The grey cross - a finished quilt

A bit of a whirlwind quilting week and the quilt is finished and actually already delivered and I am pleased to say it was well received. So much so that my uncle and his wife said something about me making another one for their guest room.

I loved every moment of making it and am really pleased how the greys and browns work together. If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I frequently venture into the non-white colour quilting world and this is another example that proofs that you don't always need white as one of your main colours.This was the first time that I made a quilt for a man. Actually that is not true it is the second time but it is the first time I made something with a very distinct male colour palette and male attitude and I think I nailed it as my uncle really was very happy about it.

The squares are 5" finished size and the entire quilt is 65" x 75" which is a good size to snuggle up under.

I quilted in a double diagonal crosshatch lines which is particularly visible on the back of the quilt as I used a lot of grey solids there.

Following the cross theme I added a cross to the back of the quilt from the leftover pieces of the quilt front. This a good way of reducing the ever growing heap of fabric scraps. The greys used on the back of the quilt are all Kona (Ash, Coal, Pepper, Charcoal)

I bound the quilt in a lovely light grey/white stripy fabric which I is from the collection "From little things" by Sarah Fielke.

And here another images that shows the diagonal crosshatch really well. I do think this is one of the most effective straight line quilting patterns.

Have a lovely weekend.

Grey cross - a progress update

The grey quilt is progressing well. I decided to keep it fairly simple with squares but still wanted to have a pattern so I decided on a plus quilt.

And this makes perfect sense in many ways as my uncle is a Veterinarian which means he is in the medical profession. And as the red cross is a symbol of medics I thought I could use this for a quilt pattern. You see cross = plus sign....it might be a bit of a stretch in terms of imagination....

But the most important thing is that I love the layout and the pattern. Whilst sewing I added another one of two fabrics for diversity like the Japanese grey tulip print you can see in the middle of the above photo and some Kona in ash.

I am off for some intense quilting.....

The grey cross - the start of a new quilt

For a while now I wanted to make a grey quilt for myself. Grey is one of the more unusual colours in the quilting world and whilst used as filler sometimes to tone things down it is often overlooked. There are few collections that actually feature grey as the main colour. One that comes to mind is the organic range from Daisy Jane called 'Shades of Grey' (note that the fabric collection came out way, way before the hideous novel with the same name was published....) that is build around the colour grey. Other collections feature grey as one of the colours within the collection. For example Denyse Schmidt utilities it well with her Fleemarket Fancy and Hope Valley collection and the other one that I can think of is Sherpert Pips by Aneela Hoey.  I am sure there are plenty of others that  I don't know.

Many of the stash builder bundles that I bought over the past two years include a grey print and over time I accumulated quite a few. My idea was to make a quilt in soft, light greys but as you can see from the images that plan went to pot (quite literally). 

You see my favorite uncle is turning 60 and it occurred to me the other day that he deserves to have a quilt. Heinrich is the youngest brother of my father and about 20 years younger than his oldest sister. And he is only 15 years older than me. So us kids always had a great relationship with him.

I am using mainly strong manly greys with a few just soft tones here and there. The quilt will comprise 20 plus fabrics in varying shades of grey. There is soft grey, green-grey, brown-grey (yes !), blue-grey,  anthracite and a bit of black and most of the fabrics have some white incorporated too. 

There are 3 diffrent pearl bracelet tones in the bundle I compiled, some large and small dots, the 'Dem Bones' fat quarter package from my last stash note, Madrona Road in grey/black, Falala from French General in brown, chevron, quite a few Japanese text prints and some Alexander Henry Heath in a dark grey.


I probably will add one or two solids for good measure too.
So let the cutting begin !