"Dryslwyn" quilt top

60in square, made with the equivalent of one Jelly Roll plus the polka dot fabric.

The Jelly Roll was Moda "Collection for a Cause - Alliance". I removed the plain bright yellow and plain cream strip and substituted these with some charm squares from the same range and a few from another Moda range (pale blue fabrics).

The original quilt is in Jen Jones's collection, founder of the Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter, and is illustrated in Janet Rae's "Quilts of the British Isles". The strips in mine are slightly smaller than in the original and the prints include more paisleys compared to the floral cottons in the original. "Alliance" includes some patterned stripes very similar to some in the antique quilt. I tried to get a similar effect with the placement of colours and patterns, especially the red/pink and yellow pieces, but without making a facsimile.

The patchwork was incredibly satisfying to make. After sorting the fabrics into light and dark values, I cut and arranged pieces for each round as I went. This is a much more logical way to deal with a "scrap" pattern than cutting out all the pieces and then trying to sort them out. It also meant I was much less likely to loose any pieces along the way. There are 420 patterned strips and they are not all the same size - that's an illusion! - and 421 pieces of polka dot, including dozens of narrow strips between the patterned pieces. Patchworks like this, arranged in a 'frame' design from the centre outwards, include a lot of rotational and reflective symmetry in the arrangement of the patches and this subtle repetition is one of the things that appeals to me. There is so much of interest as you can't help start 'twinning' the patterns, playing Snap with fabrics.