Forth Bridge EPP lap quilt is finished!

Phew! I've finally finished something else for this first quarter of Finish-A-Long 2013!

That's 2 out of 4 (Felix's Xmas jumper was the other), so 50% percent is not too shabby I guess.

If anyone has visited Leanne's blog for the FAL tutorial's this week, this quilt will be familiar to you from the Hand Quilting Tute that I posted there yesterday.
Thanks to all of you who left such lovely comments and feedback over there (and here!). I'm really pleased you found it useful.

I designed this EPP pattern as part of the Travellin' PicStitch blog hop that Katy and Laura were doing to tie in with their trip to Sewing Summit last year. The idea was that you chose a holiday photo or one of a local landmark, and fed it through one of those colour separation aps and then used that as a basis for an EPP project. You can read more about how I did this here.

I chose one of my husband's photos of the Forth Rail Bridge which I can see from the top of my field, and designed an EPP pattern inspired by the famous geometry of the bridge. However some people (that live with me) have suggested that they can't really see any sign of the Forth Bridge in the finished quilt top.
So to make things a little more obvious I decided to hand quilt part of the bridge in to the wide top borders. This involved drawing it by hand on to the quilt top which was really quite tricky. Luckily I was using my new best friend, the Frixion pen by Pilot, which disappears like magic with the touch of a hot iron.

Hopefully you can see the bridge emerging in this photo below (not the easiest thing to photograph!) even though it is a bit squashed by the width of the border.

It measure 38.5" by 32", which I am hoping is the right size for a wheelchair lap quilt for my old dad (89!). He is doing really well at the moment but gets tired out walking any distance. My sister and I like to take him away for mini breaks and have a trip to Whitby planned for early June (and believe me he will still need something to protect him from the North Sea gales even at that time of year!).

I've backed it with flannel (which glows ethereally in photos!) so it should be nice and cosy for him. It's the first time I have used flannel to back a quilt. I found it very easy to hand quilt.

I used perle cotton throughout in white, except for the blue inner border which is quilted in Gutermann's cotton (for the sake of the tute!).
A few people have asked me about a pattern for this design and it is on my long list. Hopefully I will get around to it sometime this year.

As usual I am really pleased with the outcome (I don't think I've ever made a quilt that I haven't been a little in love with once it's finished, I think it's down to all the work that went in to it), but it's earned rare praise indeed from my husband who said "Now, that's a proper quilt!".
Not really sure what he means by this and what is says about all my other quilts, but I'll gladly take it!

Finish-a-Long 2013

I didn't take part in this last year. Somehow I thought I didn't have that much to get finished. Well this year I have!

But I am going to try to be realistic as the FAL is divided into quarters which gives me only 3 months to tackle these.

So in this first post I am going to list just 4 projects to get finished.

1. First of all my ARRR8 Across the pond, around the bend quilt top needs quilting...

... it's a whopper! I really want to hand quilt it, but do I have enough man hours available? Anyway the first think to tackle will be the basting!

2. Then there's my African Flower Blanket...

... the oldest project on this list, started 2 and a half years ago. To be fair I have been treating this blanket as finished recently, it is often wrapped around me on the sofa and I don't really need to make it any bigger. But I do need to square off and finish the edges and sort out all those 'tails'.

3. The most recently started project, my Forth Bridge EPP top, made for the Travellin' Pic Sitch Blog Hop...

...featured in a very recent blog post, it's still waiting for inspiration. Well actually I have decided to make it into a wheelchair lap quilt for my dad. And Dolores had the great idea (why do I never think of this?) to add borders to get it to the right size. So that's what I'm going to do and then it needs quilting too.

4. Last of all the jumper I started knitting...

... for my son Felix. Much to our delight, he announced on New Year's Day that he would be coming home some time in February! We have not seen him since he went off travelling at the end of March. He is in South America at the moment so he'll be really needing this jumper when he gets back to Scotland! I've done the back and about a third of the front. This finish better go to the top of the list I think!

I'm really excited about taking part in the FAL this year, and am even sponsoring a prize! I already feel motivated to get finishing. What about you? Are you planning some finishing off soon?

Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop

Today I am taking part in my first blog hop!
Katy and Laura are now both on their way to the Sewing Summit in Salt lake City from opposite ends of the world. They are also planning a 'Thelma and Louise style' Road Trip (at least I hope that's the style they are planning!) and decided that EPPing would be the best way to pass the time, and wouldn't it be great to use the amazing sites and landscapes they are going to see as inspiration for their sewing?
What a great idea! Here's some words from the girls...

This post is part of the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop.  From 1st October - 30th November we are hopping all over the world EPP-ing in some fantastic locations.  Check out the full list here and be sure to check out the other participants. On 30th November it's over to you to link up for a chance to win these fabulous prizes! Sponsored by Paperpieces.com, FabricwormPink Castle Fabrics ,  Marmalade Fabrics, the Fat Quarter Shop, WantItNeedItQuilt, and Aurifil.

Full details for competition entry can be found here.

Now I've been reading some of the other (fabulous) posts and everyone has been using photos from really exotic locations, such as Sarah Fielke's African trip, which she posted about yesterday.

But, as a hard working business owner in very straightened financial times, I can't remember the last time I had an exotic holiday. However, I do happen to live right beside one of the most famous, iconic bridges in the world. The Forth Rail Bridge.

And my husband, Jonathan Avery, is a very talented photgrapher who has taken photos of the bridge many times. So let's just pretend that I am on a holiday to Scotland and have a look at all the amazing holiday snaps my DH took!

I remember the craze for using the colour palette software that swept through blogland a few months back. I never got a chance to join in then so I've had lots of fun trying out some of Jonathan's photos here.

One of the problems is that the default colour in Scotland is generally grey. And though the bridge itself is painted a lovely red shade, that can often be overwhelmed by the greyness in the landscape and sky.

So to come up with some interesting patchwork I had to pick photos with a bit of colour in, like this gorgeous sunset.

Of course the other reason I chose the Forth Bridge was all the wonderful geometry in it's design. I wanted to have a go at designing my own EPP pattern and realised I could incorporate some of the diamond and triangle shapes from this incredible feat of engineering. I mean it really is an amazing structure and very beautiful - I do hope you agree! I never get fed up of seeing it.

Eventually I chose the photo with the vibrant reds and blues and the Saltire, as it's design echoed the shape in the centre of each bridge 'diamond'. 

I had been using the Degraeve software for all the photos above, but Jonathan found this other one that gave even more colours, called Photocopa.

Here's the fabrics I picked out from my stash.

I then spent a couple of very happy hours playing around with shapes and colours. 

I used this graph paper from Incompetech.

It was much harder than I thought to incorporate geometry from the bridge in to a pleasing design. But in the end I decided on the pattern above which once made up with fabric looks like this...

The red and grey in the middle is meant to represent the centre's of the bridges's diamonds, and this way up...

... It looks a bit like the bridge itself and you get the Saltire too. 

I am not sure what this will become but I will keep going until more of the design emerges.

there will be a linky party for the Blog Hop on 30th November (when everyone get's a chance to win amazing prizes!) so I hope to have something finished (or ongoing if it looks like it might be a quilt!) by then.

I do hope you can all see a little bit of the Forth Bridge in my pattern (Jonathan's not sure!) and have enjoyed this Travellin' Picstitch ramble. Don't forget to check out all the other posts here (there is one every day for 2 whole months!), and it's over to Kirsty at you had me at bonjour tomorrow!