Positively Emerald Quilt

I’ve long been meaning to make some beautiful quilts for snuggling up on the sofa. For the longest time we’ve had two Ikea fleece blankets for this purpose, and they’ve served us well, but they’re not exactly aesthetically pleasing. I saw a beautiful quilt on Pinterest which I took inspiration from for the layout of the blocks, and to a certain extent the colours / shades I used.

I drew out my design and then spent a good while looking at which specific colours would work best. I always think of my quilt colours in terms of lightness/intensity of hue, so they are numbered as such in my quilt design. I settled on Kona cotton solids in these shades:

1 white

2 summer pear

3 honeydew

4 pesto

5 fern

6 navy

Speaking of colour, one of the only things that bothers me in this quilt is that my number 2 and 3 shades are very VERY similar. One of the pitfalls of choosing colours from a computer screen!

Here you can kind of see the difference between the two shades. And some wobbly quilting lines!

I am so so happy with how the quilt turned out. I really love it, and it's so snuggly. The backing is an old bedsheet. The binding is the summer pear shade. The wadding is the aforementioned Ikea fleece blanket -  a major glow-up! For the quilting I stitched in the ditch as is my preference. I used a varigated thread which adds a nice touch on the back.

I do need to finish my other quilt before the cold snap is over!! I'm sure I've got time before the weather warms up again!

Curtains!

 Hello (she shouts into the abyss).

I know there is probably no one reading this, but I’ve decided I don’t much care! This little space is a creative outlet for me, as well as a record of all the lovely sewing I’ve done. So I’m going to blog when I feel like it, and not worry about it if I don’t feel like it.

It’s been a long old time since I last blogged, and there have been quite a few things I’ve sewn that have not featured on the blog, including these curtains which I’m immensely pleased with:

 

My first pair of curtains ever. I love the fabric so much. I coveted it for ages, and dallied over which colourway to go with (I like them all), but in the end went with the green base one. It's Renoir velvet fabric in Multi from Just Fabrics (here). As a side note - it's so hard to accurately photograph curtains! The lovely light coming through the window throws it all into shadow. They look a lot nicer than this in real life!  

 

Our living room is white walls, oak-look LVT, an orange patterned rug, navy sofa, green lamp with blue shade. And some DIY art on the walls. All of the colours in our room are in these curtains, so they manage to tie it all together. There are still more elements to the room we would like to add to the room (the DREAM: fireplace with woodburner and built out chimney breast, alcove shelves with cupboards below on one side and a white electric piano on the other).

The actual sewing of the curtains, I'm afraid, is not terribly interesting. If I'm honest I didn't find it particularly fun, apart from handling the beautiful velvet. The main challenges were of course measuring accurately and them just being big!

I interlined and lined the curtains, and used curtain weights in the hem. I wanted them to hang nicely and I think it does help.

I did take liberties. For instance, as it was a pricey fabirc, rather than buy more of the stuff and piece down the centre, I used the entire width of the fabric for each curtain which was juuuust enough. The same was true of the lining and interlining fabric, I managed to get away with one width of fabric for each curtain. It means the selvedge is on show if you peek at the back, but to be honest, I find it quite an endearing touch. 

The relief when I hung them and the hems were exactly right! Phew!