Linen Bricks

Do you ever see a fabric, and just know that it belongs with you?

I was wandering through the local Spotlight, and I saw these lovely linens.  All grey and textured and yummy.  And I don't know, maybe I was going through a neutral phase, but I couldn't resist.  They weren't even on sale!!! (Horrors!!!)

I knew that I wanted something simple to really keep that calm feeling that had drawn me in to start with.  I initially thought to do a trip around the world, but I was worried that the necessary unpicking would destroy the linen, so I shelved that idea.  Then I though I might do alternating rail fences, but when I started laying it out it wasn't speaking to me - it looked messy rather than inviting.  I think I ended up somewhere in the middle.  Is it a coin quilt?? Let's say it is!

I have previously read about quilting with linen, so I made sure to sew a generous seam, and in fact did a 1/4" AND a 1/2" seam on every piece.  This added to the time it took to piece this simple top, but I thought that given linen's proclivity to unravel it was worth the extra effort.

I had intended for this to live in my living room, but the more I worked on it, the more it seemed to say it belonged to my Father-in-Law.  Harrumph! I wanted those linens for me!! But the thing I truly believe in quilting is that you have to listen to the quilt, and this quilt belongs with Ed.

He's ridiculously tall (at least compared to my midget sized self) so I made sure to add a smidge extra to the top and bottom to give him extra length. That meant it ended up super long, but #ilikebigquiltsandicannotlie so I'm happy.  (fun story, I gave my mother in law a quilt last Christmas and she is  tiny little thing so her quilt is itsy bitsy.  she told me she keeps it in the tv room and often goes in and finds Ed in there tucked under it.  I love the mental picture of this giant of a man under her tiny pink floral blankie. but it's part of why I knew he needed one of his own)

I found this yummy backing on sale, which, while not originally what I had in mind, I feel will work really well for him.  In fact, I almost wish I'd bought more because I think it's a lovely calm backing that would work for lots of different tops.

Once I got to the point that I was ready to look at quilting this beauty, I discovered a couple of things I skimmed over  in the whole I-know-what-to-do-with-linen arrogance I had going a the start (ie I was working from memory rather than actually checking what I should be doing in advance).  I'm supposed to pre-wash linen.  Now I never prewash any of my fabric.  My theory is that this way everything shrinks at the same rate ;-), but apparently, linen is not like that and I should have washed it first.  I also probably needed to zigzag the edges (or use an overlocker) but it's too late now. And there was no way I was going back to try to do it to a finished top.

Given what I now know about quilting with linen (this is a really good overview if you are thinking of doing it yourself), I decided this baby needed some dense quilting.  Which is a little bit of a shame, as part of what is so lovely about this fabric is how soft and light it is. Nevertheless it needs to be held together somehow.  I gave it to the wonderful Leanne (@loveitquilitng) and she worked her magic.  We picked a pattern that had a lot of swirl to it to keep that waterfall effect.  It was still dense enough to hold it all together, and not so swirly that it became girly.  I absolutely love it.

I've bound it in a solid navy, that I think plays really well with all the colours in the top.  I even added a hand embroidered tag!  I'm bad at labelling my quilts. I really like to do it, but I never *quite* seem to get there, so this makes me happy.

Anyway, after several nights handstitching the binding down, I popped it under the Christmas tree for Ed to open up on Christmas morning. Now I'm waiting to hear if he's actually using it!!


E xx