WIP Wednesday: the one with fairytale forests

Finishes

Books And Blocks Bee

Last block done! Thank heavens! Not that it wasn't fun or lovely to do, just that I don't think I'm cut out for Bee blocks. And it's been a tricksy and busy year, difficult to get them done.

The last one is 'Four Acres' from the 99 Modern Quilt Blocks book. There are some lovely designs in there, and when I finish putting together my quilt from the bee blocks I received, you'll see what I mean!

I didn't join any Bees this year - I think it's for the best.

WIPs

A very long time ago, there was a Dead Simple Quilt-Along, where the point was to pick fabrics, cut them into squares, and sew them together without any fancy piecing.

On the frame, set and ready!

I did a kind of 'winding vine' pattern around the border, and tried to do some pretty stuff in the insets. (It didn't work very well.)

The centre was pretty much my trademark 'fiery curls':

I was beleaguered by problems while doing this quilt. To start with, I didn't have the right colour Aurifil thread, and while I had a pale grey, I didn't want to use it. The shop with the longarm has thread, but the best colour match was the Mettier brand. A bit expensive though.

And not very good. It frayed and broke a lot. As in, a lot of a lot! So, yeah not going to use that brand for quilting again!

So thread issues. Resulting in tension issues on the back of the quilt. Bother! And then after all that, I got to the end of the quilt and realised...I hadn't left enough space at each end of the backing - or I hadn't matched the quilt top as closely as I should have when I started.

So, yeah, the bottom of the quilt is 2" shorter than the top. Luckily, this is not going to be a competition or display quilt. But I'm annoyed at myself for not planning it better.

Let's just say that putting this quilt together was a PITA. Ironic that the Eternity Quilt was hell to piece and a dream to quilt; this was the reverse!

But finally we are finished!

And some detail along the border. Not as good as I'd like - it won't win any prizes - but decent enough.

No progress on a lot of other projects, and I'm going back to work tomorrow. Drat!

What have you been doing this week? Have you linked up to the linky party?