Wednesday, 18 January 2023

Flying Geese Quilt - aka the magic snooze inducing quilt

 This quilt has magical properties. I know that might sound far-fetched but it is the cosiest quilt I have ever made and whoever snuggles underneath it is destined to fall asleep! I made this as a Christmas present for my husband who has long been asking for a ‘quilt of his own’.


The quilt block is called the Flying Geese, I assume because you could say it looks like wings. I wanted to use something bold for this quilt. I already knew I was going to use these bright pink and dark green fabrics so I wanted the design to be as bold as the colours. I did consider having a plain border, or sashing in between columns, but decided to keep it simple and use sets of four flying geese. There are so many tutorials online for making this block so if you wanted to have a go and haven't made it before then just have a look and pick the one that makes most sense to you. I used a no-waste method which means exactly what it says, there is no fabric wastage.


I started on this way back in April/May when it was intended to be a birthday present but, due to the thick fabrics, it took a long time to put it all together. I didn’t buy any new fabrics for the quilt front. The fabrics are: pink and burgundy fabrics - wool, left over from other projects; denim - an old dress; pale blue linen – very last of a Robert Kaufman fabric from the scrap bin at Ray Stitch; blue cashmere – belonged to my mum, made in a mill in Scotland; camel cashmere – belonged to my mum, also made in Scotland; dark green – the bottom half of a pair of Dickies (workwear trousers) that my husband cut into shorts. All these fabrics are quite thick as the intention was to make a very warm quilt to use when working from home. 


To make it even warmer I used 100% wool batting in the middle and bought a brushed cotton sheet in the Muji sale to use for the backing. I used a simple grid pattern to do the quilting. It looks really striking and, more importantly, is very warm and cosy. A real success – and I even managed to finish it in time for Christmas (just – I finished hand-sewing the binding on Christmas eve!).

I just realised I didn't blog at all last year so I'd like to do a catch-up post with the quilts I made in 2022.  I don't think I made a single item of clothing last year, hopefully, I can change that this year - I'd love to make a quilt coat and some trousers.