the next step

I was really touched by all the wonderful comments and advice I got on my last post. It was wonderful to have all that experience to draw on. And as you can see I took all the advice offered! From Spotlight I bought this lovely organic cotton batting, Gautermann quilting thread, some special quilting pins (which must be made of gold judging by the price!) and just for good measure some quilt basting spray (hell it was only $15).

I also got some green flannel which was on special. Again the photos don't do it justice. It's a wonderful yellowy green. Of course I forgot to take any samples fabrics with me and the range was quite limited, but I like the pastel of this which I think will complement the white. I was relieved when I got it home that it is a good match for the shades of green in the quilt. It's not wide enough so I'll have to join some pieces.


Later I went back to the sewing machine shop and bought a walking foot as Rita of Red Pepper Quilts suggested. I'd already bought a free motion quilting foot so this afternoon I could experiment with both straight and free motion quilting.


I'm not sure I have the confidence or nerve for a large area of free quilting yet. I can see how you'd get the hang of it but it felt a little out of control to me, like a race against the clock! And it doesn't feel like you're actually sewing.

I love the quilting effect. So thank you all again for your help. You've helped me get past my mental block and I feel much more prepared and excited about the next stage.

quilt pieced

I'm really pleased with my quilt so far. The squares all went together really well with none of the major mistakes I was anticipating. I think this was courtesy of the special foot I bought which makes such neat, even seams. Everything lined up pretty well and I managed to press the seams so they sat happily together. In a few blocks I sewed the fours in the wrong orientation and ending up with vertical rather than horizontal seams if you know what I mean, but these were quick to unpick. The colours are a bit off in these photos, the winter light seems to be making everything greener but you get the idea.


I'm a bit daunted by the next step. I keep rereading the instructions and looking on the internet, stalling! I'm going to add a plain white border all around first and I'd like to buy a plain flannel sheet (blue or green?) to make the backing. I'm off to Spotlight (local fabric chain) to buy some batting too.
Then I will attempt to tack them all together. I think the thing I'm really scared about is the quilting. Lucky I've got that super unpicker! I do have my quilting foot to practice with but I think I might need to stick to straight line quilting. Does anyone know if I can do that with a normal foot? All advice welcome!

fruit scrolls

I have to show you these scrolls that I made with my Artisan dough. I chickened out on the ultra rich caramel scroll recipe I linked to. It just seemed like such a lot of butter and sugar and I felt like all I'd done this long weekend was eat!
So today I got some of my brioche dough out (quarter of the master dough quantity) and pulled it into a ball. I let this sit while I mixed some dried fruit mix, brown sugar and melted butter. Enough to cover the rolled out mix which was 40cm x 30cm approx.


I then rolled it up and cut it into eight which fitted perfectly in my greased springform cake tin. This was left an hour to rise and then baked for 30 minutes only at 180Cº. They seemed a bit dry when I got them out so I mixed an icing sugar and water mix and poured it over. This disappeared into the scrolls but you could taste it later. Oh and turns out they weren't dry at all.
I loved these scrolls. You can taste the briochiness! I bored everyone again by saying, 'Isn't this good? Isn't this yummy?' The kids are well trained and just agree but J starts to roll his eyes about the eighth time. And then he agrees :-)