A Ruby Quilt Finish & a Catch Up!

It's been a while since I posted; life has been a bit chaotic around here in the last month, and I have not been well for the last couple of weeks after a horrible allergic reaction to some medication which landed me in A&E, and left me very shaky. I have managed a small bit of sewing, but apart from snapping pictures of what I was working on and posting them on Instagram, I haven't been able to manage to find the time to blog, or even to read my friends' blogs - something which I'm hoping to rectify tonight with a big catch up! You'll know that I really have not been myself when I tell you that I finished this Ruby quilt on the 2nd October - 3 weeks ago, and am only sharing it with you here today. I think that might be some kind of record for me - normally I am out taking photos of a finished quilt as soon as it comes out of the dryer.

So here she is, though, and I think she was worth the wait - my Ruby quilt! 

I really, really love her and she is getting lots of use. I've made so many quilts for other people this year, its nice to keep one for myself. I used the Crazy Nine Patch Lattice tutorial from Oh, Fransson! for this one, sizing it up to a nice generous lap size of 56" x 72". It uses a Ruby layer cake, plus 3 extra squares I took from my Bliss scraps, plus Klona white. The blocks are 8" finished.

The colours are a bit dull in the top picture, thanks to a very grey Irish October, but you get a better idea of the vibrancy of the fabric in the next one.

I didn't manage to get a good picture of the back as both times I tried, it started lashing rain as soon as I got the quilt hung. This is the best I could get:

 

The back is a print from Aneela Hoey's Walk in the Woods line, and I really love how it works so well with the front of the quilt. I had 2 blocks left over, so I pieced them into the back. I rarely make a pieced back but I'm so glad I made the effort here, the 2 blocks look so nice pieced into the grey.

 It's quilted with a meandering stipple. After the previous quilt I made, which was extremely difficult to quilt with problems with skipped stitches etc, I was dreading quilting this one. But this was as easy and fun as the previous one was difficult. I flew through it and was done before I knew it. I pin basted this, as I wondered if my basting glue was one of the issues I had the last time - it had got a bit old and not as sticky, so I had to use bigger quantities - and I have to say I loved not having all that sticky glue on the edges etc. I think I'm going back to pin basting now.

As I said, this quilt is getting lots of use and is permanently in residence on our sofa. I might be guilty of hogging it myself quite a bit!

I'll catch up on Wednesday on other projects I have in progress at the moment. I'm back to work after maternity leave on Thursday. Eeek. I've been gone for a whole year, as I was out sick on bed rest for the last 3 months of my pregnancy, so it will be a big shock to the system to have to go to work again - I hope I manage to fit in some sewing before collapsing into bed in the evenings. Wish me luck!