Whirlwind tour of finished projects

I've had a break from posting so here is a whirlwind tour of the projects I've finished while I've been away.

A Fimo cow with heart:

A 40 x 40cm musical cross stitch for a friend's birthday:

A crocheted anglerfish:

A crocheted mouse doorstop:

Crocheted seaweed brooch and grouper fish fridge magnet for my grandmother:

Mini bunting for Nicola Suckling's stall:

Crocheted owl blanket for my niece:

Crocheted whale pencil case for a secret santa present:

Soft ribbon alphabet blocks for a friend's little girl:

Hand sewn fox for a colleague obsessed with foxes:

Kitchen wall mosaic of a local landmark:

Pigs in mud cake for my husband's birthday:

Knitting and sewing iced biscuits:

I think that might be it. My aim now is to keep this blog updated!

Quilt border and basting

Having constructed the top of my guest book quilt a while ago, the process was interrupted by a house move and the premature birth of our first child.

Picking up where I left off, the quilt needed a border and then the layers needed basting together.

I cut strips of green fabric and pinned the parallel sides to the quilt, sewed them together and pressed the seams before sewing on the other parallel sides:

Here is the inside border with all seams sewn and pressed:

I then did the same for the outer border:

Here's what the top looks like with all the borders done:

I'm sure there are a few different ways to baste a quilt but I used the following method. Firstly I taped the backing fabric (right side down) to a flat surface. I do usually cut off the selvedge off but this piece of fabric was larger than the quilt design so I knew it would be trimmed off later:

Then the wadding was added on top before the completed quilt design. All the layers were pinned together using curved pins. It's best to work from the centre out towards the edges. 

Next step: sewing and then the final edging.