My first ever attempt at piecing.........

It was January 2012. I was then living in Bombay.  I'd gone to visit a fried 'D' in the evening to chit chat over tea. 'D' wanted to show me few of her drawings which were kept in her children's room. That was when i saw a stunning quilt on the bed! I spent 10 odd  minutes, talking to her about the process. Back home what i saw at 'D's' place, literally haunted me. 'D' had shown me a quilt made of hearts. I couldn't sleep.

It never struck me that i could surf the net! I took a piece of paper, cut out shapes and figured out a way to make the hearts. I took some of the fabric scraps i had, cut them, sewed them together and presto, i had a heart shape!!!! That was sweet victory and the beginning of my love for piecing! What a coincidence that my love for piecing and now quilting began with the heart shape :) I then took an old square lined book, drew and coloured what it would look like and calculated the number of pieces and sizes of fabric i would need. This is how my blue print looked. 

The next day was a day with a spring in my feet. I went fabric shopping, located a shop close by (which i now frequent), found a lovely print in three different colours, found some coordinating fabric and got home, purposefully.

Out came my scissors, the regular one foot ruler and a pencil. I decided on the size i wanted, can you ever imagine what it was???? It was a humongous 100" X 120"!!!! That surely was being over ambitious. Over the next two weeks i drew lines and slowly, painfully cut pieces, endless pieces - 162 floral print  31/4" X 6" pieces,324 yellow-white dotted 2" X 2" pieces, 162 yellow-white dotted 31/4" X 31/4" pieces, 100 pink-yellow floral print 21/2" X 21/2" pieces, 180 green coloured 21/2" X 6" pieces. Every bone in my shoulders,my arm and my hand hurt, my right thumb the most, because of the scissors. 

Then started the marathon sewing. 

It looked wonderful as it came together. But, somewhere along the way, i just gave up. It's now a UFO - in quilting parlance - Un Finished Object. Every now and then i take it out, admire it and promise to myself that i will complete it. This is how it looks, isn't it stunning??!!

I cannot let this remain a UFO, i have to complete it. I owe it to myself, to the fact that it was my first ever piecing project, to the fact that i patiently toiled and painfully drew out endless lines and cut pieces and pieces. 

I have kept this year as one of completing all my projects. I hope i do.....................

A name quilt (comforter) - Happy Birthday Ankit

Yes, this is not a quilt, it's a comforter, made way back in September 2012 for my son's 14th birthday. And, why is it not a quilt? That's because, it's not quilted. Way back then i was quilting illiterate. To me, putting pieces of fabric together, having a batting and a backing meant it was a quilt. It was only once i joined the quilting group desiquilters that i really understood what quilting means. Believe you me, quilting sure does add a whole new dimension to the patch worked or pieced top. 

This, like my other projects was a fun and exciting one, it was a surprise, it was for my son and it involved everything about him. Together with my husband we decided on the words which meant the most to Ankit. I then decided to applique each alphabet of the words onto square fabrics which were in two colours - white and lemon yellow. To ensure that the words were identifiable, i decided to have each of the words in a different fabric. The appliqueing exercise was done every morning after Ankit left home and i had finished preparing lunch. That was the only way i could keep it a secret. 

This is how the comforter looks. It's fairly big at 90" X 100". 

And what did i applique on them. There's Ankit (his name), there's Nagar (his surname and what he's called in his football circle), there's football (his life), there's Gerrard (his favourite player for years on end now), there's Liverpool (the club he supports, but obviously!), there's Red Phoenix (the football club he started 5 years back), there's Cleo (our doggy). I also added a pocket of his school shirt. 







For the binding, i tried strip pieced binding using the fabrics which were used for the words. Since there were four empty blocks, i randomly added patches of the same word fabrics. 




I started appliqueing the letters in mid August 2012. We were then stationed in Vizag. It is said that when your intentions are noble, you will accomplish what you've set out to do. I finished appliqueing all the letters on the 5th of September. Sat through the night of 6th September and on 7th September when he returned from school, the comforter was waiting for him. 

He was happily surprised and thrilled that it had everything that mattered to him on it. Did he ever get a whiff of what was sewing? He saw a few individual letters, but never guessed. He did ask me on 6th night what i was up to. Saying that it was for a friend's daughter was an answer that he accepted. 

One always wants to do that something special for their child. One also wants it to be different. As they grow, they have their own tastes, likes and dislikes. How does one keep the excitement and surprise element going? I found this to be the one. I loved every second i spent putting it together. Cutting the letter templates, appliqueing them in the neatest possible way, hiding the letter patches!!! With each passing day,my excitement levels rose. It was a wonderful journey from start to finish to giving, just like it's been a wonderful journey of mothering Ankit!!

After really long - yet again!!!

A lot has changed since i last blogged, a) I've moved houses, from one end of the city to the other and, b) have started working full time. Both these have affected my quilting big time. 

I had a few fabric stores i would visit regularly, the store owners knew my taste, they let me rummage through their store, they let me lay everything out to figure what went with what, what didn't, they even helped me coordinate on many occasions. They remembered what i had picked up. I'm yet to find a store close to where i now reside. 

Morning hours were my 'me' time, which is to say my quilting time. I could spend hours sewing, stitching, cutting, ironing. Now my morning hours are about leaving the house on time to get to work. Sewing time if any is either on holidays or stolen minutes during the weekdays. My sewing & cutting is now at night. There are these days when i have marathon sessions late into the night and wake up all groggy the following morning.

But i've managed to put together quite a few pieces. Many are still WIPs though. Have been nominated by a fellow quilter for the quilt blog hop. It couldn't have come at a better time, i now just have to update 'a fabric medley'. So, thank you Sobana Sundar for nominating me. While i start the updating process, why don't you have a look at Sobana's blog here.