Let's try again.....

Attempt two at today's blog....

So, it's finished!

WIP Wednesday

It's another lovely morning here today, although it's once again showing up the deficiencies in my photography skills!  I thought for once I'd try and get my WIP linky post in early rather than last.

I'm STILL ploughing on with the hand quilting on the raw edge circles quilt.  I am beginning to think I wish I'd taken up Charlotte's kind offer of a loaned darning foot so I could machine quilt it, as it's taking forever and my poor needle pushing finger is getting very sore!!

I have to admit, in between pushing the blunt end of the needle into my finger tip, I am loving the effect of the spirals.  Last night after doing a few more in front of the telly, I decided to count up how many I'd still got to do.... 34!  

Then after I went to bed and couldn't sleep, first I sent an annoyed email to an etsy supplier who is a month late sending out Sew Stitchy panels, then I worked out how many circles there were in total, so how many I had completed.  I thought that would make the remaining 34 seem like small fry......

Until I worked out that 9 x 7 = 63 and therefore I've only done 29!!!!!!!!  Oh, I could have cried.  But, before I do any more, I WILL be investing in a thimble...

Anyway..... am linking up with WIP Wednesday on Freshly Pieced


(Oh, and this morning I had a reply from that etsy supplier, claiming that Moda were so busy producing another fabric line, they were late sending out the Sew Stitchy panels to everyone.  Sorry, but do I look like I came down in the last shower????  I've seen the panels on blogs, and I doubt very much a company like Moda would allow that - with the number of lines they produce they'd never get anything shipped if the production of one stopped the shipment of another! ) 

Making a start.....

Yesterday I got the back of my raw circles quilt basted, with a little help from Charlotte, so last night I made a start trying to work out how to quilt it.  

Firstly, I just hand quilted around the edge of the circles - as the edges don't necessarily meet perfectly however, as you can see on this picture, that didn't really work.  It doesn't stand out either, and if I've gone to all the effort of hand stitching, I at least want people to know I've done it!!! 

So then I thought I'd try a spiral effect, in perle - this was a fuschia colour.  I like how it worked on this block, but then when I did another one with different, lighter fabrics, it looked all wrong and overwhelmed the block.  Not something I ever thought would be a problem with this quilt!  I don't have enough different colours to use a different thread on each block, so that had to stop.

Having sought advice, it was decided spirals were the way to go, so I'm using a variegated normal quilting thread - it's reds, oranges, yellows and pinks and it works really well with the background colours, and gives the quilting effect without over-powering the fabrics.  So far I'm pleased.  I've done 3 blocks now (well, 6 if you count the 3 I un-did) so just 39 more to go.....