Starting Simon

This lovely book has been bedside reading for a while - Promenade in a Dutch Garden.  I just love the antique Dutch quilts and the lovely reproductions made by Petra Prins and An Moonen . 

"Simon" is my new quilt project from the book . It looks like the name was chosen because the original antique quilt (below) is in the collection of a man called Simon van Gijn. A good quilt name - Simon - short and sweet.

According to the book this is a very early patchwork coverlet from the Netherlands and is made from Indian chintz and printed European cottons - wonderful fabrics and wonderful colours! Hard to believe it was made in 1775-1800 as the colours don't look faded at all.

After a lot of close squinting at the fabrics on the book  photo I decided the quilt was exactly suited to make use of some treasures from The Stash - some India chintz, a few Smithsonians, some Dutch chintz remnants (from making my Burnt quilt), and a few other oldies: 

The other thing I love about this quilt is that I can make it with English Paper Piecing and applique - my two favourite techniques. Of course it could be hand or machine pieced other ways too - does not look like it is a difficult pattern (famous last words??).

Starting with the centre star I prepared the pattern with some copying and cut and paste. I also made foundation papers just for the centre rosette as it looks like a tricky centre point to piece. 

Not a good photo below but that is my lovely new Light Pad in action - ready to copy the pattern onto the back of the chintz background fabric: 

Below is the star getting needle turn appliqued (using back-basting prep):

11 inch square centre block

Here are some pictures showing the foundation piecing for the centre rosette. All done by hand as my machine is off on much-deserved holiday (service time). Once the two halves were stitched together I removed the backing paper and then appliqued it down onto the block.

I cut out a lot of triangles in thin card to use as 'papers' for the EPP Hourglass blocks. It was great fun cutting fabrics and covering papers and there will be a lot more of that to come. 

I have just won a lovely giveaway from Kyle at Timeless Reflections blog. One of the fabric fat quarters is in this picture -  perfect to use for this project - thanks so much Kyle!

So here is progress so far - the centre star and a row of Hourglass blocks. 

I do have another quilt that is ever so slowly progressing in the planning stages - no pattern for this one hence the slowness! You can't rush the research eh?

I am sure you won't recall the end of this post back in November 2012 .... when I showed a photo of starting planning a "future project" - a medallion quilt around a chintz panel. This was it in November: 

Bits and pieces of fabric, books, photocopies etc have been added as I got some inspiration. So now the design collection looks like this:

Things could be lost for ever and ever in that pile so I really must get a start on this one! 

And now for some cushions. What do you think of this for a starting intro-to-quilting-and-sewing project? I am teaching my good friend Angela how to do patchwork - big responsibility as I don't want to frighten her off. We started on these cushions. She's never done rotary cutting, measuring or piecing so it is right back to basics. We're both thrilled how well they turned out.  Next is a log cabin quilt...very large strips in  simple 18inch log cabin blocks. Wish me luck!