Instead I've finished off my latest journal quilt and over the Easter weekend I had fun playing with some Japanese wrapped patchwork blocks - as well as machine work I like having hand stitched projects that I can work on in front of the TV.
April journal quilt
The verse for my April quilt was "April brings the primrose sweet, scatters daisies at our feet" - well not yet but it's early in the month so let's hope.
The background is a piece of self dyed cotton which I machine quilted to add texture and to suggest grass.
Not the best of photos but you get the idea! I decided to try out a different edging technique to finish of the quilt - I marked the edges using a removable pen and then worked a zigzag stitch all around - I made it fairly narrow and also shorter - but not as tight as satin stitch. I then used my cording foot to apply a toning narrow silky ribbon on top of the first line of stitching before trimming the piece to size.
The flowers were from a piece left over from a previous piece - I ironed them onto bondaweb and then trimmed around them. I originally planned to iron them down and then stitch around them but after cutting them out - and before removing the backing paper I left them on the base - after a a couple of day i noticed that the petals were starting to curl up and I decided I liked how this added a three-dimensional quality to the mini-quilt. I therefore left the backing on and then stitched them on using a toning thread and a small cross stitch at the centre of each flower.
Japanese wrapped patchwork bag
In some ways this is a bit of a cheat! I had made a whole series of these hexagonal blocks a while ago and sold some as coasters. I then saw a picture of a bag made using paper pieced hexagons and thought about how I could do something similar with the hexagons i had made.
I stitched them together in three rows of 6 and then joined these rows together. I then stitched it into a tube and then formed a base by stitching the sides of the hexagons together - think star. I then used one more hexagon block to form a tab. I was lucky enough to find some lovely multi-coloured cord in my favourite haberdashery shop which had the same colours in it as the fabrics i had used and made a chunky plait to make the strap and to make a button loop to form the fastening. I'm really pleased with it and the colours make it very springlike and cheerful.
This then inspired me to try out another block - but that's another blog!