Fortunate problems

I was all set to start the day by sandwiching a lap quilt, hoping that, with a nice all-over pattern,  it would be done and ready to bind by the time I collect James and Eleanor from school. But while pressing the backing, I notice it needed washing. I was just wondering if I could get away without, when I remembered being reminded when I bought it that, being a deep red, it should be pre-washed anyway. Since I had a load in the washing machine at the time, I rinsed it several times in the sink. After about 8 rinses (using both hot and cold water) the load of washing was done, and my rinsing water was still red - not just a bit pink, but quite red. It's now on it's second third fourth (and still not final!) cycle in the washing machine. So it turns out, I'm rather lucky it had a dirty mark!

In the meantime, here's a quilt I completed ages ago, but never shared. It still needs a name.

It's made from a range of Amy Butler fabric of which I got a set of half-metre cuts a while back, with some coordinating solids added.

This was obviously part of my equilateral triangle obsession (so is the red quilt I want to quilt today) and this is another one where it didn't quite turn out as effective as I'd hoped. However, it's ok, and it was quick and easy to make, and brings me one step closer to completing what I need, so all in all, I'm happy.

It would  have been better with the planned pop of apricot piping inside the binding, but as I began to attach it, I realised my border quilting pattern went too close to the sides, and the piping would cover the edge of it and look odd, so I left it off. Again, some poor planning on my part, but I'll know better next time.

 

The design plan was to have 'columns' of different colours or with a rainbow effect, but the variety of prints tends to blur that. To help the effect, I quilted the columns in different patterns -although some are repeated. I used open feathers, large pebbles, figure-eights, a spiky fern design and a few others.

I love the variegated feathers in the setting triangles along the two sides.