Eight Years in the Making

I made this back in the summer of 2012. I pulled it out of the wardrobe during Covid lockdown and finished the quilting earlier this week.

It's made from old wool blankets taken from my Mum's linen cupboard. The blankets may have come from my Gran before that.

It's quilted with Perle thread #8. When I first put it together for quilting, I used wool batting but it was too thick to quilt. So I pulled it apart and used a flannelette backing only. The binding is a nice green floral Tilda. I think if it had been around eight years ago, it would have been a perfect choice to use in the body of this quilt. The curved edges came to me during the quilting process. During the quilting process the quilts tend to lie over the couch or on the floor and that's when the curved edges came to me. It's my first curved edge quilt.

This quilt weighs a tonne. Hence the name, the woolly mammoth.

When things don't go to plan

Back at the end of July I basted my drunkard's path wool quilt. I made it in 2012.

Then I started quilting and that's when things didn't go plan. The quilt is too thick to quilt. The stitches are hideous.

It's been sitting in the corner of the lounge waiting to be unbasted. What a waste of time! I am going to back it with flannel and have no batting.

The house fix is also not going to plan. It's week 16 of a 12 week project. 16 weeks ago the constant rain cost a few days, but most recently the discovery of asbestos in the glue of some old lino tiles held progress up by at least 10 days, and added another $9500 to the bill! I did suggest we just put something over the floor, but there were so many layers already, apparently this was not an option. In addition to the three floor coverings in the photos below, there were white ceramic tiles and most recently, faux wood lino tiles/strips.The floor had to be razor scraped and then ground back. This all happened after the room had been plastic sealed and negative air pressure created. It took less than two days to do the actual work, but then it had to be tested each day to check for random fibres.

Fortunately, work started again mid week, and the kitchen and laundry installation began. (It's week six without a kitchen or laundry.) The tiler is supposed to start on Monday (the wrong tiles were delivered at some stage too) and the drain layer is back later in the week to continue his work outside.

Three weeks until the holidays. Yay! I cannot wait for this fix to be over.

New but Old

I have a couple of old wool blankets in my stash. And everytime I go home to Hawkes Bay I have to go to my favourite traders to see what's new in the textile section. Calling it textiles really makes it sound a lot flasher than it is. It's not flash. It is just one over-flowing section in an over-flowing 'shed' with aisles about half a metre wide at the most. One shelf in the textile section is labelled 'Dog Blankets'. That's how flash it's not. My cousin, Kell, and I love it when the "old lady" is there because she gives great discounts - "just call it $20, dear" type discounts! We imagine buying it and charging Auckland prices for all the treasures to make our fortune ... which we would spend probably on travel.

Anyway ... I have been keen to experiment with using an old wool blanket for a baby blanket for a while. So I cut up one of my blankets, made some binding, and made some co-ordinating felt 'flowers' for it.

My inspiration for the flowers came from the stylishly wrapped thank you pressie I got from my cousin. Kell sent me a voucher from Fabricworm for making her Mum's birthday quilt - the wonky log cabin. Lucky me!

Ta da!

In terms of supplies, I used one quarter of a single bed blanket (I did mean to measure it before I gifted it! ), .3 metre of fabric for the binding which I cut 3" wide (I'd probably cut it maybe 1/4" skinnier next time), plus felt scraps. It's an economical, but still good-looking, project. I am not sure about the durability or safety of the flowers - but I figure the parents can worry about that and cut them off if they want to. It's got to look good at time of gifting.

This is a good 'weekend project'. And while the hand sewing down of the back of the binding takes a couple of hours, I think it achieves a nice tidy look compared to bindings that are totally machined.

I look forward to trying out some more blanket fabric combos. Oh, and buying more blankets next time I am in HB of course.