Green and brown batik wallhangings

These wallhangings were made early in 2010, as with most of my projects they were made with fat quarters that I've bought because I'd loved them, and not specifically with anything in mind. This almost always ends in lots of  frustration as I've never got enough for what I decide to use it for.

The original plan was to make a medium sized wallhanging for my lounge but there was'nt enough fabric, so I comprimised and made two small wallhangings for my alcoves instead.

The blocks are small log cabin ones made using my Marti Michell ruler.

When it came to the quilting, I  quilted in the ditch around the blocks and border, but I wanted to do free motion leaves and loops around the insides of the blocks.
I did practice quite a bit berfore I felt ready to quilt on the first one, but even then I really did'nt like the results, it just looks sloppy! it was quite difficult to go around the square blocks and keep the pattern I wanted.

I managed to find a stencil that would work better, so I marked up the quilt, again I practiced first, but I did find it a challenge to follow the lines, as this was the first time I had used a stencil.

Of the two quilts I prefer the one using the stencil design it looks a bit neater, but I did'nt rip out the stitches from the first one and redo it, because I like to see the stages of my improvements, so often in the past my quilts have ended up UFO's because I felt I had'nt done a good enough job on a part of it, or not had the confidence to try something new on a quilt.

So now I give myself permission to try new things even though I might not like the results, because I'm just not going to improve otherwise.