A Blast from the Past

 Though not that long ago in the past -  2015 and 2016 in fact.  I host the weekly Knit and Natter group from my craft room and behind me is a wall hanging that I made in October 2015.  It was made at a workshop at Pauline’s Patchwork in Dorchester, tutored by Kathryn Chambers. My blog post about it is here 

I will get this down from to show a close up of this hanging for the next Knit and Natter chat, however I knew I made a blue version in A4 size, which was part of a Journal quilt challenge back in 2015 during a brief time when I was a member of the Contemporary Quilt subgroup of the Quilters’ Guild.

Now I had a label on this mini quilt, such was my enthusiasm at the time but none of the remaining 11 mini quilts had labels and I spent a bit of time trying to find out when I made each one! 

This is definitely February, featuring the puffed hearts.

These are of indeterminate dates, but one was a sticks and stones pattern with black, white and one colour being purple.  The one on the right is ribbon weaving  using sari silk strips (you can get skeins of silk ribbon along with decorative machine stitches.

Above are a couple of yellow themed quilts. The left is another one that I can’t date, but it is a sew and flip method with some selvedges  and a bit of lace sewn in. I used the bagging out method of finishing.  One the right which I think was made in May used left over pieces from the Dazzling Diamonds quilt that I made that year onto which I inserted and appliquéd circles which again were fabric scraps from the same quilt. This was finished with bringing the excess fabric from the back being brought over to the front.

The next two were made June and July, probably.  Left is an Improv log cabin style with dense stitching and edged just with zigzag.  Right is curved pieced with wavy quilt stitching, couched threads and sequins.

The one on the left is possibly September and is another Improv style Drunkards Path and this had a facing finish on the back.  I’m not sure of the one on the right but it looks like a ‘Chop and Go’ technique finished with zigzag.

The one on the left I did write about and it’s based on Gillian Travis’ book of Interchange Appliqué and M&S selling multicoloured carrots at the time.  On the right is the free form tree technique by Helen Howes.  

That makes the 12 mini journal quilts I made that year and they are a useful size if wanting to try something new.  I tried a variety of techniques, quilting styles and finishes.  But one thing I didn’t do and should have done is making labels!! I sometimes recorded them on the blog, so if you look through the 2016 entries you may see them dotted around, but not all of them.  I did put pictures on the Contemporary Quilters’ Yahoo Group, however the groups facility on Yahoo ended 2 or 3 years ago.

But before I finish this post I have a couple more mini quilts to show.

In the same bag were these two.  On the left is a recent one in 2019 and was based on a design by Jo Avery, which I had a go at myself, which I called Instant Karma. No label as such as the fabric was plain enough to write on.  On the right I made a smaller version to try out the technique that I used for the February quilt above. 

If you like the backs of quilts and seeing the stitches - here’s the back of the piece above

Looking back at the post for the first quilt here is the stitching on the back before being covered up by backing fabric.

It was good to unearth these little treasures and I hope you enjoyed this blog post.