Around the same time I shared my Flying Geese quilt I saw another quilt which I fell in love with, this time the Happenstance quilt by Sarah Hibbert - isn’t it beautiful, and well, curvy!
Immediately my mind was making all sorts of plans, and that’s before I even knew if I could sew a curved block. The plans went on hold (briefly) and I thought I’d better try it out as I was sure I had an orange peel template hanging on my craft room pegboard - I remember having fun balancing them across two hooks.
And sure enough I did, so I dug out some flowery material from my stash and tried to work out if I could sew a curved block.
I started small, although I had a plan to go large (well medium) and so my test block was all the patterns. And it worked, and wasn’t too onerous at all - even with all the pins. I think the key to this curved sewing, was to take it slowly - and to be honest, all the pins meant you couldn’t go fast anyway, as sewing over pins isn’t recommended.
With a few successful curves under my belt, the larger more medium plans were well underway.
This time though along with all the patterns there was also a plainer fabric - for some blocks this would form the outer square, and for others the inner circle - that meant I could use all of the material I’d cut, so a great way for me to use up some materials I’ve had in my stash for quite a while.
With the curved blocks sewn, it was time to work out a layout. I knew that I had some blocks left from my Great Granny Square quilt and once I’d played around with the placement for a bit I had a plan, and it wasn’t the one I first thought of, but this does remind me of Noughts and Crosses hence the quilt’s name.
Initially I thought I’d have the square - or crosses blocks - diagonally across the quilt, with the curved blocks in a triangle shape either side, but what worked in my head didn’t work so well in real life - and this was the layout that I was most happy with.
And that’s how this quilt stayed for most of December and a fair bit of January, and I’m not sure why as it was mostly done. This week I’ve completed the scrappy binding and managed to photograph it in pretty much the same position as the Flying Geese quilt!
Like that quilt, my plan is to donate this quilt to Project Linus UK, a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets.
Again it isn’t perfect, but it is done and perfectly acceptable - plus it’s formed another slightly larger plan (more on that soon) and made me realise that the Happenstance quilt is also perfectly do-able. Of course I have a plan for that too, I just need to work out when, and how - as ever!
