Siblings Together Quilt

Siblings Together Quilt

This is a photo heavy post as I could not resist taking advantage of our beautiful location at Camusdarach Beach, Arisaig on the West Highland Coast of Scotland.

Camusdarach Beach, Arisaig, site of the photo shoot

This quilt has been a long time in the making. It began when Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet hosted a Row along back in 2012 and I decided from the beginning that this would be a quilt I made for a charity. It all went well for a while and then life got in the way and the Row along finished. This time last year I inexpertly pieced the rows together in anticipation of finishing the quilt. However various bits of life got in the way and it was only about a month ago after see all the quilts popping up for Siblings Together that I decided to get down to work. You can find out about the charity and the great work done by Lilysquilts by following this link for Siblings Together. When it came to finishing up the quilt I didn't have the information for the rows (as the row along was finished) so I decided to make mine up, three failed attempts - that I shared on Instagram - and I just went with patchwork squares. I used scraps to make the quilt.

On the rocks with the Island of Skye in the distance

My other problem was that the white I used for the background was finished and I had no idea what colour of white it was. After various fruitless searches I admitted defeat and decided to add the Riley Blake dots top and bottom and for the binding. The backing is a solid green teal and was bought for another partly finished quilt but it can wait.

Back of the quilt

Quilting this pushed my very limited skills. I first quilted horizontal lines along the white sashing and then the smaller rows. I decided to try quilting just inside the shapes to define them and add some interest to the back.

Closer view of the quilting and a huge sandcastle made by someone with a great deal of time on their hands

It took ages and was a real wrestling match between me, the machine and the quilt but it was so much easier on my new Janome and I used variegated aurifil thread which was fantastic. This is the first time I have sewn sitting down since the back operation and it went well. I've almost stopped all pain meds and have so much more mobility which is fantastic and something I couldn't even imagine 3 months ago.

We are currently on holiday at my favourite place, Camusdarach beach, Arisaig and there have been some wonderful sunny days and some very wet days which has not been a problem as I'm able to sew for as long as I want.  I have made progress with my English paper piecing and some of the stars are now cushions which I will post in a separate blog post.

At the dunes

There have been some spectacular sunsets, the photo below was taken at the White Sands of Morar.

Morar Bay

Thank you for dropping by and if you want to see some of my work in progress and photos of Jaspar the daft labrador you can find me on Instagram as Salamanda001.