Sparkling cider finish

Hurrah, another finish! I haven't managed to get much sewing done this week as it is the Easter hols, which means that rather than stitching during baby's naptime I have been spending time with my big girl. And in the evenings I am somewhat too exhausted to sew!

But I had got bits done here and there and was determined to finish this on Friday in the car on the drive down to stay with my parents in Leicester. A hefty detour due to an M1 closure made that easily achievable!

I like handsewing binding in the car, I struggle to read these days without getting sick but I can sew and I find I need to be forced to sit still in order to apply myself to such a task!

Anyway, it is all done and ready for some lightweight summer silky snuggling.

This is an all voile quilt. The top is made from an Anna Maria Horner rainbow voile bundle bought from Westwood Acres last Summer. 

Amanda no longer has these in stock sadly but I notice she does have some truly gorgeous AMH Field Study bundles in FQs, half yards and even yards. The backing is yardage of AMH and Joel Dewberry voiles from Lady Sew and Sew. The binding is scraps of AMH and cloud 9 Koi voile leftover from previous projects. The wadding is Sew Simple supersoft cotton from my roll. All together this makes for a very lightweight quilt. Noticeably so much more so than the other quilts I have made of similar size. It drapes beautifully. Normally the first thing I do after binding is wash and tumble the quilt (with a couple of colour catchers!). I don't intend to wash this one till I need to. It doesn't feel like it needs it and I don't want it to change!

The pattern is Sparkling Cider, designed by and available from All Washed Up. This is a simple, fun, fat quarter friendly pattern that really shows off large chunks of fabric. I love piecing but didn't want to chop these voiles up *too* much so this was perfect. Instead of buying background yardage I used the lowest value FQs from my rainbow bundle to give a scrappy low volume effect, unusual for me but I like it.

Working with the voile was really fine. I pressed it with plenty of starch to give the fabrics more body and was a little more careful with my cutting to avoid ruler slippage. I am often guilty of sacrificing seam allowance to preserve a perfect point and was careful not to do that with this quilt as the edges of the voile seem quite fine and delicate. I did go over a couple of iffy seams a couple of times to be sure. I only came a bit unstuck on the basting. I always spray baste and the AMH voile didn't take to the spray at all so I had to add pins. Despite this it quilted beautifully and was so easy to handle through the machine due to its light weight.

The quilting just vanishes which was my intention here. I did my usual wavy line machine pattern with my walking foot and a pale grey Aurifl 50wt thread (#2615).

The Joel Dewberry voile on the back feels completely different to the AMH voile. While that is silky to the touch, the Joel Dewberry is softer somehow. It took the spray baste much better as well. Both very lovely, but different.

I had the pleasure of snuggling under this one the last couple of nights but it has now been well and truly claimed by my biggest girl and I'm not sure how I'll get it back!