Dresden Chains.

Yesterday I finished my Dresden Plate/ Irish Chain quilt top. I think it turned out quite amazing. I am loving all those white spaces and the pretty little Dresden Flowers. I don't know what took me so long in the end. The blocks have been sewn together for ages now, I just had to make a few more nine patches for the chain border around. I am not so fond of cutting, mainly because I still haven't bought new blades for my rotary cutter, boo me. Cutting is just not any fun when you have to use your whole bodyweight to get through the fabric. 

I initially thought about adding a final small white border all the way around, but then decided to leave it this way. I think it is big enough for now. I haven't measured yet. It is all pressed and folded up nicely, waiting to get quilted. I think I will try FMQ again on this one. I really want to. And I think a loose loopy or stipple design in the white spaces around the dresden flowers would look amazing and really make them pop. I just hope my sewing machine and thread and needle and foot and whatnot will play along and not mess everything up again as it did with my Swoon Quilt. 

I am still not sure what to use for the back though. I want something with a floral print, and it does not need to be out of any of the lines I used, which are Vintage Modern and Marmalade as well as Millie's Closet, since I will most probably need to buy and let them be shipped internationally, which really adds up for a few yards. Probably I will hit up the German version of etsy and look if I find something cute. 

I also have a lot of strips left over from the Millie's Closet Jelly Roll, which are perfect for a scrappy binding to round things of. But before I dream of binding I have to find a backing fabric I like and get over my fear of free-motion quilting.

 I am stuck with a bad cough right now. No sniffing, no headache, not a real cold. Just deep, heavy, aching cough. I sound like a dog, my voice is scratchy and I don't sleep that well at night because I am constantly coughing. I am drinking tea like crazy, but it didn't get any better so far. Oh well, nothing suits this never ending snow outside more than a really bad cough.

An old one.

When I was taking photos of my Swoon Quilt yesterday it hit me that I never properly photographed the other quilt that is living on my sofa.

It's a hexagon string quilt. I found this great tutorial over on this blog called The Tin Whistle and fell in love with her quilt. It looks so happy and busy and I love the colors! I ordered some scrap bags, since I needed the strips to be the WOF. I never would have put those prints together in a quilt initially, but it turned out rather beautiful. I love the scrappy look of it.

It was the first quilt I made for me and my fourth quilt ever. I quilted some wide spaced crooked lines all over it, just to keep all three layers together. I wanted it to be finished and I wanted all the patterns to pop, not the texture. There are no points lining up, I didn't press properly so that I have quite the bulk in some places, but I love it to the moon and back. Whenever I look at it I have to smile.

It finished at a really odd size with 41" wide and 61" long. I didn't have enough fabric for another row so it would be a bit wider and I didn't want to buy another scrap bag and wait for weeks for it to arrive.

 It is just the right size to wrap around your shoulders and drink a cup of hot cocoa. Which is want I'm going to do right now. Cheers.

Finally. Swoon.

The past couple of weeks I have been really busy. Busy with finishing my semester in university, writing exams, finishing up forgotten papers and homework assignments, sewing, quilting my mothers quilt, visiting my parents (and giving my mother her quilt - forgot to take photographs though. Bummer.) and spring cleaning. Yesterday I gave the bedroom a facelift. I pulled the bed away from the wall and got all those ugly dust bunnies behind that out and even found our IKEA family card (I smell some nice fabric shopping coming in the next few days. 1 Euro off per meter? Um, yes please!).

Since the bedroom now looks nice and fresh and polished I used the opportunity and threw my Swoon Quilt on the bed. It's snowing like crazy outside, so the snow gave some extra light, which is always welcomed in my dark apartment. It's been a while since I announced that I finished it back here. It's been in good use ever since I finished it. When I was away last week visiting my parents Mr. A slept on the sofa and used it as a sheet and a blanket and kind of wrapped himself up in it. We both hate sleeping in the empty bed when the other one is not there, so we both tend to camp out on the sofa till the other one comes back.

It's all soft and cuddly and the vintage sheets look so beautiful in those blocks. I already ordered new vintage sheets FQs, although I am still not sure what to do with them. They are a dream to work with.
I made one minor mistake (well, minor for me, major for other ones probably) and forgot to add the borders all around. Which lead up to the corners of the blocks being eaten up by the binding. I don't really mind since I was really grateful it wasn't any bigger when quilting it.

I washed it and let it hang on my clothesline to dry and it turned out just the right amount of wrinkly for me. I love how faded and vintage it looks and I love love love that I used this old flannel bed sheet I got from my mother for the back. It keeps me warm every evening since winter has decided to stay a little longer.

And the binding and corners up close. I bought the binding fabric over a year ago and was kind of disappointed, that it looked so different than what it looked like online. I put it away and never used it. When I was hunting my tiny stash for a possible binding fabric I realized how awesome this one looks with the Vintage sheets. Glad I found it again. And you can see a bit of the backing.

To finish it off: My favorite block, I just love the floral print.