Christmas Picnic Blanket

Hello everyone, it's a lovely Autumn day here in the Bay of Islands, sunny, a little breeze and the promise of a chilly evening with a warm fire to enjoy!

I've been a little quiet lately - I've been busy organising my new computer.  I consider it housework and de-cluttering as I needed to do a lot of consolidating and getting rid of old documents and junk photos.  But now it's up and running and in it's proper place on my desk - so it will be back to the paper junk soon.

Yesterday I was at a little Saturday Stitch and Chat that we organised with our quilting club.  It was an attempt to get people along who can't come to our weekday meetings and perhaps interest some new members.  We had a couple of people who had never quilted before come along and they were so enthusiastic!  There was a 10 year old girl who I think I've converted to english paper piecing - she's going to come back next month and hopefully bring along a project.  How cool!

Anyway, I want to show what I've finished recently.  It's not particularly beautiful or complex but I'm hoping it will grow to be special.  My kids picked out these Christmas fabrics and this is a Christmas picnic blanket I've made out of them.

It's our tradition to go camping at Christmas time and so I don't feel I can break out the beautiful linens and table centres of a traditional Christmas dinner.  But I do believe Christmas is about traditions - the ones you make with your own family and I'm hoping this picnic blanket will be used and loved every summer and become associated with happy family memories.

I backed the top with a lovely old wool blanket and used no batting.  I left the old Mosgiel label on the blanket for a bit of history.  I free-motion quilted it all over with a holly leaf pattern.  And boy, did the woolly blanket fill up my machine with fluff!

Now isn't this pretty?  Totally fits my rustic shed/house.  I always check the specials when I'm in a garden centre - they often have flower punnets that are a bit overgrown.  These pansies and calendulas were $1 each and they've taken off and filled my blue fish-bin with green, little white pansy flowers peeking and hopefully lots of calendula flowers soon.  The nasturtiums are self-seeded.

And just for fun!  I was trying to take a pic of the backing I pieced for my turquoise and blue quilt - but gave up in the bright sun.  So you get a silly shot instead!  Have a great Sunday.

(oh, and if anyone can tell me how to resize photos on a Mac I'd be very grateful!)

Batting the old-fashioned way.

I thought I'd write a bit about using woollen blankets as batting for my quilts.  I've had a few comments on it and a couple of questions so I guess there is interest, right?

I love old woollen blankets for so many reasons.  Natural fibres have something going for them, very warm, breathable, they break down easily - the worms in your worm farm will love your wool scraps!  Then there is the history aspect (I mean who hasn't heard a New Zealand orientated sheep joke, right?).  The label on the top blanket is a very well-known historical brand name, lots of people grew up with Kaiapoi blankets on their beds. 

And of course; reduce, reuse, recycle.  To buy new batting isn't cheap, especially if you make big quilts.  I've picked up most of my blankets for between $5 and $12 NZ dollars.  And most of them are in great nick.  Even ones with a few thin spots and holes can be sliced up and used in bassinet quilts and cot quilts.

This is all that is left of this blanket.  It had some holes in it when I bought it, but it's given me a big patch for a friends woollen blanket quilt I repaired, batting for a cot sized quilt, a thin and holey section for the cat's basket ;) and I've still got enough to make a couple of bassinet quilts.

Second hand or preloved blankets have usually been washed so many times that all their shrinking and felting is done, but I recommend to quilt recipients that they gentle machine wash on cold, or hand wash - but I'd recommend that for any quilt anyway.

This is one of the first quilts I made using  a woollen blanket for batting.  These photos are to give you an idea of the loft of a blanket as batting.  (The black is the back).  You can see that there is scarcely any bearding, which can be an issue with polyesters and I think it gives a slightly flatter look, but still shows up the quilting just fine.  It's a queen size topper and, if I remember correctly, I had to join two blankets together. 

For joining, cut off any edge binding to reduce bulk, then layer your blankets so there is an overlap of an inch or two.  Large zigzag stitch down each overlapped edge and you're done.  This gives a flatter finish, much less noticeable than a traditional seam.

If you have a really nice blanket you can use that as a batting and backing - just don't cover it up with a backing fabric! 

So, go ahead and try it.  And then when you are finished - enjoy snuggling under your quilt knowing how much good you've done the world, and how much history you are snuggling under.

This is the first ever quilt I made with my  boy, now five years old, rolled up asleep in it.  It took me years to finish it, it's half hand-pieced as I didn't own a sewing machine when I began and it started me on my woollen blanket journey.  I batted it with one because I had nothing else!