Cinnabar and Nutmeg

Sue Webb posted these photos of her version of Cinnabar and Nutmeg on the UKQU Facebook page today and said it was OK for me to copy them here. She wrote -

Finished piecing my largest ever quilt last night. It is the Susan Briscoe pattern from the supplement in Today's Quilter some time ago. It's not perfect but I am pleased as it's certainly the best I have done. Now to see about having it long arm quilted.

It looks pretty much perfect to me.  It will really suit longarm quilting.  The V&A quilt that inspired it doesn't have very fancy quilting, just a pattern of circles, which the online catalogue describes as 'wineglass' i.e. interlocked circles, but looks more like circles that just touch.  Unfortunately the one time I saw the V&A quilt was at the quilt exhibition there in 2010 and there was total visual overload with so many quilts, so remembering the exact details of the quilting pattern is really difficult.

 

I had to do a bit of a double take when I saw the photos!  Sue's quilt is above and mine is below. She has done an amazing job of tracking down similar fabrics.  Can't wait to see how she has it quilted.  it looks better on her bed than it would look on either of ours, as we don't have any beds without footboards.

 

Three sashiko classes and a quilt

I had three sashiko classes one after the other at the end of last week.  The first was the beginning of the Yuza and Shonai Sashiko course at Kaleidoscope near Glasgow.

The second was at The Peacock and the Tortoise in Perth - Introduction to Shonai Sashiko.

 

 This course introduces several hitomezashi (one stitch sashiko) patterns briefly.

Carol started making a sampler with yellow thread on brown, going for a retro look, and had made some cushion panels with her squares from our earlier workshop there.

The final class was at Edinburgh Patchwork, where we had the first session of the Yuza and Shonai Sashiko course, the same one we are doing at Kaleidoscope.

Here's a selection of the variations on rice stitch and other patterns that were made.

As well as the workshops, I got the 'Cinnabar and Nutmeg' frame quilt ready for Today's Quilter magazine.

It has now gone away for photography, so we can't use it at home for a while!  I want to add a lot more quilting when it comes back too.  It will be a very cosy quilt to use.

Working on this today...

I've been quilting like mad on this for a while now - and it is 'only' 98in square!  My quilt inspired by a patchwork I saw at the V & A in 2010 is nearing completion.  The pattern will be published in Today's Quilter magazine quite soon.  It has a name now - Cinnabar and Nutmeg.  Thanks to Katie Chaplin of Japan Crafts for suggesting Nutmeg (after her cat) and Glyn for coming up with 'cinnabar'.

Red and Brown medallion quilt - an update

I haven't abandoned my blog posts about my China trip, but I wanted to update you on the progress of my red and brown medallion quilt.  As you can see from my last post about it, I changed the cornerstones on the outer ninepatch border above.  I liked the print I used but the colourway was too light, so I was pleased to find exacly the same pattern in a slightly darker tan, rather than the original cream, colourway.

I have been dragging my heels on this one because of the size of the quilt.  As you can see in the photo above, it is already pretty big, and there are three more borders to add - a red zigzag, a second Flying Geese border and a final Nine Patch on point border.  I resized all the blocks inside the dark border (shown in the original below - click here to go to the V & A's website) to make good use of modern precuts - jelly rolls and charm squares.  I have made the outer Flying Geese and Nine Patch borders with the same size pieces as the centre, again to make best use of precuts.  The original is about 100in square.  With the red zigzag border, mine is going to end up 110in or thereabouts.

I've cut out the red zigzag border and assembled one of them, plus made my outer Flying Geese borders and all the outer Nine Patch border blocks (I haven't assembled the outer Ninepatch border yet).  If I add the red zigzag border, the quilt will come out a whopping 110in square. At this size, the Nine Patches in the outer border are all complete (no half Nine Patches like in the original). I can just about fit this onto my quilt frame for tacking. If I leave it off and shorten the outer Flying Geese and Nine Patch borders, it will finish at around 100in square, and have half Nine Patches at the end of each outer strip.

I am thinking I should leave off the red zigzags for various reasons.  It would make the quilt smaller and a bit more manageable.  If the quilt finishes at 110in, I don't even have a bed big enough I could use it on (although that is not really a consideration).  But now it is destined to be a magazine project, and the instructions will allow you to stop adding borders when the quilt is big enough.  So should I make it the full 110in square, i.e. super king size? How do you think it will look without the red zigzag border?  I have backing and wadding big enough for 110in and I can display a quilt this big at most quilt shows I attend (my quilt stand is 3m or 118 wide).

I have been pondering this for ages!  Now I need to finish this quickly, I have to decide.  Opinions please!

My Chinese blog posts will resume tomorrow.

Red and brown repro quilt - corners

It's time for some fabric decisions for the red and brown quilt before I can go any further with adding the borders.  I thought I had the perfect fabric for the cornerstones on the first nine patch border, but after a lot of looking at it, I think it is too light (Glyn does too).

Here's an image of the original inspiration for this quilt, for reference, plus a link to the info on the V & A's site (unfortunately the image resolution isn't very good).  We are comparing the first ninepatch border this time, not the outer one.

 

The fabric used for the cornerstones on the inner ninepatch border on the original is the same brown leafy fabric used as the background for the next border - the red zigzags on brown.  I'm using this brown swirl print for mine -

 

I don't think I have enough for the cornerstones as well, but I can always order another fat quarter.  On the other hand, my quilt has a lot more fabrics than the original, so do I need to repeat this one?  It is also used for some of the setting triangles in the outer nine patch border, where I will be using another print for all the triangles, slightly darker than this (to focus more on the centre, the fabrics on my quilt get slightly darker towards the outer edges).

This is a detail of the fabric.  I love the print and it was available in a darker shade, but I didn't buy any at the time and it isn't available now (it was from the 'Maison de Garance' range).  Glyn suggested replacing the cornerstones with something 'more interesting', perhaps repeating the four patches or pinwheels used as cornerstones in previous border rounds, but I would rather stick with a single square, as per the original quilt. Maybe repeating the swirl fabric is the way to go?

 

The cornerstones in the final border have been impossible to replicate.  There just isn't anything like that crazy faux fur spotty fabric out there!  Modern faux fur prints are too realistic and the scale of the spots tends to be too small.

 

These three, from Moda's Hope collection, are possibilities.  I have used the two with floral circles elsewhere in the quilt, to eke out the Maison de Garance range and stop the quilt being too reliant on one fabric collection.

   

The first two are perhaps too regular?  The third one, although a floral, seems to have echoes of the faux fur in the shape of the leaves. What do you think?

All the fabrics are from New Threads - Meg seems to have pretty much everything I need for this quilt!

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.