the grand unveiling

I know it’s no excuse but I’ve been up to my neck in GCSE marking over the last few weeks and descriptive essays on bus, car, train and plane journeys have been floating around, clouding my poor little brain and leaving not a lot of time for anything else.  Before the exam madness began though, I got the chance to go to my mum’s, bundle in hand, and finish this,

That’s a year’s worth of hand stitching and two day’s of sitting in the back garden getting a trucker’s tan and very sore fingers you can see right there. 

The quilt 99% hand stitched.  We got lazy when it came to attaching the patchwork to the batting and the backing.  I got even lazier and let my mum do the machine sewing whilst I ’steadied’ the rest of the quilt as she rammed the edges through the sewing machine.

We always been a pretty arts and crafts family.  My gran was a dress-making teacher at her local college and my mum always made our clothes for us when we were younger.  From a very early age we were steered away from TV and given more creative things to do with our time and that’s one of the reasons why I’m willing to try pretty much anything when it comes to arty things.  Generally it doesn’t even phase me if something goes wrong, it’s always been the creating that’s been the most important part of the process.

And this quilt way great for getting to know my mum even better.  We spent the whole two days we were doing this talking and just being with each other, something we don’t get to do that often.  She’s a much more methodical crafter that I am, she knows about laying the groundwork and prepping your fabric and that’s why the quilt has turned out so perfectly.  Had I been on my own I would have ended up with something fit for the dog’s basket and I don’t even have a dog.

The back of the quilt is covered in tiny buttons at regular intervals.  I am sure that this has a proper name and there’s a proper way to do it but essentially all I did was sit with it on my lap and sew through were it felt right. 

I said when I found this quilt that it was going to be so full of stories it’ll overflow and we’ve certainly sewn quite a few in there already.  Now I’m starting to have slightly grow-up thoughts about the children I’ll one day pass it on to.  And if anyone in North Yorkshire knows someone who started a quilt twenty years ago and sold the beginings for £2 at a car boot sale last year, let her know it’s finished now will you? x