Ruby Wedding Sampler

This is (finally) the sampler I made for my in-laws' Ruby Wedding anniversary this month. Taking tips from my samper quilt I severely restricted my palatte, using three shades of green, five shades of red/pink, mostly dark ruby reds, and two shades of gold. It was amazing how different combinations of the colours changed the appearance of both colour, eg, rose pink changed from quite wishy washey pastel to strong rose depending on the colour put with it.

I originally sewed the thing on double the stitch count, ie, two over two threads on the 28 count Linda fabric rather than one over one, but thought it looked clumsy and although doing it one over one needed to be done only in good light I was much happier with the result.

The pattern is taken from a disc I had but I altered the central panel to include the names, dates and a blackwork rose for love. Blackwork is a confusing term, it would originally have been done in black but it's the name of the technique not the thread, and of course I didn't have black in my palatte. I put the word Ruby in and used Kreinik braid to sew it, a nightmare to sew with but it looks good! There are also ruby red beads in the design.

Apologies for the photograph, I realised when trying to photograph the sampler that I should have done so before I got it framed. It was framed by a local man who did a lovely job with the thin red border and gold really bringing out the shades within the sampler, was very quick and cheap.

Festival of Quilts

As usual, the Festival of Quilts did not disappoint, both in terms of exhibitions and shopping. I took less photos than last year, saving my pictures for my favourite quilts, and I think this clever quilt is my favourite. Sure it's a harbour, but can you see the cat paws and cat? I spent quite a bit of money but more importantly had a wonderful time, looking at how others do things.

Sampler quilt #2

A couple more panels, I finished off one and completed the other last week, working quite fast because I had days to myself.

7. Carolina Lily

The flowers are hand pieced and then appliqued to the red background. The stalks are made out of the bias binding and the leaves are put onto freezer paper templates, ironed around the edges onto the freezer paper and sewn down. I kept my three flowers the same and am happy with the way the centre panel has come out. I had trouble with the inner borders and am not sure I'm happy with the yellow green trianges surrounding the central flower, but was pleased with how easy I found the sashing and relieved that the seams of the corners matched well. Lynne Edwards is so kind, she tells you to blame the fabric but... So we're increasing in complexity, here combining making bias binding from Celtic Knot with hand piecing from Tangled Star and using freezer paper templates from Inner City, but I wouldn't have been confident doing all three without having completed the earlier panels.

8. Quick Bow Tie

Bow Tie is a design that is usually made using templates, but Edwards uses clever folding to mean that these bow ties were made out of simple squares of fabric with no difficult sewing around oblique angles. I did keep catching bits of fabric in the knots because I used quite small ones and had to do a bit of unstitiching but I like the effect. Edwards gives instruction for 9 and 16 and I chose to do 16. I could have made them into a pattern but quite like the simplicity of my arrangement. I went back to basics on the colours after the experimentation of Delectable Mountains and Carolina Lily and used the three Indian weaves that inspired the whole quilt for me: the lovely warm golden yellow, the soft red and the orange stripe.

Sampler quilt

I've been doing Lynne Edwards' sampler quilt from her wonderful New Sampler Quilt Book and these are my first 6 panels. As with her instructions for Cathedral Window Edwards is very well written, the instructions are clear and Edwards takes you soothingly through the bewlidering array of decisions when it comes to making a quilt: colour selection, accessories and kit that you know aren't going to be a faddy waste, hand and machine quilting. Each chapter shows how to make a block and they build on previous chapters, taking you gently from complete dependent beginner to being able to understand more complex instructions, building your confidence bit by bit.

My colour scheme is warmth and sun, to raise the spirits on cold days, and to be a set of colours I would always enjoy working with. Gold, orange, red, warm yellows, the colours of hope, autumn leaves, my favourite time of year. I was lucky enough to be looking for such colours when the Cotton Patch was doing a sale on fabulous Indian weaves, these fabrics are woven rather than printed so it doesn't matter which way up they are. I've supplemented with other fabrics that I've picked up as I've gone along, most notably Kaffe Fasset's yellow Roman Glass print.

1. Inner City

This is hand pieced over freezer paper and I have a guilty memory of getting my mum to buy me a stack of coordinating pastel fabrics to make into a version of Grandmother's Flower Garden and not getting very far. This felt very different, hand piecing over freezer paper was quick and the clever use of hexagons made this a much more contempoary design. With the three colours from my Indian fabrics: a soft red, warm orange and yellow, this really appears float on the black background Escher-like. The inner border is from a fat quarter pack of autumnal shades called Naturescapes from, again, the great range of fabrics available at Cotton Patch. The outer border (sashing) is a plain cotton named 'Parchment' from the Cotton Patch, and the four squares in the corners are again the Indian fabric.

2. Seminole

Seminole patchwork is a clever technique where you machine sew the fabrics into a strip then by cutting and restitching them together make these lovely zig zags and woven designs. This was my first time using the stripy orange Indian fabric and I love the way they look.

Each patch is indivdually made, backed and quilted then sewn toghther at the end. For my backs I've used various shades of blue. I tried to machine quilt to begin with but had real trouble, although looking at these again they don't look as bad as I remember. I understand a lot more about threads and machine quilting now so may give it another go! The squares at each corrner will in the end make four-patch squares. Not all the stripes will lie the same way and I'll see how I feel about that when I'm ready to put them together.

The inner border here is another of the Indian weaves, this time an ikat, which woven into zig zags of colour. There's a good article on the technique here.

3. Tangled Star

I still love this one every time I look at it, the design is so effective and the Kaffe Fasset Roman Glass fabric goes really well with the Indian weave red, floating like Inner City on the black background. Hand pieced, and I was so proud my corners came true! I gave it a black border which makes the points seem even cleaner. My quilting, on reflection, isn't bad on this one either, nice quarter inch shadow quilting. I've kept my quilting simple for now but may do something more complicated on them later.

4. Quick Triangles

One of the few that really did not inspire me, although it was thankfully quick and easy to do. I used another of the Naturescapes fabrics, this time utilising the areas of dark and lighter print to create different effects, the darker triangles in the middle to contrast with the yellow centre and the lighter ones outside. This one was hand quilted and in contrast to the piecing I really enjoyed highlighting the different triangles and rectangles with quilting. Bordered again with black because of the quite 'busy' prints in the main panel giving a good crisp contrast with the sashing.

5. Celtic Knot

An absolute delight. With this patch I learned how to create bias binding and love the effect of the binding which is made out of my stripy Indian weave. The effect is not one I could have got if I'd just purchased ready made binding. I loved learning how to ease the curves into place, stitch them carefully in place using slip stich, following the pattern, and learning how to transfer the pattern to the black fabric using dressmaker's carbon paper. I felt good that I was brave enough to mount the whole knot on yellow which I think works really well. I hand quilted around the outside of the knot which raises it slightly. I generally like hand quilting but ended up with some fabulous callouses on my finger tips and had to pause to stop bleeding profusely when I jagged myself badly one time.

6. Delectable Mountains

Another clever bit of machine piecing, this is one where I changed my mind and learned it was okay to do so. I originally decided to use an ikat weave with the plain purply one but the contrast with the orange background wasn't great enough and the ikat faded into the orange weave. Instead I used the Roman Glass fabric again and am pleased with how it looks. Again, another Naturescapes border, this one quite narrow. I may do more quilting in the middle later.