Thursday 24 June 2010

Traditional quilts

I almost never make anything that would qualify as a traditional quilt but while the builders were here I needed to be around the house a lot of the time.  It seemed a good opportunity to complete the top of Zelah's quilt and I am glad to say I have done it.   It is a Katherine Guerrier design from Patchwork and Quilting magazine in 2009.  The house and tree blocks were relatively easy but she then said to use old leftover blocks as fillers.  Some of us don't have any of those!  So I had to set to and make some.  It seemed to take forever.  The arrangement is what makes the quilt individual but I found it very time-consuming.


Zelah is going to have a cabin bed which I know has a full size mattress but people tell me you can't tuck things in.  So the quilt is a bit narrower than a full size single.  I originally had four rows to be joined horizontally but as the bottom row had slipped when I stitched it on, I unpicked it and then realised that the whole thing was too long!  So I took it apart and put the small blocks at the top (you can just see them at the top of the photo below).  I think it needs an inner border and then something that will pull the millions of colours together, possible a Fossil Fern.  Fortunately I don't have a particular deadline so I think I may wait until the Festival of Quilts to buy the fabric for the borders and the backing.  Commercial fabric seems to have rocketed in price since I last bought any but I realised this is partly to do with the state of the pound. So here is the pieced top.


Then I turned my mind to the wedding present quilt.  Ashley very sensibly sent me three photos to show the colours she would like: one is a sunflower and she has said warm greens and yellows and I think there will be some blues.  I tried out a Churn Dash block from Cut Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen  http://www.stargazey.com/ which is an ideal book for those of us who don't like making accurate blocks.  I have used the book before, for a lap quilt for myself


and for the quilt I made as a wedding present for Jeremy's brother Alastair.  This one was butterflies which I made in batiks and it worked really well.


  I have decided the Churn Dash block is too wasteful of fabric.


You end up cutting off largish pieces at each step and although these could all go for use in other projects I think I will try out a couple of the star patterns in the book and see if they are a bit more economical.  In the meantime I am back to journal quilts and have had another go at rust dyeing.

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