A January Finish!

It`s been a week since I last posted! With still not feeling 100% and a visit last week to the Midlands to see family and friends, I am still hopelessly behind with emails and blog reading.  I promise to do better although I think I said that last week.

I do have a finish.  The first of the year.  I calculated that last year, I made 5 quilts - yes, five!  I finished Zaki`s quilt, made a quilt for Elicia, the Across the Seas quilt for Mr. LRP and me, the Marrakech Rose quilt and the Red City quilt.  In my book that`s quite good considering that I didn`t have a machine for 6 months of the year and didn`t touch quilting for 2 months because it was too hot.

I haven`t resolved to make a certain amount of quilts this year but one a month would be nice.

I brought Baby George`s quilt top with me and basted it on Christmas Eve.  Last weekend I machine quilted it by echo quilting the crosses, keeping it light so that it was soft and snuggly for Baby George to roll on.

You may recall that when I made the top (using 1001 Peeps and a touch of Terrain) I felt it was a bit flat - a bit matchy matchy.  The hazard perhaps of using a line of fabric.  Many of you left suggestions and a couple included handstitching the crosses in a contrasting colour.  I did try this but didn`t like how it came out on the back of the quilt. Having heard much of the delights of perle cotton, I picked up some in a vibrant orange and outlined the scrappy border only going through the top layer of fabric.  It has survived a wash.  I`m hoping it will survive George and his wriggling and rolling.

I bound the quilt in a burnt orange binding, which ties in with the perle cotton.  While many of you made the brilliant suggestion of using a binding which would pick up on the chartreuse colour of the onion domes in one of the prints I liked the orange because this is a baby quilt and seemed less grown up.

I backed it in a simple green candy stripe fabric.

Now it`s ready to be handed over to Baby George later this week. It measures 41" x 41".

What are you up to on this Sunday?  For us it will be a quiet day in front of the log fire, perhaps a walk or a wallow with Zaki at the local pool, roast chicken and then curling up in front of Sherlock!