Some Christmas gifts….

Did you make many gifts for Christmas? I made a few. Not as many as I would have really liked to do, but a few. I really wanted to make something special for my in-laws – they’ve been so supportive in what has been quite a tricky year that has included lots of changes and some shocks along the way. I’d picked up a  Jelly Roll in one of their favourite colours and thought it could be made (fairly quickly!) in to a lovely quilt for them.

The thing was, once I thought about it, I didn’t just want to do another Jelly Roll Race quilt, and fancied trying something different. After a bit of searching, I came across a Garden Trellis patchwork block where you pair light and dark strips together. I made tubes of four strips, rather than six, but the principal is the same!

The quilt top took a bit longer to put together than I expected – not helped by a few miscalculations along the way – but eventually I was ready to start with the quilting and decided to go with some random stippling.

I took a-g–e-s taping the backing fabric down before pinning and do you know what, I still ended up with some bunching on the back that I had to rectify. Grrr! One of my goals for 2013 is to refine my quilting skills. At one point I even sewed through my finger…..certainly not something I’d recommend! Thankfully it didn’t ruin the quilt but it certainly made me stop and think for a bit. Ouch!!!! (although I do feel like I’ve passed some kind of initiation tes?!)

Would you like to see how it all came out in the end?! I forgot to measure the finished size, but it was around 55″ x 55″

Because of all the blue, I went for a simple grey binding with a small flower print on it, which I think complemented the quilt top well. 

The quilt top was wider than my backing fabric so I added in some pieced strips with the remaining jelly roll strips and off-cuts to make the quilt back the right size. I think it helps to add some interest.

Thankfully my in-laws were over the moon and loved it!

I hope you’re having a great Christmas holiday and see you soon with some of my spoils from the past few days!   

S x  

Today’s sky ● grey. More rain