And miles of zips.

With cotton and ric rac in an array of colours.

In fact the choice was vast, almost overwhelming - this is definitely a shop you need to go to with a plan. A browse is good, but just wow - it’d be even better with a plan!