Hello Stranger....... I hear you say !

I've been a really bad Blogger for the past few weeks, I can't believe it is almost a month since my last post on here - apologies to everyone who has dropped by here lately and found nothing new to see.  I do have a sort of valid excuse though as I've been away from home (and my stash) for just over three weeks - it's that time of year again when we take our two gorgeous grandsons away for a holiday in sunny Spain.  It was really great to spend time with them, as we don't see them that often due to their living quite a long way from here.  Could have done without both hubby and I catching some nasty germies which meant two trips to the local health centre to see a doctor and subsequent taking of antibiotics etc - pah !  Still, I'm now safely back home and working my way towards full recovery.

Having been craft starved for more than three weeks I couldn't wait to get back to my stash and table of craftiness and headed straight there the morning after arriving home.  Sat there for a while, sorted through a few things but just couldn't get inspired to create a single card, guess Mr Mojo has a real 'strop on' as he'd been left 'home alone' for so long.  I suppose he could be hiding underneath the post-vacation ironing pile, but I don't feel inclined to search in there for him !

Without inspiration for even one card, I turned my attention to my sewing machine.  Sure enough, I had some fabrics ready cut out for a project I had intended to start before I went away.  I wanted to try a new style of quilt and also have another go at freehand machine quilting - scary stuff I can tell you !   I had a pile of fat quarters in a striking vibrantly coloured chevron design which I couldn't decide what to use for.  Here's what I made with them, it's called a 'raw edge' design as the seams are exposed on the front of the quilt, rather than being hidden inside covered by the backing.  

This is the front with the raw edges

Here's the back  - as you can see these seams are smooth

You achieve this look by quilting the front square, batting/wadding and back square together with your chosen design.  Then stitching each of the squares together, clipping the seems then washing and tumble drying the quilt to make the seams fray even more - this type of quilt improves the more it's used and washed I believe.  Even after this first wash the seams are lovely and soft and fluffy.

Here's a couple of close up pix which show the freehand machine quilting details a little more clearly - I need to practice MFQ a great deal more before attempting it on a quilt made from precious and costly fabrics.  Still, this was a nice way to practice rather than just stitching on scrap fabric pieces and I do have a lovely finished quilt to use.

 



Sewing has got my creative juices flowing again and this morning I managed to make three cards, I'll be sharing them with you tomorrow as they are my DT cards for this week's Cute Card Thursday Challenge.

Hope you enjoyed your visit here today, I apologise again for the gap in posts on here, hopefully I'll get back to 'normal' very soon and have lots of new project to share with you.