Hidden panda quilt top

Ah, what a summer! I’ve made a conscious decision to play a lot more and enjoy our final weeks of holiday before the girls start at new schools. We are being lazy, we are being playful and energetic; they fill me with happiness, they drive me up the wall; the house is in chaos, but the floor tiles are clean:

I have asked them to tidy toys, I have nagged them to clear a path through just one room in the house, but today they asked if they could mop their bathroom floor. With their feet, like ice skaters. Never refuse an offer of help.

In the midst of all this, I managed to sew together Bunny’s hidden panda quilt top.

These teeny hidden pandas are *too cute*!

You may remember when I first started this quilt in June. I used the super-speedy nine-patch technique I showed here last summer.

Yes, I know, I spy some loose threads, I haven’t got around to that fiddly thread-picking stage. I have ironed it, but it certainly doesn't look like it!

For this quilt I am trying a new technique for backing the quilt top. Instead of making a quilt sandwich, with the top, the wadding and the backing fabric, I’m using a fleecy fabric to act as both wadding and backing. This should be less tricky as I’m quilting it, as I won’t have three layers to keep together, and oh, that fabric is just so snuggly!

Last Monday evening was the local Quilting Club night. I was all ready to sew it all together, perhaps even start the binding, but as I was ironing the top I felt a little something was lacking. I love the fabrics so much, and I am pleased with the orderly fashion in which I lined up the patches (I struggle, how I struggle, to be more random! The busy-ness of certain quilt designs makes me feel somewhat agitated...). But I felt a strong need to embellish. With needle and thread.

I’m going to stitch some sweet embroideries on a few random calico squares for Bunny. Of course I had to start with a bunny, and I’ve been dying to embroider this little beauty ever since I first saw her in The Belle and Boo Book of Craft.

This is perhaps the most darling book I have; I am just besotted with Mandy Sutcliffe’s illustrations, and the projects are whimsical and nostalgic and destined to become heirlooms.

I spent Quilting Club chatting to fellow quilters and stitching the bunny. Very relaxing way to start the week!

I’ve doodled a few more designs which I will share at a later date, and I also wanted to include a few fun flowers:

Carina’s Stitched Blooms is my go-to book for stylish flowers. It is full of motifs perfect for this type of random embroidery – I mean, just look at the cover! I could fill every square just with the cover embroidery!

Heaven forbid I finish a WIP in a reasonable amount of time! I make more work for myself...knowing my schedule in the autumn, I’ll only be able to work on this quilt once a month a Quilt Club. But it will be stitched with love, from start to eventual finish...

Have a great weekend!

Chrissie x