As a member of Sprat & Winkle Quilters I am often included in the call to make small quilts for use in the Special Care Baby Unit at Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester. These quilts are used as covers for the incubators and can be any colour and design with a maximum size of 24 inches. The 80/20 polyester cotton wadding is supplied by S&W but the patchwork and backing fabrics are supplied by the quilter.

I tend to make my contributions using scrap fabrics from my dressmaking plus odds and ends of Fat Quarters that I have picked up during my visits to various quilt shows and the local fabric store.

For quilt #one I had a large sized remnant from a pin tucked tunic top (Butterick 6024) that I made back in April 2021. There are many colours in the print which made it ideal to combine with a selection of sample squares that I picked up at Oswaldtwistle Mills many years ago. I matched up the size of the sample squares to squares of the print fabric. Once completed I then spent some time trying to decide how to lay out the individual blocks. I find it best to lay out the blocks according to my plans and then photograph the options before numbering each square in order 1-49.

Construction was quick and simple with these basic block. I used a remnant of Beige/White checked fabric for the backing and yet more of the print for the binding. Quilting was a simple trellis design also completed very quickly using my walking foot, quilting machine needle and stitch length of 3.5mm. I am particularly pleased with the completed quilt to which I added my ‘trademark’ appliqued heart shape.

For quilt #two I found a piece of Green background cotton fabric with motifs from the story ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and decided to use this as a central square for my log cabin blocks. Thus the colour scheme of Green and Yellow/Cream was decided upon. After a rummage through my various bags of remnant fabrics I located sufficient (including the pretty sheep print used as a lining for my recent ‘Jane’ pinafore dress) to make up 16 blocks with a finished size of 6 inches. I cut 16 squares of calico as a base for the blocks and got stitching!

Once completed I then spent 24 hours trying to decide how to lay out the individual blocks. In this case I decided on option 2 and went ahead to label each block numbers 1 -16 (but changed a couple around) so that they could be sewn in the correct order. I added two ‘trademark’ applique hearts before setting the quilt top to one side whilst I researched a quilting design for log cabins.

I decided to quilt in a spiral design, sewing across the centre square of each log cabin, travelling in a clockwise direction until I had stitched across the final log of each block. Once completed I discovered that this type of quilting design combined with the log cabins can have a strange affect on the eyes which makes the squares appear to be ‘on the squiff!’ I won’t be using that quilting design again.

I am pleased with my two quilts and although I plan to make a third, will have a break and do some dressmaking for a few days.

Project #8 completed 17th February 2022