The ninepatch borders for this patchwork were finished before I went to Australia in March, but this is the first day I've done any machining since then (putting the binding on one of my Quilts UK entries mainly). One of the quirkier fabrics in the original, in the V & A's collection and one of the quilts included in their exhibition last year, is the leopard skin print (1830s?) used for the cornerstones in the last pieced border. The original is below - this is the second ninepatch border of course. The V & A's quilt is about 2.5m square, bigger than mine.
I found my smaller scale leopard skin print at Maleny Magic Patchwork in Queensland. Although I didn't have the rest of the quilt with me to audition the fabric, it looked like the colours would work. It also didn't look too realistic and had something of the look of the original, other than being a much smaller scale.
My quilt won't have as many borders as the V & A original. In order to make the patchwork economically from charm packs and jelly rolls, a lot of the patchwork units were resized for these cuts. I don't know the exact sizes of the original, but it means that the flying geese borders towards the middle are larger than those on the V & A's quilt, making the centre a bit bigger. If I added the same number of borders, my finished quilt would be around 120in square. So I am going to stop adding borders in the corect sequence after the first ninepatch border (inside the dark frame in the original and to have a dark frame either side in my version). I am tempted to add a second flying geese border though, same size as my first one, but making it with lots of different fabrics, rather than just two. It won't have the red zigzag border.
So, does the smaller scale leopard skin print work here? I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps I should keep it for 4in cornerstones on the flying geese border.
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