Quilt request

So last Friday Harry came home from work with a request. Could I please make him two quilts as presents for two members of his staff at work, one who is just about to get married and one who is about to return from honeymoon having just got married. Only trouble is - 'by next week' he adds calmly!

But, an opportunity like this does not often come around! Harry wanting me to do more sewing, Harry not being able to complain if I am sewing, Harry owing me big time for something sewing related and therefore maybe not able to say a sewing related sarcastic comment for some time! Not something I could pass up on lightly! So I pulled out my wool flower quilt that had no plans for a home and suggested that might do for one, and yes he was quite keen, which just left one to make in a week - much more doable, even with all our other plans for our last week of hols.

One down, one to go.

But then, to make matters worse Harry tells me one of the recipients might not really be a quilt kind of person - he doesn't have a clue what colours she might/might not like but thinks maybe she's a 'shiny, new' kind of person rather than a homely, quilt kind of person. So I decided to try and make something not too quilt like! Much more modern rather than traditional, but doable in a week. This is what I came up with:

I have no idea whether it is 'modern rather than traditional', but I liked it!

Photos were very rushed I'm afraid - I suddenly realised at 6.30am on Friday morning, as Harry was about to leave with them, that I hadn't got any photos! It's all recycled wool again - mainly blankets but with a check skirt thrown in there too. The square/oblong areas are all pieced - log cabinish, and then I blanket stitched wool 'pennies' on at the end. I did the binding in the same way that I did for the flower quilt above - with narrow orange 'piping' along the inside. It seemed to lend itself to this quilt just as it did to the previous one - but I'm afraid I haven't got any close up pictures of it for this one, you can just about see it if you look on the main photo above. Here are the pennies though:

And two bags to put them in...

I forgot photos of the quilt back as well I'm afraid (I was half asleep at the time!), but it was quite nice! A denim blue cotton (from some thrifted curtains) with a panel of the orange fabric that's in the bag above (also thrifted curtains!) down the middle to make it the right size, so the bag sort of matches even! And I just stitched in the ditch for the quilting.

I'm still really not sure about the 'modern' but I do think that this quilt is probably the most 'masculine' I've made so far. And this is borne out by the boys' reactions to it - they both liked it and were much more interested in this one than they often are by my quilts. Sam even commenting on my colour scheme, including - "the orange really adds something to it", he did spoil the moment slightly by adding "not sure it adds a good thing though"!

But the happy ending is that Harry was sure when he came home last night that the possibly non quilty bride- to- be really did love the quilt.

That's it, have a great weekend and see you Monday, Sally.