I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project using the block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…
This one was challenging, but mostly because as I said before December was a lot.
This is my thirteenth charity quilt and the pile continues to grow, since the first nine have were donated to the Mansfield Coordinator of Project Linus UK.
Number thirteen
Well I guess that explains a lot, but it is finished and I think it’s one of the favourite ones I’ve made. As usual I started by pulling fabrics from my stash - and I think all of these have featured before, whether in quilts or other makes. It seems once a piece of fabric has my attention it stays there until it’s mostly used up.
For the centre blocks I used some leftover fabric from the first charity quilt I made, which I’d discovered when I was sorting and rearranging my craft room the other month, and luckily there was just enough for the Dresden part of the blocks.
This was the bit that was doing its best to intimidate me, but actually it was easier than I expected and the instructions I was following were really clear.
It wasn’t long before I had the four centre blocks, looking good hey?
It wasn’t until after I started to add the borders that I decided that I wanted to keep the layout above, and typically one of the blocks had the blue fabric in the opposite corner, but I decided to continue and work with it - whatever it was to be.
Then I had a wobble for the last border on the blue side. The pinker flowery material just didn’t work for me.
I’d remembered that I had the blue dots and buttercup material and I already planned to use that on the back, and it seemed a much better fit. So for a few days I stared at this layout on my craft room floor, before finally deciding it was the way forward. And wasn’t it just as well I did, otherwise this quilt wouldn’t have had a name!
And then December became a lot, shortly followed by Christmas so it wasn’t until the end of the year that I picked this up again.
Before basting this one I added another ‘half’ border in the buttercup material so that there was some balance for my eyes. And that block that had the blue the wrong way round was still the odd one out, but I was happy with where it was.
Once again the quilting was the straight line type - and this time I think they’re pretty straight thanks to the adjustable guide I bought. Not only were they straighter than ever before, they’re also more evenly spaced - and even better it whizzed through my machine. I was (and am) very happy.
So with the binding added it was time to remember one of my lessons from my Quilts of 2025 post and take a more pleasing on the eye photo.
This spot struck me as idea as I was walking downstairs, and even though this quilt would look great on the mustard kitchen sofa I couldn’t wait to try it out. It also gives me a real easy way to photograph the back too!
And if you’re wondering how I got it to stay perfectly balanced on the bannister, there was three very small pieces of parcel tape doing all the work. I even impressed myself with that!
I’ve still to cut out, let alone make my own block for my block of the month quilt so that will follow - and I’ve one more quilt to make as part of this ‘stretch’ project, which I’ve not even started yet either. It’s taken until the November block for me to slow down on this project and monthly block quilt, which isn’t bad going - but there’s still a lot more to do to put together my quilt, but the end is almost in sight!
You can see my other quilts I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.