Winter project link up party - October

I have been looking forward to Jennifer's winter project link party for months. It is my favourite link up. Ever. It is fun to share work in progress with you. I am sharing with you my biggest project ever, a large quilt for our big bed. I am not sure how big it is in royal sizes but the width of the bed is 160 cm. I have been working on this quilt since June and it will probably take until well after Christmas to be finished. I am guessing early spring.  I have written about its beginnings here. To spare you ultimate boredom, I'll give you a brief update each month and show you one or two of my more portable projects.

It is a crazy quilt, just like I love it. Random, colourful and interesting. Each little block is made with three strips and finishes at 3 inches square. The finished quilt top is made of 729 blocks. That's 2187 small strips of fabric sewn together, measuring just over 2 m square. It seems slightly mad when I read these numbers but honestly, it didn't feel like I was sewing 2187 strips of fabric together. I did what I always do if life seems a bit daunting, I put my head down and get on with it. With big projects, it also helps to break things down a little. I chose to make 20 blocks at the time, for no particular reason really.

Once finished, It took absolutely ages to iron all the seams. I think it is worth the effort, it makes the quilting a bit easier.

The backing was a bit of a faff. Ikea sheets are good but of course they had run out of flat sheets in the colour I liked. I bought the largest fitted sheet and removed the elastic and unpicked the corner seams, hoping it would be big enough. It wasn't because the corners that you would normally have in a flat sheet were cut out to make it fitted.... I ripped the sheet apart and filled the gap with an eight inch fabric band made up of quilting cottons from my stash. Then I stitched another eight inch wide strip of quilting cottons to the top of the sheet.

The batting is something I have not used before: Quilter's Dream Orient, made with bamboo, silk, Tencel and cotton. I chose it because it has excellent reviews from hand quilters.

I spent about 1.5 hours on my knees to make the sandwich, taping the back to the floor and layering with with the batting and top. I pinned the sandwich with curved safety pins. It was not fun. It took great care in aligning the colourful stripe down the middle with the sides because I am a glutton for punishment and because I have a strange ability to notice even the slightest deviation from parallel lines.

I am procrastinating now, the quilting part is a bit daunting. By machine or hand? What thread? What colour? What pattern? I most fancy meandering about but I am also thinking of chevrons or maybe diagonal lines. What do you think I should do? I can't make up my mind.

For now, I'll procrastinate, I am good at this. Meanwhile, you might as well pop over to Jennifer's blog and read about her crochet adventure and while you are there, you should definitely check out the other links.

Happy Sunday! x