Saturday 13 December 2014

Fire the rockets!


Just needs basting now.Things have been moving slowly. Everything's winding down for... you know... the C word. But all systems are still running here. This particular spaceship (UFO... get it?) has been hanging around for years. I made these blocks when I was 21 or 22, in the second half of my first degree (I have 3). The blocks moved house with me at least five times, without being sewn together. I got them out earlier this year, ironed and starched them, then did nothing else with them.

A few months ago I bought the fleece for the back, expecting to have another row of squares; as you can clearly see in this picture, there's no space for another three blocks added onto that. Three blocks were culled from this quilt (they'll find good homes in other things) and eventually, today, I got around to sewing this top together. I have no real explanation for why it's taken so long for me to do anything with this one; that's just how things are sometimes, I suppose.

One of the reasons is probably that I haven't had a dedicated sewing space of my own before. Now I have the space for it, I've taken the decision to just make my living room into a sewing room. I live alone and keep one end of the table free for things like eating, but I can keep my sewing machine set up and my ironing board available at all times. It's so much easier when all you have to do is sit down and SEW - no messing around, putting things out and having to put them away again when finished.

Anyway, I'm ready to knock this spaceship out of the sky. It needs basting, quilting and binding, and then it can go to its new home on the back of my sofa or my rocking chair. I need to pop out tomorrow and get some curved safety pins (it's about time I stopped stealing my mum's and just bought my own).

It's funny - even the blocks I don't actually like on their own, I like in this mix. It's come together in a way I didn't dare to hope it would. And even if it was the ugliest quilt known to man, it would still be warm and cosy to snuggle under, and it would still contain my first ever quilt blocks. 

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