Two Finished Quilts

Before starting on the candle making I decided to finish off the quilts that have been sat in my room waiting for the hand sewing bit.  Now they're both finished and washed they feel like proper quilts, rather than sewing projects and I just love them both, especially the diamonds one.  It has that soft faded look that's lovely to live with and doesn't clash with everything else!

I'm hopeless with naming quilts, but this I'll probably call it Faded Diamonds or something equally original!

The back is a recycled piece of old duvet cover that matches the vintage look.

Just out of the tumble dryer is my 30's quilt.  Lovely jolly colours and nice and soft and cosy.

Again I've used an old duvet cover for the back.

With each new quilt there's a few things I learn that make life a bit easier and in case I'm not the only one who wishes someone had told them earlier, here's a few random thoughts on hand sewing the binding to the back. 

1.  Do one side at a time.  There's no point pressing and clipping the whole lot as you'll probably have to ration your clips to wider spacings.  It will stay nice and crisply ironed which is easier to sew and it's much easier to handle the rest of the quilt without clips everywhere!

2. Use a piece of card when pressing the binding to the back.  It's easier to get a nice straight fold when the quilt edge is held down with the card.

3. Use ladder stitch.  I don't know why I never knew this. I suppose I was taught to slip stitch hems at school and didn't realise there's a much neater, quicker way to finish things like this. Use a longish needle and you can do several stitches at a time.  Useful for closing up lavender bags and toys etc too!

Sorry this is a rubbish photo but there's plenty of info on the 'net

4. Use Gutermann cotton thread.  For years I've used Sylko thinking there was no difference between them, but the Gutermann seemed much easier to hand sew with, and didn't keep tying itself in annoying knots.  Maybe that was just me, but I'm sticking with it in future.

Nothing new for proper quilters, but they don't tell you this stuff in the books!

Sorry if it was a long post, but thanks for sticking with it!

Hope you have a good weekend

xxx