A Housewarming

My latest project is done.  I've been making a housewarming present for one of my sisters, and fantastically, when I asked her what colours she would like, so it goes nicely in a particular room, she said that her sofa was blue and her kitchen was green, so I could pick which one I wanted and work accordingly.

So I looked through my stash and came across the collection of charm squares that I won from Quilty Magee, which is both blue and green and beautiful in equal measures. It's also pretty close to the colours of fabric I seem to stash for no reason, so with a bit of searching,  found some perfect additions to make it (I thought) into a reasonable sized present.

I did a disappearing 9 patch with them, and got as far as making something that was nowhere near as big as I'd expected.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take measurements as I was doing it, so after going through my stash to find more fabrics to add to the ones I'd already added, I did the same sort of size again, but with an estimate as to the size of squares, because I'm useless and can't remember the last thing I measured, ony a few minutes ago.  Doh!

So I ended up with one section, plus 5 more strips of an almost equivalent width.  So how on earth to make them fit?  After a bit of head scratching I decided to undo the first bit I did to half the size, then place the strips in between and at both ends to make a long strip, then fold it in half and sew down the middle.  This made it a quite acceptable 1.3m long and about 60 cm wide. This means that it can be used as a sofa throw or a table runner/table cloth depending on what they want to do at the time.  And with it being a disappearing 9 patch that I made up by adding stuff on the side, none of the blocks are the same, so having unpicked, folded and cut it is not really noticeable because nothing matches anyway!

The quilting on top isn't great, but it was quick.  I don't know why, but this project was getting on my nerves, even though I was enjoying piecing it, and I love the colours.  I'm also giving it to her on Sunday, so I didn't want to agonise over things, only to not be finished in time (which I'm sure she's expecting anyway...).  The binding was actually bought for the mystery quilt, but the colours didn't go quite as well on that as I thought, but were perfect for this one.

I'm going out now to cuddle a sick ferret.  Wesley has been losing weight and appetite recently and we don't know why :-(