Carolina Lily and trapunto quilts

Three rows sewn together ( the ugly seams between blocks won't show through once batting layer is in place behind )

Top three rows

Just a reminder - here is the Quiltmania pattern photo of the original quilt :

The original was quilted with wreaths in each of the plain blocks, and cross hatching elsewhere. I'm thinking this might be enhanced with some trapunto in the wreaths. 

I have done a little trapunto in the past. Here is my small sample quilt made in a machine trapunto class a few years ago with Deborah Louie:

I wanted to practise more at the time, so I thought I'd try in a wall quilt. I was very keen on "blended" quilts then (where piecing blends together) but unfortunately all the work of the trapunto doesn't exactly stand out on a blended quilt! It just ... blends.

The blended quilt hanging in my bedroom

 Here are some photos of the quilt in better light that shows the trapunto quilted floral chains:

All that trapunto makes for a rather stiff board of a quilt - nothing cuddly about this one! But it is fine as a wall hanging.

The back of the quilt

That was machine trapunto. A good demonstration of this method is shown in Kathy Wylie's blog. It is a very different process to hand trapunto.

If I was to do machine trapunto on my Carolina Lily quilt I'd need do the first quilting/batting stage now, before the quilt is sandwiched together. Then I'd have to machine quilt all the wreaths again in the second quilting stage, once it was all sandwiched. Sounds like a lot of machine quilting..... ?

So I considered hand trapunto  - have never done this but think it looks lovely. I had a look at Tim Latimer's hand trapunto video - a great demo.  I might do this -  hand threading the yarn into the back of the quilt (on the wreaths) once the machine quilting is finished. The advantage is less time at the machine (which I don't enjoy much) and more time sitting with handwork (which I do enjoy much)! You can also control how much stuffing is used - I don't want it too stiff this time.

Ideally I would hand quilt the whole thing but my arthritis does not allow that. Hopefully it will cooperate with the trapunto yarn threading :)

Back to make more Carolina Lily blocks now.....

Sarah Morrell Quilt

Hi again,
My daughter has kindly created a new Blog Header (name and picture) for me as I was already tired of seeing my name up there - hehe. Coming up with a name was not easy - there are so many good ones out there already in use! Hopefully we have not stepped on any toes with this one...just wanted to keep it simple.

The picture is a photo of my version of Di Ford's beautiful pattern - the Morrell Quilt. For me this is the kind of quilt you do as a culmination of all skills honed over many years and I found it quite challenging. Hence the odd wobbly block and uneven quilting. But hey, as they say,  it is rustic and clearly home made, and I do love the design !

I bought the pattern on line and then worked out how to make it in a way that suited me (and my limited skills). Thanks to so many bloggers who shared their experiences with this quilt online. The "skills" that I used included:

• Foundation Paper Piecing by hand or machine  - a wonderfully useful technique for precise piecing. Thanks to great teaching in classes with Chris Jurd I have since found I can  apply this to other patterns.
• English Paper Piecing - am now in withdrawal if I don't do some of this every  week  every day
• Fussy cutting - ditto.
• Hand applique and Broderie perse - love doing them both.
• Machine quilting - that was a steep learning curve that started with classes with Deborah Louie, and still needs practise, practise, practise!

Here are one or two block close ups - some a bit distorted by the angle of the photos, sorry, as it is hanging on the wall in my family room ...