chooseday challenge done - part 1

When I first thought about connections, I thought of people being connected to each other. Then, in that rambling way the mind has of jumping from subject to subject, I started to think about ways in which things are connected. First thought was needle and thread (obvious to a quilter lol), then hammer and nails, screws and nuts and bolts. That was when I got the idea to go shopping at the hardware shop. What an eye opener! It was full of wonderful quilt embellishment stuff, and I came home with 5 or 6 little packets of treasure. I got a couple of sizes of washers, hexagonal nuts, split pins and something Murray calls waffle nails.

Next step was to start making my quilt. I gathered some black, white and grey fabrics and cut strips from each one, 2" or 3" wide. Then trimmed them again so they were uneven. I ended up with siz of these wonky blocks. Six? That's not quite what I had in mind when I started, but I decided to run with it anyway.



Next step was to add a bit of colour. I had a heap of bias left over from a celtic table runner I made for my sister last Christmas so I stitched a bit of that on each block.



I quilted each block, but forgot to take a photo of that step. Then I added the beads and embroidery and found all sorts of ways to stitch on the stuff from the hardware shop. I left all the knots from doing that stitching on the back of the quilt sandwich, because I was going to put another back on the six little quilts. I did that using the pillowcase method. I cut the new back into two pieces and stitched them together leaving a gap of about 5-6" to turn the quilt through. In the photo, the gap between the pins is left unstitched. I made the join between the two pieces near the top of the little quilt so that I could cover some of them with a hanging sleeve.




Then I put the little quilt on top, right sides together, and stitched all the way around the quilt. Next, trim the edges of the back level with the quilt and cut a bit off the corners to get rid of some of the bulk.



Turn the quilt through the gap you left in the back. Carefully press the edges, then handstitch the gap closed. This is what you get! A little quilt with no binding. there are probably other ways to do this, but this is the method I use.



Part 2 will have photos of the finished piece.