Once all the blocks of Simply Blessed had been completed, it was time to get the blocks pieced together. This has been a 9 month BOM that I ordered online from Under the Mulberry Tree in Australia, and the pattern was designed by the Australian designer Rosalie Quinlan. This version is made with Tilda fabrics from the Summer fair collection, and beautiful muted tones, and the Cosmo variegated thread that is used for the hand embroidery compliments these colours perfectly...
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...once the blocks were stitched together, it was time for a quick photoshoot of the quilt top before I tackled the borders. The inner border was machined into place, then I made the pieced border. Strips of fabric were cut each month and by the time it was month 9, the strips were already prepared. I stitched these together in pairs, using a smaller than usual machine stitch, as they will be cross cut and I don't want these tiny seams to unravel! The pairs strips were all sewn in one direction, then as the pairs were stitched together this was done in the opposite direction to prevent the fabric from distorting...
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...it was important to press the seams well, all in the same direction, so the pieced set lay flat on the cutting board when it was time for the cross cutting. I used a Schmetz Microtex needle size 60 and a fine Mettler thread for the piecing. Some careful piecing, pressing, and cutting cutting ensured the accuracy of these pretty strips...
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...the side borders were stitched into place first, taking care not to stretch the edges of the pieced border. Once the top and bottom borders were also in place, on final press and it was time for the outer borders...
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...I joined all my border seams diagonally (I always do this unless I'm matching stripes, then I use a end-to-end seam) and unfortunately this meant that I was a bit short of enough fabric for the bottom border. After a frantic Google search, I found some here in the UK from "Stitch Craft Create" so a quick online order was placed for the extra fabric, and I ordered some binding fabric at the same time to save on P&P. Hopefully the express order will arrive soon, so that I can get the quilt top finished and share some more photographs with the border in place.
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