Here Comes That Band Wagon Again

Well Hello There. And a happy spring to you. The last couple of weeks have been glorious. We had a trip to Pennsylvania where the weather was glorious. My coat, jacket, and 2 of my 3 hand knit sweaters were unnecessary. The third spent most of its time draped over my shoulders.

 And we arrived home, just in time for the Easter bunny to visit and more glorious weather. Not as warm as Philadelphia admittedly, but warm for N Ireland. Once the washing was tackled, it was time to tackle the garden. And as we all know, time spent in the garden is time not spent sewing. I wonder .... does gardening use up more calories than sewing? It certainly makes you more tired.

Spring of course means it is time for a new project. Off with the old and on with the new.  Not true, I am still scratching out time to spend with my Kaffe Fassett quilt. I was ready to scratch it out altogether the last few days, but I| will tell you about that next blog post. First I will share my new project, linked up for the first time here.

I swore I was doing no quilt a longs this year, I am doing my own thing. Then Sandra of mmmquilts previewed her quilt a long. I think sometimes Sandra has a direct line to my sub conscience. I have a new baby quilt I want to make. I want to make something with stars, maybe just 4 blocks. And what does Sandra come up with? The Beothuk Star quilt a long fits all my briefs. So ... I will let Sandra do the hard work and I will just join on that bandwagon again and enjoy all the fun.

I googled "Beothuk" as that was a new word to me. The Beothuk were the aboriginal peoples of Newfoundland who lived along the Star River. I am not even going to attempt to add more than that and give you wrong information. The website I used is here. This is what I love about this quilting community, I am learning new things all the time. I am a big believer in life long learning. There is a big world out there.

Anyhows, back to the quilt.

This of course, isn't my quilt. It is a the quilt Sandra make. Version 1 of her 3 versions, her version 3 I expect mine to be most like. Photo is of course with Sandra's permission, and water marked by her. (I must work out how to do that!)

 Of course this quilt is for a very special baby. I am going to be a granny again! And for a special baby quilt, of course I think Liberty fabrics. Luckily this daughter in law loves the little floral patterns of Liberty, as does my other daughter in law. I trained my sons up well, or else I was just very lucky! This basket is the sum total of my Liberty fabrics, and my works in progress, Liberty style. I took the basket out to the garden for a hoke.

I am going with a white kona background and a mix of florals, all similar in scale and design. These are the fabrics I think I will make the actual stars with. Not predominantly pink or blue, a mix of pastel shades.

The next "pulling together"  border of the quilt will probably be from a mix of these fabrics. Slightly prouder flowers, but still similar in size and scale.

The backing fabric, yes I am getting a bit ahead of myself here ... I haven't even started yet. This mum loves green. I bought a meter of this fabric specifically for this quilt. Apparently it is a low production run, and will be sought after. Who would know? Whilst trying to keep this a gender  neutral quilt, I am concerned this green may be rather blue toned. Unfortunately this will be a surprise as I seem to have deleted my photograph. I have a while yet before I add the backing. By lovely happenstance, a local fabric shop has started stocking a small selection of Liberty so I may go shopping. I generally try to remnant bargain shop my Liberty. It would be a shock to pay full price!

I think I love this sort of sewing best. Scrappy sewing, playing with what I have and making it fit. The headaches come for me when I TRY to do organised sewing, like my Kaffe. More about that next time!

Helen x
linking up with mmmquilts