Pineapple Farm

Almost finished, with just the binding left to do. I started this quilt during lockdown, which is why I chose rainbow colours for my pineapples. Each pineapple block consists of 40+ pieces and in this picnic blanket quilt there are 40 pineapples. From making my fabric choices to cutting out, sorting and sewing together again, each block took around 4 hours to complete.

With so many small pieces to join I used scrabble letters to keep my stacks in order, which worked well for me.

I hadn't considered the final layout of the blocks until all 42 were completed whereupon I sat with my daughter Rachel and played with a range of layouts (its surprisingly hard to choose 😁) but both settled on this one as 'the right one'.

The final stages are always the hardest, only because you have to deal with the increasing bulk as the quilt grows and takes shape but I got there.

The quilt was left in the capable hands of Andrew at White Orchid Longarm quilting to sandwich the layers together - I didn't want to take the chance of quilting it myself and spoiling it at the last hurdle - he had free rein to choose an appropriate design to overlay the pineapples. I love to leave it to him to choose and I have not been disappointed yet with his choices. The design he chose was 'Oysters & Pearls' which is soft and subtle circles, and perfectly compliments the spikey, hard edges of the pineapple blocks.

The binding will be attached in the first instance by machine and then turned and finished by hand (my favourite bit).

It has been a fiddly quilt but I have enjoyed it (and certainly had the time) and it will be a colourful reminder of what we all went through during lockdown.

Did you have a 'lockdown' project?

Why not share?