Chevron? Where?

Oops I didn't mean to disappear for quite so long. Nothing much has changed on the home front, still hoping to sell the house soon, and occasionally I've found the time to do a little bit of sewing, sometimes I have the time but it's the last thing I feel like doing. Anyway, I have a finish, and I'm just going to come out with it. This is not my finest quilting hour. In the interest of keeping it very real on this blog and despite the fact that I would like everyone to think I'm perfect, bwah ha ha haaaaaaa, it's not all plain sailing here.

Many months ago I saw a wonderful quilt that was designed and made by Kirsty from You Had Me At Bonjour (don't you just love that blog name, it's perfect). I love Kirsty's quilt too, Modern Chevron, and thought it would be nice to try and make it in masculine colours.

I chose my fabric, remember these?  Hope Valley, Hometown and various grey solids.


I started cutting and cutting, and cutting some more and laid it out on the "design bed" and thought hmmmmmmmm.  I realised that the value contrast between the greys and the green/blues was not quite at all strong enough.  I soldiered on. Mainly because my stash is already taking over my house and I didn't want to buy any more fabric. Ah, who am I kidding, I love buying more fabric, but I wanted to finish it and didn't want to go in search of more greys, and really, my stash is getting out of control.

It looked ok when I first started sewing the rows,
but by the time it was all sewn together arrgh, where's the pattern?

I hoped the quilting would help differentiate between the grey and the green/blues. It might have if I had chosen to quilt it differently.

When starting the quilting I didn't think about the difference in width at the diagonal sections, that would have been helpful if I'd thought about that. I could have unpicked the quilting. I didn't. The quilting is pretty bad,  especially in the diagonal sections, but it could be worse.

In this section below, the right hand diagonal is not too bad but the left hand side has puckered quite a bit.

Here's the back, a Hometown print and a pieced strip of scraps.




The binding is Pure by Sweetwater.

I'm chalking this up to experience........in what not to do.  I haven't done Kirsty's pattern justice, but I do think it does make a very good masculine quilt. It's a pity the chevron pattern doesn't show up so well, but I do love the pattern and I suppose, to put a positive spin on it, it is interesting that the pattern is not obvious at first, but it kind of sneaks up on you, so I'm going to call it The Disappearing Chevron.


I recommend Kirsty's great design, she does a great tute, but remember to use high value contrast if you want it to look as fabulous as Kirsty's.