Sending a hug

I don't know about you, but in a world of increasing technology, being busy with a young family and living some distance from a lot of my good friends and family I will quite often find myself saying/writing/texting "I'm sending you a big hug". It's not as good as just being able to pop round and give them a hug but goes some way towards letting them know that if I lived round the corner I would be round in a shot doing just that kind of thing.

Recently, my mum's not been feeling very well and living nearly a two hour drive away it's not very easy for me to just pop in. However, Friday last week something was arranged very last minute for me to make a solo trip on Sunday. I wanted to take something with me and decided that a decent sized lap quilt that could be wrapped around you (just like a hug) would be perfect. I still had some fabric left over from my Jelly Roll quilt so I could start immediately and it was even a little stash busting to boot. Excellent!

So Friday afternoon, around 3pm I started chaining piecing all my squares together, and by bedtime I'd managed to get all 56 squares sewn together in a 8x7 formation.
 


Saturday I woke up early and decided that the quilt top just wouldn't be quite big enough and to add a cream sash and then a small border around the outside using some of the jelly roll strips that I had left.




















I used the same cream fabric as the sashing for the back of the quilt and spent quite a lot of time pinning my three layers into place to try and avoid any puckering, and do you know what? It pretty much worked, although trying to keep a hold of my pins once Littlest Boy learnt what I was doing was a different matter entirely....!!!!! I kept the quilting very simple - diagonal lines crossing through the corners of each square.

Sunday morning saw me rising early to sew on the binding before hand sewing it in to place. I took the quilt with me to my folks house but had to bring it home to finish the last side. So today a courier has safely delivered my hug.

Would you like to see how it looked in the end?
Sending a Hug Quilt by fabric&flowers



















It's not perfect - I eyeballed my quilting and some of the lines are not completely straight. And because it was done quickly I hadn't entirely thought about the border so not all of the small squares match up to the big squares, but I guess it's reflective of me as a person and maybe that will make my Mum smile as I'm giving her a virtual hug? Lots of enthusiasm but not entirely thought through!!!!

I love how despite using completely the same fabrics as for my jelly roll quilt it has such a different feel because of the larger blocks of fabric and lighter sash/binding.
Quilts by fabric&flowers
Quilts by fabric&flowers 

I thought you'd all be amused to see what happens when you're trying to take some pictures of a quilt and the Littlies suddenly realise what you're up to.....
Quilt by fabric&flowers
Quilt by fabric&flowers



...and my favourite shot: two Little Boys giggling their heads off whilst I'm snapping away!
Sending a Hug quilt by fabric&flowers


So, details...

Fabric::: October Skies: 56 x 6" squares, jelly roll strips and some cream fabric for sashing/backing
Pattern::: made up! Squares laid out in an 8x7 block, surrounded with a 2" sash and 2" squares for the border
Finished quilt::: 51" x 45"

And because I know that they sometimes read this I'm also sending a lot of heartfelt thanks to Mr f&f and his parents who occupied the Littlies whilst I was on my quilting mission, and stopped my pins, scissors and carefully laid out fabric from going too awry!

Do you ever send a hug to someone? Or maybe even get sent one? It's got me thinking about the opportunity of a Send a Hug swap......

S x

Todays sky ● glorious blue!

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