Sibling's Together Quilt #1

This Easter has given me time to indulge in more sewing.  I've been working on the 'secret project' - now affectionately nicknamed 'The Beast' - there's still a fair bit of work to do on it, but I'm making progress. 










A couple of months ago I'd set my mum the challenge of finding me some cotton shirts to cut up and use for The Beast and, true to form, a few days later she rang me to say that there was a big pile waiting for me that she'd already washed and dried for me - amazing!  After cutting out what I needed I was left with a pile of scrappy shirt leftovers and, as I really hate throwing anything away, I decided to see how many 2.5" pieces I could cut.   I think I'm at my most creative when my resources are limited - sit me in front of a huge selection of fabrics and I'll deliberate forever about what to make and how to do it, but given the challenge of trying to make something with limited resources I'll just get on with it. 







While I was cutting, I thought these might make a good quilt for a teenage boy for the Siblings Together Quilt project - I'm guessing there may not be as many quilts for this group being donated as boys of that age are quite hard to make for, right?  Or maybe it's just me as I'm only used to making girly things.  Anyway, I ended up with enough fabric to make these simple log cabin blocks, each with a lime green centre square which I thought would add some contrast.  I used a plain white cotton for the background, and managed to cut enough of the green fabric to bind the edges of the quilt with. 

At 52" x 62" this is a smallish lap quilt, but it's big enough to snuggle under.  I found a piece of white, blue and red striped fabric for the backing, and quilted it simply with triple diagonal lines.  Quilting is my downfall - I'm pretty bad at it, so I try to keep it as simple as possible.  The backing fabric (picked not just because of it's colour but because it's really soft and smooth) turned out to be a total nightmare to quilt and, as I don't have a walking foot for the sewing machine, we fell out.  Big time.  We've since made up - me promising never to go anywhere near it with a sewing machine again and it promising just to concentrate on being soft and snuggly. 


I'm pleased with the way this quilt turned out and I really hope it helps give some comfort to the child who receives it.



Once the purple scraps arrive I'll get started on another quilt.  I think I'll be making a granny squares lap quilt with it for a teenage girl.