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My First Country Cross Stitch Quilt – A light at the end of the tunnel.

Posted on by Kristen Gawronski

Hi Everyone

Before I go any further, I need to say I really big thank you to everyone who responded to my last couple of posts about the top 10 things I’m crushing on and the 5 things I’m yet to perfect (and things I may never!). Also, a very big hello and thank you to new and existing subscribers and followers. The responses I have received via the likes, views, new and existing readers has been something I was not expecting and all of you have helped to reassure me that I’m on the right track with the topics I’m writing about. Thank you!

Cross stitch quilt progress…

It’s been a long time coming for me to dedicate another post to my quilt. I’ve talked a little about the progress of my quilt in earlier posts, but it’s been a splash here and there.

Last weekend I was really excited about finally finishing the binding on the bottom of the quilt. For a number of weeks, I had been putting off bringing out the quilt to try and complete that part of the quilt. Initially I had wanted to have it all symmetrical, but it just wasn’t going to happen because of the way I had attached the back of the quilt to the front and how the other three sides had been attached. However, I’m happy with how I’ve finished it off now and the picture below was taken this morning and shows my current progress…

Quilt progress as of 2nd June 2019

Blue borders around the cross stitch pictures

In the above image, you may notice that some of the borders around the cross stitch pictures are looking a little thicker or symmetrical. A few months ago I had bought some more navy blue quilting fabric and I cut it into strips of about 2.5 centimetres (cm) to 3cm wide. For ages I was trying to figure out how I was going to attach the strips to borders and have them be neat and straighter than how they are at the moment. During one of my stitch ‘n’ bitch sessions, my friend reminded me about the special heat activated binding tape and that I already had some! Below are pictures of how I’ve used the tape.

Heat activated tape attached to the back of the blue fabric before I attached it to the quilt.
Mare and Foal – updated border with the heat activated tape.
Palamino with the heat activated tape.

Light at the end of the tunnel…

The good thing is that I have about 8 more borders to go! Internally I’m groaning because I have a lot more ironing to do. But it’s only 8 and if I motor along I will hopefully have it all sorted by the end of next weekend! What makes next weekend extra special, is that it’s a long weekend for many parts of Australia! We’ll be celebrating the Queen’s birthday (even though her actual birthday was earlier in the year) and for my boyfriend and I, we’ll be heading to the coast and/or celebrating my brother’s birthday!

The next question will be how to celebrate the completion of the quilt? What do you think I should do?

Until next time,

Happy stitching!

Related Posts:

To see how this quilt started out, check out my post from the 23rd February 2019.

Author:

I am an avid cross stitcher. I was first introduced to cross stitch when I was primary school age. Paused for while during my teens and then took it up again in my early/mid 20's and I haven't looked back. To mitigate the amount of time I'm sitting down stitching, I'm a regular member of the gym and I'm a runner. To keep me motivated, I participate in short to medium length fun runs. Which at times feel torturous, but I feel really good at the end of them! With these activities in mind, this blog is about the combination of my experiences with running and cross stitch and encouraging people to think differently about cross stitch - it's not just Grandma's who do this anymore!