Brit Sewing Thursday Linky (7th November 2013)

Lots to share this week and I thought I'd start by showing you one of two mini quilts I made last Christmas and never got round to posting about here. It's a 23" square Lonestar made up of various scraps with a Kona cerise background.

I made a template (which you can download here) and assembled each 4 diamond "prong" of the star separately. Then I added the white sashing and then joined two prongs to create each quarter section before adding the background and joining all four quarters to make the quilt.

I have another different wall quilt from last Christmas which I'll show you next week.

Yesterday the voting was completed in the X Factor Pillow Swap over on Flickr, which means I can show you my entry which has been anonymous until now. I take part in a few swaps, but the X Factor one involves the least stress. You don't have to commit to it (just send a photo of your cushion to the organiser before the deadline if you want to take part) and the pillows are distributed according to the votes they get which means there is no worry about getting your partners tastes wrong.

The theme for this latest round was low volume. I bought most of the fabrics at the Festival Of Quilts, but got the green elephants from a scrap bag I bought from the Eternal Maker.

And finally,  a quilt-as-you-go log cabin block. I spent ages sitting on my sewing room floor unsuccessfully trying to pick fabrics for this and in the end I started the block with two and then added whatever fabric looked right as I went.

So I bet you are wondering what this block is for? Rather unglamourously it is destined to become part of a new dog bed!

I have been needing to make a dog bed cover for months and I kept wrestling with the fact that it is only a dog bed and I shouldn't spend too much time on it and therefore finding that I couldn't be bothered to spend any time on it!

So eventually I reasoned that if it gives me pleasure making it and pleasure to look at it when it is complete, does it matter if it's for the dogs?

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