Wheat and Woods quilt finished

I started this one in July last year - all appliqued apart from joining the sections by machine. The aim was to design and stitch a quilt with lots of hand applique but with enough variety in technique to keep it interesting, and then to hand quilt it. 

About 80 inches square (2 m)

There were some challenging moments but I loved the process and the fabrics. I wanted to get some structure in there without actually doing any piecing. The repeated lattice of leaf and squares looks simple enough but required quite a bit of care. I was worried it might look more 'organic' than precise in placement but worked out fine in the end (see posts from August and September last year for more detail). In contrast, the random placement of the broderie perse (or tile applique) in the outer border was great fun to do and much more relaxing. I'd like to do more of that in a future quilt.

The binding is a fabric I've had in the stash - the ombre stripe seemed just right. 

The backing is also an old repro that's been in the stash - a large border stripe. I'd been 'saving' it for a border but not sure that time will ever come. So ...it's now a backing. 

It's been a long while since I updated my progress with my Sarah Fielke BOM (started January). The 12 inch blocks are getting more difficult - as you'd expect with a quilt that is a series of classes in different techniques. That's exactly why I signed up - to get more proficient in areas where I am deficient! While it is not strictly my style of quilt, it is a great source of practice and I am in awe of Sarah's sewing skills. She has stitched three of each block (using different colour ways) and that is quite something, what with the difficulty of some recent blocks. 

The foundation paper piecing has required maximum focus. Sarah was kind enough to provide an applique circle to cover the meeting of 16 points in this block - phew!

Another foundation pieced block

And an applique block - this was more my sort of thing! I used back basting prep and needle turn here. 

And a few made earlier that I've not yet posted ...

There are 24 of the 6" star blocks in the quilt and I've made a point of hand piecing those. That has improved my hand piecing no end. I'm still not able to perfectly 'eye ball' (as Jinny Beyer says) a scant 1/4 inch seam - but am getting there!

Here's my design wall so far - might not be the final layout. Should look better with the wide dog tooth border that goes around the outside - in red on cream?

It was warm enough yesterday to sit for a while and enjoy this little crabapple tree flowering in the garden. Glad I did because today it's blowing a gale and there may be no blossoms left on by tonight!

Hope your week is going well :)

Posies and Plaid

I've been slightly obsessed by this quilt at the moment. But the motto has to be "While inspired, grab the moment!". So all other projects have been collecting dust (along with the house). As quilters we've all been there haven't we?!

Just a reminder here's the inspiration for my design. 

from Jane Lury's Meanderings of a quilt collector

Thinking it would be efficient to divide this sort of quilt into sections for ease of construction, I sketched a small plan on graph paper, worked out the sizes of each section and cut pieces of background fabric to match. It will go together like a jigsaw of 19 block pieces. Hmm now where to start? The the fabrics in the centre and in the baskets may dictate the colour/fabric choices for my whole quilt, so I'm working on those first.

I'd selected this urn as my quilt centre and was going to just cut a rectangle like this and plonk it in the middle. But I think the green is too dark for the look I want here and would dominate the quilt. 

So I 've given the urn a lighter background by appliquing ( broderie perse) onto a lighter plaid fabric. 

A little cut out and reverse applique on the urn to remove the initials that were on the print. I'll ink something on there later - maybe a date, maybe my initials? 

Still not sure I love the irregular outline but will leave it for now till more quilt grows around it. 

So that's a start to the centre and gives me a 'look' to work around for the rest of the quilt plan. 

I sketched some preliminary applique designs. Then, using my lightpad, traced the design onto the back of the background fabric - ready for back basting and needleturn applique:

I made oodles of 1/4 inch bias (with a Clover bias maker ) and pinned a basket. This was fun weaving all the unders and overs! 

I've been mixing some modern fabrics in amongst my repros and love the look of them - including oldish Kaffe Fassett's and a Liberty print. You might be able to pick them out in the close up flower pictures?

That's one basket done. There will be three more to go on my quilt but I'm moving on to work on another section now...

