I've finished my Summer quilt

It's taken me just over 12 months to finish my summer quilt and I'm really pleased with it.

I'd been collecting the fabrics for a while without really knowing what I was going to make with them. It was when I found the piece of pink toile with the birds on it I remembered seeing a pattern in a book that I really liked and decided that this was the quilt I wanted to make for myself.

Like my other quilts, this quilt is made by hand using cardboard templates to help me sew the pieces together. Instead of knotting this time I decided to try using a running stitch to quilt the three layers together. I am pleased with the result and enjoyed trying something different.

The pattern I used is called 'Antique Roses' and designed by Charmain Corbett. I'm not sure what happened but the quilt has turned out a bit bigger than the pattern in the book! Deciding on what to do for the edging became a collaborative effort. I had originally intended to use the burgundy color but then thought the maybe a dusty pink would be good so I took the quilt into my neighbour for her opinion. Looking at the quilt we decided that maybe it needed something on the corner squares as with the dusty pink they looked a bit insipid so I searched my fabric stash to see if I could find some material that I could use to sew some hexagons onto the corner blocks. In started to sew on the dusty pink binding but after nearly sewing it on one side I decided that it didn't look very good and really needed the darker color. I took a some photos and emailed them to my mother so see what she thought and also took it back into my neighbour. The consensus was that the darker edging was best but I still hadn't decided what to do with the corner blocks so I decided to wait and see what the quilt looked like with the burgundy binding sewn all around. With the binding finished I've decided not to add anything to the corner squares so with that decision made the quilt is finally finished.

I've already started on my next projects - Jacob's quilt and Olivia's cardigan.