Repro quilts - medallion quilt centre panel

One of the difficulties in making your own version of many early nineteenth century quilts is finding something appropriate to use for the central medallion.  Quilters back then often used specially printed panels, rather like the 'cheater' panels and cushion panels sometimes made today, as the focal point of their quilt design.  Finding anything that substitutes for these adequately is a bit tricky, even though there are plenty of attractive and authentic reproduction fabrics around for the rest of the quilt.

The 'Sidmouth' quilt is in the Quilt Museum's collection.  I love the simple borders of squares and X patches - ideal for using 5in charm square prints - and the touches of cheddar yellow, madder reds and icky overprinted greens make it a very cheerful quilt. Click here to see the quilt in more detail in the Museum's online collections.  I started making notes for a repro of this quilt a few days ago, but got stuck for the centre panel.

After looking online to see if there was anything suitable (just checking out the usual fabric stores online), I more or less decided that the best I could do would be to use one of the two remaining reprints of the Fife coverlet centre in my stash.  I think these were printed over a decade ago and they are definitely in short supply now.  They are also much smaller than I really wanted.  The Fife coverlet is in the Quilt Museum's online collection resource - click here.  I've already used this panel for the centre of my V & A checkerboard repro quilt (shown on the cutting mat with the central patchwork arranged) and I didn't really want to use it again.

 

This afternoon, the Quilt Museum posted on Facebook - it turns out that they have reprinted the Sidmouth quilt centre as a panel and it is available in their online shop!  Here it is.  I ordered one straight away.  Mine will become the centre of a modern repro of the Sidmouth quilt.

 

What an amazing coincidence! I hope some more repro panels are in the pipeline.  I would love some yardage of the Circles quilt too...

V & A brown and red medallion quilt

After a break of nearly two years on this project, when the patchwork and fabrics were usually several hundred miles apart, it's about time I got the patchwork finished. The centre of my quilt is on the left and the original is on the right.  I resized some elements to make better use of modern precuts, like 5in charm squares, so the Flying Geese border is larger and has eleven rather than fourteen units on each side.  I used squares on point rather than the double diamonds in the fifth border too and added a solid 1in border inside the first nine patch on point border.

Initially, I wasn't going to make it as large as the original quilt at the V & A - 255 x 259cm (100 x 102in).  Now it looks like it is going to end up as my first king size bed quilt :-).  Once the second solid border is added, the quilt will measure 72in and 87 after the red zigzag border.  Resizing the second Flying Geese border to the same size as the first one (4in deep) adds another 8in, to 95in, and a second nine patch on point border adds 17in, making the total 112in before adding a plain outer border frame.  That's 4in wider than most wide quilt backings but not as wide as a king size wadding, so I won't need to seam that.

  

Both Flying Geese borders are made from only two fabrics in the original quilt, but I had already added more variety to the first one (see first photo), keeping the colours consistent but making each unit in a different fabric combination.  Maybe the second border should be all the same two fabrics?  I'm keeping to just two fabrics for the red zigzags.

Weather and Spring bookings

The wintry weather, the snow and high winds we've been having in the UK since Monday, has wreaked havoc with my talks schedule this week.  I've had to cancel two bookings - at the Glasgow Gathering of Quilters on Tuesday night and today, with Poppydown Quilters near Wootton Bassett - because I just couldn't get there.  After World Textile Day in Llanidloes last Saturday, we came back up to Kettins on Monday, driving in a blizzard most of the way up from the Scottish border (about half the journey), but there was too much snow for me to get out of the village by late afternoon on Tuesday.  It's not just getting there, it's the risk of getting stuck on the way home.  I've been a bit more cautious about snow since nearly getting stuck high up in the Yorkshire Wolds last year, after also coming close to being stranded near Bristol the year before.  So far, I haven't had to spend the night in a car that's rapidly getting buried in snow and I'd rather not start that kind of thing.

