Reader's Quilts - Time & Again (variation) and Kimono

Both these sets of photos arrived within a day of each other, although I'll start with Norma Scothern's quilts, because she started writing her note to me back in January! I met her at the Festival of Quilts. She has made two versions of 'Time and Again' and writes of the one shown above -

'This was the first quilt - entered at the Loch Lomond Show - with attached note! Heavily hand quilted in white cottons, a Japanese pattern.


I can only guess the 'never again' part referred to the handquilting, because Norma did make the quilt again - her second version is shown below. She used the larger block size option for both.

'This one was made with eight fat quarters - in a range of fabric - quilted with thick white coton a broder'.


If you know the original version of Time and Again well, you'll know that the square blocks are made using the part sewn seam method, so each rectangle surrounding the central square is the same. Norma redrafted the design so she could piece the blocks using a different method - this is her sketch -


The original quilt is assembled in rows side to side, not columns. While Norma's method is interesting and has worked for her, you would need to take a lot of care to line up the 'square blocks' in this design, as it would be quite easy for the strips to be shunted slightly out of position - in the original version, the row construction stops this happening. The colour schemes she has used are just gorgeous and really make the quilts glow. Thanks very much for the photos and the sketch!

The second quilt is the first reader version of my 'Kimono' quilt from 'Japanese Quilt Inspirations'. Heather Smith has made this for her son's girlfriend (lucky thing!)


As this is the first time I've seen a reader's interpretation of this quilt, it's lovely that Heather has made it in quite a different colourway from the original - all those warm browns, rusts, ochres and reds, with just little hints of blue, give the quilt an autumnal feeling. She has also simplified the sashing, leaving out the woven effect (which doesn't show unless the fabric is a stripe or an ombre). Once again, thanks very much for the photos!