Time Slips Away: Done and Dusted

The first of my two recent finishes. This is Time Slips Away, the last quilt I started before covid struck and the last quilt I finished in my old house. Also, thanks to covid, this is my least blogged quilt ever.  I just about managed to sew and was thankful for it, but blogging was mostly beyond me. As a result, it is a piece of work that I have generally overlooked.  When I pulled it out of the drawer to sandwich, I realised I didn't have a strong sense of it at all, but fortunately, looking at it after all this time, I rather like it.

I think this represents part of a transition phase for me - there are a few shirts (3 I think) in this, but there are also a number of pieces of proper yardage whereas now it's almost entirely shirt/recycled clothing.

The fabric that kicked this all off was a little shirt, probably from around the 1970s, with a swirly floral print (you can get a proper look at it here). When I got to the quilting, I tried to echo this by sewing overlapping circles so that I got a sort of petal effect.  This seemed like a good idea and I covered the whole quilt in next to no time. Only then I had the bright notion that I would do a second round of stitching, just inside the first.

Undoubtedly this has given me a much more flower-like feel in the end, but about halfway through I started wondering what on earth had possessed me. Who in their right mind quilts a whole top and then does it again?  On a practical note, while I like how it looks, it definitely makes the finished item ever so slightly stiffer than I am used to.  Not enough to bother me, but I wouldn't want to go any further in this direction - I prefer my quilts to feel drape-y and inviting and ready to use.  

I started piecing on 11th March 2020 and, despite lockdown and consequent home schooling, finished piecing 25th June 2020. It was the last quilt I pieced in my old house and the last thing I sewed at all until the December. I have to admit I don't know when this went into a hoop. I have been working on another one and this has taken the longer of the two, so probably since around the beginning of the year, on and off.

The wadding is organic cotton and as usual I used whatever perle cottons I had that were a close enough fit.  This is a habit I will have to reassess soon as my store of half-used threads is growing smaller and smaller.  The binding is a grey print from stash - again, I will have to reassess eventually, but for now there's still plenty of fabric in the boxes.  In fact, given how long it is since I bought yardage it's a bit scary how long my boxes are lasting.  I am given maybe three or four half yards most years, but given that I use them for both bindings and in quilt backs, I had expected to run out ages ago.  

My favourite parts of this are the lines created by the black triangles, the pinwheels, which happened accidentally at first and then accidentally-on-purpose, and the way I had to use teeny-tiny pieces to get to the end.  I have done this lots since but this was one of the first times it got so close to the wire and I was both relieved and a bit pleased with myself when I got to my finish.