I started to wonder if I should have just stayed down in Brymbo, but that would have made little difference to the Poppydown quilt day, as the snow in Wrexham has been the worst spring snow for 30 years. It can get very deep there - I can recall 4 ft snow drifts against the back of my house in Wales, and that's probably what it's like now!  Yesterday, I was hearing from friends via Facebook and e mail that the main roads were closed due to abandoned cars and jacknifed lorries.  I hope this snow doesn't last much longer!  The photo below was taken in Brymbo a couple of years ago - the snow levels are light by the current standards.

Since the UK seems to be getting a Winter that lasts 6 months these days, I'm wondering if I should stop taking bookings further afield during early Spring as well as January and February...!  I think we may have to invest in a second 4WD to cope with the weather.

World Textile Day, Llanidloes - photos

Bob sent me a couple of photos he took at World Textile Day in Llanidloes last Saturday - Glyn larking about behind the sales table and some of the Yuza Sashiko and Reiko Domon's quilts, which fitted with this year's theme 'The people behind the cloth'.  There will be more photos to come on the World Textile Day website - see the link in the sidebar.  Our next WTD outing will be at Bridge of Alan, Stirling, on Saturday 22nd June.

Pi Day

Apparently, it's 'National Pi Day' in the USA - 3.14, March 14th (yes, it makes more sense the way the Americans write the date).  I like circles in my quilts, so here's a few quilts and blocks for today's eye candy.

There were a LOT of circles as blocks in 'Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match' and 'Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks'.

 

 

There's a few other quilts where the circle is used as the main motif -

Maru, with and without quilting

Quilting makes a difference to the overall appearance of patchwork. I machine quilted 'Maru' starting with the inner circle and echo quilted working outwards at 5/8in intervals, using the walking foot, in a dark blue thread.  This meant I only needed to mark the first circle.  The radiating lines inside this circle were marked with strips of masking tape and quilted with a shaded thread - cream through to orange.  The block is the 'Japanese Circles and Squares' workshop, with the blues random and the central circle all from the same fabric (or nearly all!)

 

 

Here's the same areas before quilting -

 

 

 

Region 16 day last Saturday

I was the morning speaker at Region 16's Regional Day in Perth last Saturday, with 'My Japanese Quilt Inspirations'.  We had a great day - regional days are always a lot of fun - and the afternoon speaker was Gillian Travis, whose heavily embroidered pieces are so tactile.  Glyn did his second ever appearance in a show and tell with his 'Mission Impossible' quilt.

See what's happening in your Guild region by clicking on the map here.

Next Saturday is World Textile Day in Llanidloes - click the link on the right for the main WTD website.  Should be another great day out.

Garden Party quilt in Popular Patchwork

The pattern for 'Garden Party' is in the lates issue of 'Popular Patchwork' and should be in the shops now.  you can read more about the fabrics used in the quilt here.

I think the challenge may have been for the 2002 Wrexham Quilting Circle exhibition. Val Shields found some photos from that exhibition showing the other Split Nine Patch challenge quilts, and my 'Time and Again' quilt was included.  I made Time and Again for the 'Memory Lane - a social history in cloth' challenge at the National Quilt Championships at Ascot 2001 and I am sure I sent it to the show organisers before setting up day.  As the WQC exhibition falls the week before the NQC show, I am sure this must date the challenge photos to the following year.  So I started the quilt in 2001 and finished it in 2012!

Sashiko at Seattle Quilt Company

We had two sashiko workshops at Seattle Quilt Company, on Friday and Saturday.  I forgot my camera on Friday, so will post some pics of the Introduction to Shonai Sashiko workshop when the quilters send me some, and here are pics from the Sashiko Kinchaku Bag worskhop on Saturday.  They have a lovely workroom at the shop - plenty of space and well lit, so it was ideal for handstitching.  However, I think we'll be back to use to Gamill longarm machine sometime soon!