Playing around with 'Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks'

Tonight was the monthly meeting for Wrexham Quilting Circle, at the Memorial Hall, Gresford. As well as the latest contribution to our 'block of the month' members' series (Attic Windows tonight), there were a lot of interesting things at the show & tell. You may be able to see some of them at our exhibition in Gresford next month.

Pat Morris made the colourful reinterpretation of the table runner from my 'Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks' book, shown above. This is the original -


Pat collects Poole pottery and an earlier tablerunner, where she combined both the colours and patterns of Poole in an original design, was included in my 'Compendium of Quilting Techniques' ('200 Quilting Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets' outside the UK).


She altered the way some of the block elements were represented - here, the block elements are simplified into a new pattern. The appliques are fused, rather than needleturned, with decorative machine blanket stitch edging each piece.


Pat also used the hand quilted big stitch stippling from her earlier table runner for a detail on the new one - in the centre of the bamboo leaf design. Because many of the taupe blocks more or less show the fabrics as light, medium and dark values, it isn't difficult to give them a colourful interpretation which reflects a more individual colour palette.


I also used tonight as a good opportunity to play around with arranging some more blocks from the taupes book for another sampler quilt. Do you think it looks OK like this? There will be a border and probably narrow sashing between blocks. The tree fabric will be continued as the border all round the quilt, with the sashing continuing into an interlocked Chinese frame design. I used a similar arrangement for the 'Treasure' blocks sampler in 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match', although there I dropped alternate block columns haflway. With 23 blocks to use up, lining up the blocks on this grid seems the best way to arrange them.


The background fabric, with a gorgeous all over tree pattern, is by Daiwabo. I already used it for some of the blocks in the book (see below). However, it looked like the perfect fabric for background and borders for another sampler quilt, this time using the blue/brown blocks from the book. Not sure when I'll get a chance to quilt it!