A touch of denim - a finished quilt-

My super soft double gauze quilt is finally finished and I am so pleased with the result. With all of it really and in particular my decision to add the border via QAYG.

So let's have a look at some images, shall we ?



The quilt is big at about 76" (194 cm) square which is exactlty what I wanted and fits very nicely onto a large double bed. It certainly is not a sofa quilt. I love the way the HSTs play with the different shades of denim blue, light and dark greys and the couple of black triangles give the whole ensemble a little more interest and focus.


 


I quilted densely in a 1 inch diagonal grid which supports the diagonals from the HSTs. Because the double gauze is much thicker than normal quilting cotton, the intersections have quite a lot of bulk although I ironed the seams open. Therefore quilting was a little more laborious than I would have liked it to be.



I quilted with a variegated Guetermann thread on the top and with my favorite ice grey Aurifill on the back of the quilt.





Both threads blend in well and the variegated thread adds to the denim and grey shades of the quilt top.



I used a text print from Carrie Bloomstone 'Paint' collection for the back; it is such versatile print and works well with many quilts. But sadly I am out, having used it on a few others already.

 

And finally the binding. For this quilt I wanted the binding to blend in rather than contrast. So I used some more of the Essex yarn dyed linen/cotton. It's a fairly thick fabric which makes binding a little more tricky but it worked well; just a bit more attention while sewing was required.



And that's it. One more quilt done. Sadly I am so busy right now with non-quilt related activities that I won't be able to start a new one for several months I fear. Instead I am knitting a lot as it is easier to pick up when I have a few minutes here and there. It's quite possibly therefore that this blog may turn into a knitting blog for a while.

A toch of denim - part two-

I made progress amids a series of problems and mistakes! My aim for this quilt was to use all of the double gauze. The fabric has a narrow width and the pieces I received looked a bit like like skinny half meters and I calculated that three 18" x 18" squares would give me the larges HSTs and which just left a few smaller strips as leftover. The finished size after sqauring was about 11".

I would have normally thrown these away but with 62" I felt the quilt was a little on the small side and I also felt I wanted to break the rigidity of the HSTs (that I normally so treasure). So I contracted a border by using yarn dyed Essex linen in denim that I had in my stash and that by chance works perfectly with the double gauze colours.

I added the first border and right away realised that it was very wavy and perhaps too much to correct through basting and quilting. This surprised me because both fabric almost have an equal amount of stretch, the Essex linen a little more maybe. My assumption was that this would ensure no waves or banana curves.

So I unpicked the row and reattached but this time from the middle and by frequently flipping the work over so that I was basically sewing from top and bottom. This reduced the wave a little bit. The professional in me knew at this point that it was fruitless and told me to unpick and let it go. But what did I do ? I stupidly went on and attached the rest of the border, based the thing and right before I was about to put the pins in I came to my senses because the waves were big enough the surf on, really that bad! What was I thinking..... So I sat on the floor on my basted quilt and carefully unpicked all borders before I finished basting in some frustration because I very much loved the modern feel the borders gave this quilt (yes a border on a quilt can actually be modern in my opinion). I should have taken a photo of the surfable waves but in my frustration I totally forgot.

While basting away I had a brain waive that I would try to attach the border via the quilt-as-you-go technique. I am fairly certain that will sort the surfing problem and it also gives me the chance to quilt the border in a different pattern to the actual quilt.

I think this is the best idea I have had in a long time and can't wait to try this out. I have never done QAYG but always wanted to check it out and am glad I now have the chance to learn something new.

 The quilt itself is quilted in a diagonal crosshatch of 1" width along the diagonal lines that are created by the HSTs

A Shearwater Kaftan for me

Regular readers may remember that I made a Tova last year from beautiful Nani Iro double gauze. Although the Tova wasn't my normal style I found that I loved and still love wearing it. It is the best piece of clothing to wear on a summers evening when it get a little cooler.
The cut is great but what I love most of it is the double gauze. So I stocked up on more double gauze a while back with the intention of making another Tova but then I saw the Shearwater Kaftan pattern from 'make it perfect' and thought that this was actually a better cut for me and it is a lot quicker to make. The ultimate relaxed kaftan.

Front

So I printed the pattern, cut the pieces from my beautiful double gauze of which I can't remember the name nor the designer (anybody ?). (All I know is that last year I begged Annie from the Village Haberdashery to keep me a piece big enough to make a kaftan)

I followed the very detailed and well written instructions and the kaftan was done in a couple of hours all in all.

Front

But I did make a mistake which could have been disastrous but I managed to turn it into a feature. The kaftan has a placket at the front which I managed to put on the back (yep I did !!) and best of all whilst working on the kaftan and trying it on I kept thinking mmhhh the front is a little high (because I used the back piece as the front) until the thing was almost done and it finally dawned on me....

Back

Some quick thinking ensued and I decided to lower the neckline of the back a bit which shortened the placket opening and then I basically closed the placket at the top with a few stitches. This all worked a treat actually and I now wear the front as the front (as intended) and the slightly lowered back with the little opening feature as the back and it sits perfectly.

The lovely Abigail (my student from the churdash class at the Village Haberdashery) took a photo of me wearing it the other day.

Stash Note 92 - Double Cloth Cotton -

A few weeks back I saw on the 'Purlbee' blog a feature about Men's shoe bags. These were simple drawstring bags from the most wonderful looking denim cloth.

I thought I could do with a few new shoe bags and really liked the wholesome look of the colour and fabric and above all I loved the two-sided nature of the fabric.

So I ordered it immediately from the Purlbee but what I failed to notice, although it was clearly written on the blog was that this was in fact double cloth or (also called double gauze).

The fabric arrived and I was slightly taken aback by it and straight away decided that this was much to precious and soft and lovely for shoe bags. I mean I really love my way too big collection of shoes but even I would not warp them in double gauze (Perl Bee what were you thinking ? :-)

So I am going to make a gorgeous quilt from this that will be incredibly soft and snug and because it is double sided I effectively have 12 different combination at hand. I envisage something really simply and manly with large squares and maybe not to much quilting.....

 Sometimes an oversight can be a very happy one indeed.....