Blue mind

 "Blue mind is the mildly meditative state people fall into when they are near, in, under or on water."

87.5 inches square; batting 60% wool 40% polyester; fat quarters & second-hand fabrics; Moda 'Aviary' wide backing

I'm lucky enough to live close to the ocean, and every morning I can walk my dog on any one of half a dozen beaches that are part of the Eurobodalla Shire on the east coast of NSW, Australia.  I get to enjoy the ocean every day, and it really does calm my mind.

So I decided to name my very first 20-year-old quilt top 'Blue Mind' instead of its original title of 'Moody Blues'.  I've blogged about the history of this quilt here.  The emotions I was feeling at that time of my life aren't with me any more.  I came to terms with what happened many years ago, and I had to rename the quilt in my mind, too.

The quilt is totally improv.  I had very little spare cash, no access to the Internet, a couple of library books, and an old Singer sewing machine.  I just bought fat quarters in shades of blue whenever I had a spare $5, and spent evenings after work making a pile of four patch units.  Then I cut some two patch units in half, sewed those strips to the outside of the four parches, and sewed smaller patches onto each corner.  That made up the strange sized blue blocks.  I didn't understand colour value, or contrast, and just sewed quite randomly.

Not enough contrast, but hey, it's a moody blue block!

The white sashing is also fat quarters, which means that some of it had to be pieced.

Because I didn't have any yardage, and because I was short of cash, I hunted down fabrics at garage sales, and bought those for the blue sashings and borders, including a white damask table cloth which I used to make the outer border.  For this I just sewed one long strip down each side of the outer blue border, then cut squares of blue and white and joined these together before sewing to the white border, and finally I sewed on the outer white border.  You can see how I just fixed and fiddled with the chequerboard to make it kind of fit!

This is only the third quilt that I have ever sent to the long-armer, but the reason why it waited 20 years to be quilted, is because I was afraid to wrestle the king size monster through my domestic sewing machine.  I had to sew a zig-zag around the edge of the quilt top before it went to the long-armer because the damask was fraying badly after being knocked around in drawers and cupboards for so long.

The backing is a wide Moda fabric called 'Aviary'.  I think it is one of the most expensive pieces of fabric that I have ever bought (I had to put it on my credit card, something I have never done since) and I kept the top and backing together all that time.

I love how Robyn quilted the top with a swirly, all-over design in mid grey.  In fact I love this quilt full stop.

Beautiful swirly quilting that adds a lovely texture

Way too late one night I squared up the quilt, and because of the fragile fabric in the outer border, I decided to make a 3 inch wide binding rather than my usual 2.5 inches.

Oh woe is me!

Having machine sewed the binding to the top, I was hand stitching the binding down on the back, when half way down the second side I discovered that my zig-zag edge had frayed even further, and only the batting was showing, and this got steadily worse on each of the two sides left to bind.  

What to do?  I put it away and went to bed.  In the cool light of dawn, I unpicked all the hand stitching, but I was very reluctant to unpick the machine stitching on that oh-so-fragile outer border, and I didn't want to cut into the border any further.

I had to come up with an inventive way to just get this binding done!

15 hours of work later, I am thrilled with my fix.  It has added weight to the quilt and it drapes beautifully on the bed. I am very thankful that I had so much of the wide backing from Moda left over to do the job.  

My double binding fix

I like it so much, that I would consider making this binding again for a bed quilt and perhaps use contrasting fabrics.  However, that doubles the amount of fabric needed for binding. It's the weight of the binding, and the added durability, that I like.  I'm going to post a separate blog about how I came up with this fix, and step by step instructions for anyone else interested in learning how I did it.

My new Janome MC6650 sewing machine stitched through 7 layers of fabric, plus the batting, without a walking foot, without a hitch.  Just look at those gorgeous interlocking straight stitches.  My Bernina would never have been able to do this.

Very pleased with how the corners worked out

I'm so glad my quilt is finished, and I'm looking forward to snuggling under Blue Mind just as soon as our hot nights are over.  There is just enough of the leafy blue sashing fabric (of which there was not enough to complete the sashing in the traditional way, hence the first dark blue border) to make pillowslips to match the quilt.  I'm thinking white, quilted, with a large leafy blue sash on the edge of the pillowslip.

Another shot of the double binding fix on the front

Hand sewn on the back

Winter is coming, and for now Swedish Death Cleaning is in full swing, so it is back to packing!

Linking (with many thanks to hosts) to these parties where we can all share our work/passion, and comment on other people's achievements:

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

Finished (or not) Fridays

Beauty Pageant