Rhonda Bracey: At Random

When I took out fabrics for the Kaffe Fasset baby quilt, I realised I had quite a few bits and pieces of solid colours in various fabrics (including some pink linen!) that matched each other. So, spurred on by the improvisational technique I used for my Challenge piece for 2015, I hunted out more, including small, awkward pieces from my stash boxes and started putting them together.

Much sewing, slashing, rejoining etc. later, and I had the improv blocks for this quilt. I added a border of the same aqua blue fabric from the Kaffe baby quilt, and a maroon and aqua binding. The backing fabric wasn’t quite big enough so I used a fat quarter (also slashed and rejoined) to join the backing fabric. Then I quilted it in an all-over spiral to counteract the geometric lines of the blocks, with a wave pattern in the border.

The end result is a small lap quilt, a large crib quilt, or a floor quilt for a baby to play on.

Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top thread: Robison-Anton ‘Mint Julep’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2310)
• Bobbin: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound (white)

I received a bundle of 5″ charm squares as a gift (Kaffe Fasset fabrics from the Rowan Spring 2014 collection by Westminster). I’m not a fan of charm square packs as I never know what to do with them. So I laid these out and auditioned some fabrics as sashing strips, deciding on a clear aqua blue cotton I’ve had for decades. I used an offset arrangement, whereby I added sashing strips to only two adjoining sides of each charm square, then arranged them so they looked wonky.

I quilted this quilt with a square meander, and added a mixed fabric binding using offcuts from the aqua fabric and some coordinating maroon fabric (also from my decades-old stash). The backing was also fabric from my stash.

The end result is a small lap quilt, a large crib quilt, or a floor quilt for a baby to play on. And I’m no longer scared of charm packs 😉

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top thread: Robison-Anton ‘Mint Julep’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2310)
• Bobbin: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound (white)