Blogger´s Quilt Festival

 Hello and welcome everybody that has dropped by from Amy´s blog, welcome to all other visitors and thanks to Amy for once again hosting this fabulous event (and making me finish at least two quilts every year - it is a phantastic incentive!)
I had been planning and collecting fabrics for a red applecore quilt for ages. The template was bought many years ago, and for my summer vacation I set myself the challenge to finally make that quilt. A challenge it was, and I hated nearly every step of the way. I also learned an awful lot every step of the way, I hate to admit, and one fine day I might even attempt a second applecore quilt, then omitting all the mistakes I made the first time. The quilt is machine-pieced, and when the the top was nearly done, I actually started enjoying the process, having figured out my best way to do those seams. The quilting was done half by machine, with the feed dogs up, in spirals and using the distance-keeping thingy (lesson learned: that screw sometimes gets loose, thus reducing the distance between the sewing lines), half by hand, also doing spirals (the hand-quilting isn´t quite finished, actually, on the photos you can see the areas that will have to be quilted down). 

Even sewing on the binding wasn´t as easy as I had imagined since whenever I moved across a valley in the edge, the foot kind of slipped off the edge, thus leaving me with a seam allowance that was too narrow. So I had to go over most of the valleys twice. The backing is pieced from several pieces of hand-dyed green fabrics, an ancient rose print and an equally ancient apple print. All said, I´m still pleased with that little quilt because it made me move out of my comfort zone and I am also a bit proud because I didn´t give up on it although I often felt tempted to so so.
Thanks again for dropping by and enjoy the festival!