What Big Eyes You Have Grandma

What big eyes you have Grandma. What big hands you have Grandma. What beautiful feet you have Grandma.

This wee quilt is for Feet Claire. Claire is she who "does my feet". She does my daughter's feet too, and we love to see Claire coming. Unfortunately for our feet, but lovely for her, she has a little girl now and has been off on maternity leave. Claire is also the daughter one of my scrapbooking friends so we definitely had to make her a quilt.

I had some of these blocks left from a few years ago. I took part in a swap and my swappee, Helen in Australia, asked for a mini quilt her daughters would like. Thankfully it went down so well, Aussie Helen hung it on the wall.

 I had 3 completed Little Red Riding Hood blocks left from memory, and 1 completed and 1 partial wolf block. I had run out of the red border fabric.

I decided the best thing was to get ripping. Where would we be without our stitch rippers? I took the borders from a Little Red and used them around the wolf block. I then used a contrasting red spot to border Red girl. It took a Little Red in the centre and two of her and the wolf to balance properly. It just didn't work right with the wolf in the centre. And why would it? Little Red Riding Hood is the heroine of the story. Who gives a whatever about the wolf?

And so these blocks sat for many months. The plan was to do a spider block square at 12 noon, 3 pm, 6 pm and 9 pm, so to speak. I couldn't work up any enthusiasm though. Just couldn't feel the love. Then I thought about pinwheels, still couldn't feel the love.

Last week I thought I really need to get this going. I had given Claire a baby present at the time, but I really wanted to make her a quilt. Then inspiration struck. Trees. A forest of trees. What more appropriate than that? After all the wood cutter comes to rescue, and a wood cutter needs a forest or at least some trees.

I really enjoyed making the forest. I threw caution and all sorts of measuring to the wind. I cut basic strips of white kona, 3" x 6" and of course the end result depended on the size of the tree fabric. To be honest, this depended on what size of fabric I had to use. I was really using the offcuts from the borders. Then I just built them up to size. Six trees in each block, two rows of three. No one tree above or below a similar tree. I really did enjoy this. It took me two afternoons and I was really happy.

I cut all my blocks to 12" square. When I sewed them together, I used the full width of the foot for seam allowance rather than the accustomed 1/4". There were so many joins in places, I thought this was more secure for a rough and tumble quilt. I can't believe I forgot to take a photo this afternoon of the sewn strips.

Today I pieced the backing. Again it changed as I went along. I had a really sweet fat quarter, a white with a tiny blue blue leaf. It just picked up the blue of the leaf tumbling from Little Red Riding Hood's blocks. I went "shopping" in the roof space and found some white glazed cotton with a blue English rose. Yuck! Far too sickly sweet I decided for Claire, who is not a flowery sort of girl. I remembered I had some off cuts from Jam Sandwiches and Red Lemonade backing from a year or so back. It was a white fabric with a broad red zig zag I bought in Philadelphia.

I had enough  for the backing in one piece, but I thought it was more fun to use the bits and pieces. I like pieced backs, and I think for children it has added interest. So, I used some "bits" and 15" from my yardage. I reckon I have about 20" left, enough to get going another day.

Whilst I was crawling about that roof space, I found some wadding. Just about enough to wad this quilt. Systems are go.  I am hoping to get basted and quilted this week, ready to hand over soon. In fact I am so enthused about sewing again, I am half way through my next project. A big project bag to house the hypothetical sweater I am knitting my husband.

As an aside, flicking through my instagram photos, I found I had used this fabric in a couple of bee blocks. The Little Red and wolf were in paper pieced economy blocks.

 

 

Wolf and  Little Red was in a block for a child's quilt of primary colours.

 I enjoyed making those blocks too at the time. This was way back in my first year in Stash Bee in 2015. A lifetime ago it seems! I included these photos as Little Red and her wolf, who actually seems to be Mr Fox, Mr Wolf's friend show up well in them.

Helen x
linking up with Beth and Cooking Up Quilts