A great way to start the New Year!

Maybe a bit late and not quite according to etiquette, but still, I wish everyone a healthy, happy and creative 2014!

And to start off the right way: a finish!

Yes, I finished ‘Eline’s Stars’ on time to give it to her at Christmas, so at 16 years she finally has her own quilt (shame on me, I still have not finished her babyquilt… but that is another story…) Here it is:

Statistics:

Size: 148 cm x 190 cm / 58”x 75”
Block size: 15 cm / 6”
Quilting: machine- (Aurifil 40/2) and handquilting (with DMC Perle 8, loved this!)
Fabrics: most of them given to me by fellow bee members, so their memories are in this quilt as well!

Batting: Quilters Dream Blend (70% cotton, 30% poly) which was great for machine quilting but as it stays a bit stiffer than the 100% cotton batting I usually work with I don’t think I will use it again.

Of course the quilt has a label:

 

With regards to the binding, I tried something new: usually I make my binding with the aid of a bias tape maker. Once finished that means the binding is a single strip of fabric around the quilt.
This time I used Jenny Doan’s method of the Missouri Quilt Star company, which not only makes the binding a double layer of fabric (especially great for this quilt, because it is already getting a lot of use) but also the ‘trick’ used to bring the two ends of binding together (at 8.30 mins into the video) works!  When you have finished the binding you really cannot see where you started/ended your binding, it comes together perfectly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCWpxBRs20

 

 

This will definitely be my way of binding from now on for larger quilts that get some real use.

So this was one Xmas present, the other was a New Year’s trip to London. For years Eline and I wanted to see the Xmas lights in London, but DH was not keen (“Much too cold to be walking the streets that time of year..”). So this year, rather than asking if we should go, I said Eline and I are going and asked DH if he wanted to join us. He said…. no.
OK, that made 2 of us (in the worst weather I have ever had in London: gales and lots of rain) in London on the first weekend of this year.

An impression:

After arriving the first thing we visited was beautiful Leadenhall Market, right in the City.

It is famous for this:

 

 

Because it is right in the City of London, the contrast between the old and the new is rather stark, coming out of the market at one end the building next to it is this, the Lloyds Building:

And on the other end, looking up, you see the same contrast:

After years of wanting to do so, we did finally see the Xmas lights:

 

I loved the above lights on King’s Road

And the view from the upper floor of the Starbucks in King’s Road was this

Eline making pictures in the middle of Regent Street while trying not to be blown away by the gales

Street food! This smelled soooo delicious, unfortunately we came across it straight after breakfast so we had to give it a miss (next time ;-)!  )

One of the highlights of this trip for me: a visit to Shaukat with a basement full of Liberty fabrics!

Beware though: this is not a quilt shop, so no fat quarters, the minimum they will cut for you is half a meter, but there are some scraps…

Soooo, that was a wonderful way to start 2014, hope your year started off great too!

Phyllis