Rainy Days – Finished

Oh yes I have a finish this week! Okay so it’s not Peacocks in the Garden which still sits folded up, shoddily quilted, and not touched for a few weeks now. I will get to that eventually. Once I can bring myself to unpick the crappy quilting.

Instead I have finished my Rainy Days mini quilt! Thanks folks for the suggestions on how to quilt it! I so nearly went with my standard stitch in the ditch quilting, but I didn’t! I was brave and tried something different! It’s still straight line quilting, but I actually quilted over my umbrellas. Yes I know that’s what you’re supposed to do but I haven’t really done it before because I’m scared my quilting will screw up my blocks.



But I was pleasantly surprised! Instead of mucking up the blocks, I think it adds to it beautifully. Now it looks like rain on the grey day umbrellas. The poor corner brollies are copping a soaking with that dreadful sideways rain – you know the kind that drenches you to the skin and makes you wonder why you’re carrying an umbrella in the first place?



The other umbrellas are getting more sedate straight-from-the-sky-rain.



Though apparently the rain on this umbrella is acid rain as it’s done something weird to the handle. Clearly not my poor lining up of seams. Let’s blame global warming. Or something.

I may have gotten a bit crazy with the basting on this. But I was determined this sucker was not going to move!



And it worked! Each umbrella behaved itself perfectly. Even the cheeky orange one. I think it’s reformed now.



Loving this little mini! Has lots of little bits of favourite fabrics mixed in – some Lush, some Hoo’s in the FOrest, Good Fortune, Cuzco and some good old Spotlight specials.

Final measurements are um approximate. Yes because I didn’t take final measurements. Let’s say it’s 14.5” square. That sounds like it was formally measured. Yes well. Let’s move on from my shoddy maths and measuring. Did I mention this mini is reversible?!



Decided to use my 8” test umbrella on the back! Yay! One less orphan block! Woohoo! (Got orphan blocks? Join the rest of us on 1st August for the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop – blatant blog hop advertising).

And I think I’m finally getting the hang of this binding thing. Ironing it over to the front makes such a big difference. I didn’t use a single pin when sewing the binding on (compared to the gazillions I used to use and still ended up with wonky binding!).



I use the machine binding method suggested by Amanda of Crazy Mom Quilts – it means you get this extra line of stitching on the back but I consider it a design feature. :)



Gratuitous collage photo because I love this mini so much. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it now but I love it. So next on the list – a big umbrella quilt for rainy days! Want to try your own umbrella quilt? I’ve popped the pattern on Craftsy (yes more blatant advertising – I’ll stop now).

So there’s my Friday Finish! Pop over to visit Beth at Plum and June to see some other Friday Finishes!