One of the quilts I've selected for Quiltfest this is is 'Golden Fifties', the golden wedding anniversary quilt I made for mum & dad. I'm not sure if it has ever been exhibited before (perhaps at Gresford Craft Group's annual show?) The photo above shows it as work in progress, with the quilt shown sideways.
The random block is Katherine Guerrier's 'colour block', a quick and easy improvised block, which I learned at a Quilters' Guild workshop with her over ten years ago. Click here for a link to Katherine's workshop page. I wanted a design that was reminiscent of 1950s design and would look good with the 1960s oak bedhead and other modernist furniture, rather than going for a more traditional (1930s) Double Wedding ring design.
There are a lot of metallic gold prints in the quilt, but it's good to include some colour as well - gold and white wouldn't have shown up the piecing very well. So I introduced browns, rusts etc. as background colours. There's even a novelty print of chocolates! The improvisational strips cut up and inserted into the large section of one of Makower's Klimt-inspired prints was made from the leftovers from the 'colour blocks'.
The quilt top was machine quilted in two sections, each 72 x 36in. These were then cut into three triangles, the larger centre triangles flipped and swapped, before the whole quilt was sewn back together with sashing strips on both sides, quilt-as-you-go style. That made the quilting a lot easier - simple wavy lines on the plainer gold sections (a small scale print) and in straight lines zigzagging across the blocks.
I'll be posting more teasers of quilts we will be showing at Quiltfest over the next few weeks - keep checking the blog!
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