"Slow Stitch"

One of the first things I wrote about for my new job was a short book review of “Slow Stitch” by Claire Wellesley-Smith, which I had bought for myself a few months ago and really enjoyed.

While putting into written words what I had liked about the book I also found an idea for a stack of fabric swatches which I had been hoarding for several years. 

These are swatches for men’s suits which I had been given by a men’s tailor, wonderful woollen fabrics, each approximately 5 x 6 inches in size. They have been waiting in my shelf since I received them, and I had repeatedly tried to figure out how to best put them to use. They could have been turned into a blanket, and perhaps that would have done them justice well enough, but it would have meant to eliminate the gorgeous zigzag edges which all of them have on three of the four sides.

So besides packing the quilts I also started putting swatches to the background, arranging them, and tacking them to get rid of the pins. 

Haven't figured out yet what I am going to do about the zigzag sides and the one non-zigzag side on each of them, which is always on one of the short sides. Right now they're arranged so that not all of them are in the same orientation. Should I do some special stitching there? Or should I be lavish and invest into a pair of zigzag scissors?

Of course, being the kind of person I am, whose scrap quilt projects tend to be with very little pieces for rather large quilts, my current aim of doing a piece this large in ‘slow stitch mode’ is a bit on the ambitious side. 

And I still have to finally decide which threads I am actually going to use, although I have an idea already.

Don’t think I will be stitching this on the train, but there should be opportunity to do some stitching while attending the two exhibitions I will be with.