Next Pin Cushion in the Series

Hi there everyone - sorry I haven't had much to post over the last few weeks. I have been busy working on quilts for the Hamilton Craft and Quilt Fair in September and I really want to keep it all top secret so we can go public with it first at the Show. We are planning a totally new look, so hopefully you will find it worth waiting for!

But this week I had Pin Cushion Club and we made a little Paper Pieced Pin Cushion using solid (plain) fabrics.

One side

It was exciting to choose a new product that we found about at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair that we visited at the end of June. Instead if tacking the fabric onto the card templates we 

used a new glue stick - Sewline Fabric Glue Pen - and it was so much faster. 

The fabric seam allowances stuck on well and didn't come off as you sewed the little hexagons together. It pulled out easily when you wanted it to and the card wasn't all tacky so it could be used again.

The other side of the Pin Cushion

 I wish I had this product when I made my very first quilt way back in the early 1980s.This is it on our bed as I write, so we do even still use it!

I went shopping for fabric for this quilt in the middle of a Wellington winter - and there were no Quilt Shops, so I was having to try and buy cottons in dressmaking fabric shops - a bit of a mission. So most are not cotton and they were all very cheap - straight out of the sale bins as who wants summery fabric in the middle of a Wellington winter! I did find one charm pack of Laura Ashley fabrics and that and the calico is about all the cotton fabric that is in this quilt.

Once I had had enough of sewing hexagons I decided to finish it - it was going to the floor of the double bed! So there was a shoe box full of prepared hexagons left over.

I seem to remember wondering how on earth  I was going to finish the irregular 

shaped edges of this quilt. Finally the decision was made - the hexagons were simply appliqued onto border strips and it was hand quilted - well there wasn't a lot of quilting - we didn't seem to do much then!

But isn't it great to see that the hand piecing hexagon technique hasn't disappeared - in fact it seems to be staging a bit of a come back.

Thanks for visiting my Blog and I will try to keep posting more often again.