The antique quilt has a plaid border (with a strong, dark stripe through it) around the central design - and I particularly like that feature. Well, I searched high and low in the stash, and found quite a few little green pieces to use elsewhere on the quilt, but none seem quite right for my border! How often does that happen?! 

But I did find a stripe repro that will suit me very well - phew - crisis averted! There was just enough in the piece to cut the four borders - double phew!

More bias was made - 3/8inch this time. 

I pressed the creases at quarter spacing along the border strip to help with placement of the bias vine. No design drawing is needed this way - you just decide the spacing of the peaks/troughs and press the creases at those points. It's quite easy to wiggle the bias into a curve and pin it in place. 

These borders will forever be associated with the Giro D'Italia (bike race) - I have been watching hours of recorded replays while stitching. Wonderful scenery makes it hard to beat the 'armchair touring' through the Netherlands and Italy!

It is almost farewell to Autumn in the garden. With a series of very windy days  the colourful leaves are disappearing fast! Hopefully the red and green King Parrots will still visit to brighten things up through winter :)

Wheat and Woods

My new quilt is progressing quite quickly. I only showed a snippet last post as I had to sort a few  design "issues" (grrr) that I had with it. Now there is more to show. Might be a long very long post...

Here is the broderie perse centre for the quilt - all cut from Tree of Life by Mary Koval - in brown. I searched for a solid that would match the broderie perse background and found Moda Bella solid in 'natural' is pretty close. I cut a tree from the brown fabric and then added extra pieces to get the look I wanted - as marked on the photo above. 

It was a bit of a mess at first auditioning the pieces - so hard to visualise at that stage!

Once the broderie perse was done I wanted to frame the tree in a relatively subtle way, keeping a floating look. There was much research in books and sketching ideas, then sketching again..

Some drafting of patterns...

Am I making it sound simple? well I didn't find it that way! Having to resort to my very patchy memory of primary school geometry, and using a compass, some string, a calculator and a protractor it took a day to produce this...

then some needle turn applique...

That's when I thought the name 'Wheat and Woods' might suit this project - and become a theme.

I wanted the centre to be set in a square on point so I folded and pressed the piece vertically and horizontally, and used my Adjustable Square to mark the square.  

So it became this...

Adding another wavy wheat border - ready to needle turn applique..

Now for something in the corners. I toyed with more broderie perse but couldn't get it to look how I wanted so decided on applique trees. I love the look in antique quilts where large-scale fabrics are cut up and used in small-scale piecing or applique. So that was the aim and I came up with a simplified tree pattern. It has leaf shapes I plan to use in the rest of the quilt.

Can you recognise the fabrics? It took quite some 'courage' to cut up chunks of these lovely large prints but they have languished in the stash so long. I love the look of them in the applique so am glad it is done. 

So now the centre looks like this - with four applique trees between wheat borders.

Last post I showed the photo below and left you to wonder "what the heck?"

That was some experimental prep for the strips of border that will come next. 

I want to surround the centre with a very wide border of small floating brown squares and scrappy leaves. This could be achieved quite precisely by careful piecing, but I want to applique ( because I am applique-addicted and very stubborn about it!). So I know the result will not be precise - my squares are going to be 'organic'  - and I am OK with that...just so you know! 

This is the basic pattern of leaves and squares that I came up with - to be repeated in rows.

Marking strips of background fabric with my pattern

Here are the fabrics I have pulled from the stash - to use for the leaves. They're all the fabrics I could find with movement (ombres and favourite eccentric prints) and others that seemed to suit in wheaty and woody colours.

Applique in progress - this is prep for back basting which is then needle turn appliqued to the background. 

Here is a strip completed - it is organic but still looks quite structured from a distance don't you think? 

Making more of these applique strips will keep me happily busy for a while.  Meanwhile I'm thinking of a last outer border to finish off the quilt...more to come on that. 

Hand quilting of my Ann Randoll is over half way now. I've removed most of the pins which makes it a lot easier to move around on the lap. 

In the hoop at the moment

It keeps me pretty warm on these cold winter evenings. Can you see me frantically stitching faster and faster to keep even warmer? The heating thermostat is kept lower and if that's a saving on power bills then it's a 'win/win'!