You know me and a good sew along.... so when the Cariad Modern Quilt Guild organised a Plaidish Quilt sew along, I got drawn in! But it's been a brilliant decision and made a massive difference to lock-down for me!
The Plaidish Quilt pattern is by Kitchen Table Quilting and is all squares and rectangles. The hardest part is selecting your fabrics and sorting them into lights, mediums and darks - if you get that right, you get the plaidish look!
Using a black and white filter on your camera is a really good way of checking the values of your fabrics - There were some fabrics I had originally picked out which really didn't work once I'd done this check... and even once I'd got to this point, I was worried that there wasn't enough contrast between my mediums and lights! I used only fabrics from my stash - purples, pinks, aquas, peaches and low volume. It was a lot of cutting, but once you've got that out of the way, the construction is split into three types of blocks and chain piecing is the way to go.
Everyone uses their kids as pattern weights, right? I backed my quilt with a purple duvet cover (courtesy of a random website) and quilted it all over in a stipple using a light purple thread. And the end results: I love this quilt - it's simple, striking and big!
But the best thing about this quilt is the community. The quilt-along ran over 5-6 weeks starting back in April and Cariad MQG organized Saturday sewing Zoom calls - and even though the quilt-along is over, those Saturday calls are still going. At the start I knew a few of the members from the Sewing Shindig weekend Retreat I've been on a couple of times, but now I know them a lot better and I love my Saturdays with them - it's truly been a highlight of lockdown!
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