Tagged: quilts

Going forward; looking back


My beautiful pictureAs I said yesterday, it’s all change here.

I have to look at all as an opportunity, even if it is not something I would choose if I had different options.  Anyway the summer has been filled with custom creations, and the blanket from hell in particular gave me the option to watch lots of quilting videos and think about the direction I would like to travel in next.

For my birthday my son gave me some money and I bought some Kaffe Fasset shot solids for a wall hanging for myself which I’m working on at the moment.  It will be my own, modern interpretation of a garden quilt.

I spent quite a lot of time watching Eleanor Burns.  I love her zeal, and her back story, and the back stories to all those quilt.  I was able to pick up a 1929 copy of Ruth E Finley’s Old Patchwork Quilts and The Women Who Made Them, look on Abebooks if you are in the UK, as they wanted £65 on Amazon.  I got a couple of Eleanor’s books too and Christmas may well involve Bears in The Woods wall hangings.  I also bought Marsha Radtke’s A Baltimore Album.

Thinking about tradition made me look to our own quilting heritage here in the UK.  Did we have one? was it all borrowed?  I bought another book Quilts of the British Isles by Janet Rae.  It was an eye opener and I have been inspired by a number of the quilts, particularly the military quilts and am hoping to contact a local military tailor to see if I can have off cuts to make into a quilt perhaps for the Royal British Legion to auction.

At the back of the book is the a quilt, after the Glasgow School which I intend to use as the basis for a silk cot quilt.  I want to hand applique and hand quilt it  although I don’t intend to do needle turn applique – I thought a using the technique where you sew the pieces onto fuseable interfacing but using a silk gauze instead.  I ultimately would like to enter it into some competitions but when all this will ever happen, who’s to say?

Oh, and by the way, if you like the paintings on the last two posts they can be found over here.

UK Quilters – where to start


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We have a wonderful history of traditional quilting in the United Kingdom wonderful Welsh quilts, wholecloth quilts and paper pieced quilts.  Great information about these local traditions is held by the Guild of Quilters of the British Isles.  When I have some spare money, I will be joining.

If, like me, the idea of of all those little bits of paper and fabric and those hand turned seams is a bit intimidating you might take a look at American style quilting instead.

I must admit to trying to do the little hexagons when I was a child, and it may be that I do have a lot more patience at this ripe old age but somehow I doubt it.

I started using precuts (mostly by Moda as these are the most affordable here) as I was not confident with scissors and cutting out, the fact that all that was done for me was a real boon.

The Moda Bakeshop gives some great inspiration and projects are graded on difficulty and I have been very inspired by the tutorials I have watched by the Missouri Star Quilt Company and their video tutorials.  Jenny Doan has a wonderful way of making it seem simple and achievable.  It’s a great starting point.

I have made things I would never have imagined I could achieve and Free Motion Quilting has become something of a favourite after intially terrifying me.

I now belong to a wonderful group of quilters on Etsy, mostly from North America, all different and inspirational.  Please visit the team shop, not necessarily to buy but to be inspired by their talent and creativity