Ready and Waiting

I have a finish ! Ta Da! It is the same finish as I showed you last time, except this time, its a proper finish. I finished the quilting and the binding on my #beothukstar, which I have called the #coulterbabyquilt.

 From today this quilt is no longer the #beothukstar, this quilt is renamed as #coulterbabyquilt. The quilt formerly known as .....

Some of you may know, but we grandparents are eagerly anticipating the arrival of a new grandchild in July, this time in USA. An addition to our happy band of one who lives in  England. I don't know about the parents, but I am ready! My quilt is made, just awaiting the name and date to embroider on.

 

The finished quilt measures about 40" or so square, a nice size for a baby quilt I find. I did much more quilting in this than normal. As I said in the last blog post, each completed section just seemed to flow into the next. For me the quilting is quite intense, yet it is still subtle when looking at the quilt overall.
Here is the centre star all quilted.

And one of the corner stars. I am feeling rather pleased with this.

Just for a quick recap, I used all Liberty fabrics, picking fabrics that blended quietly together. The backing is Liberty fabric too, you can be extravagant when it is for your own grandchild! The plain white is a kona cotton, snow. And of course, I bound it in Rose and Hubble spot. I believe the baby's bedroom is painted pale green, so this will be perfect. This baby will be spoiled for quilts, the American granny is a quilter too, and the baby's aunt and great aunt. No shortage of quilts here!

My daughter had an old university friend over last week, her Cornish imp friend. Miss H has made an appearance here before, I have previously knit her a hat, and made her a quilt. The quilts were made some 8 or 9 years ago, pre blogging days. I was pleased to hear that her quilt hangs over her chair in work for those draughty afternoons, or dare I say it, Friday afternoon snoozes! Her visit gave us an opportunity to drive up the North Coast, or Game of Thrones land as it is now known and get some photo opportunities!

We took the photos in Ballintoy Harbour, used as the home of the Kingdom of the Iron Men in Game of Thrones. It is a pretty stone harbour, nestled in a natural harbour. You may notice the clouds in this photo as opposed to our not a cloud in the sky day. The photo below is "borrowed" from google images, apologies to for copyright infractions.

 That part of the coast is twisty and windy with lots of rock formations, it is just around the corner from the World Heritage Centre, the Giant's Causeway. There were many many tourists there. Ballintoy in particular is a tourist draw, particularly to Americans and Germans I always think.

We had some fun taking our photos. I reaffirmed to myself that I don't like heights. I was only about 12" up on the rocks, and I needed a hand getting down! A rock climber I am not. There was great interest around and about it when we were taking photos. Two different American ladies stopped my daughter and her friend to ask about it.

 

And then of course I took a couple of photos of my latest shawl. This is called Seagleam and is the first pattern in the Shawl Society4 designed by Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade.

 My yarn is "she runs like the wind" from Ellie, Craft House Magic. The greenish blue was just exactly the right colour for this.

 A few weeks ago my friend, Liz and I had taken a photo of the yarn at the Herring Pond in Portstewart.

 It has been a while since I have written a knitting post. I have knitted a couple of baby jumpers and have simultaneously knitting a sweater for both myself and my husband. Extreme knitting! I know how to live dangerously.

Last week I got a fantastic parcel. Many years ago, I "met" Deborah through blogging and instagram. Many years ago Deborah and I swapped coasters. Or rather Deborah's son and I swapped coasters. This year she was kind enough to make me a cushion.

 I love my elephant cushion, it also blends well with the coaster!

We have had a sudden blast of warm weather so it has been lovely reading in the garden, leaning on my cushion.

Since writing this blog post, I have just learned that my #beothukstar quilt has won a prize. Hurrah! I have won a 6 month subscription to the ezine, Make Modern. Now I can read this whilst leaning on my cushion in the garden! Not with the beothuk quilt though, that is for the new baby. I wonder? Do you think I have another quilt I could use for myself?

Helen x