Around The World - Quilters' Guild AGM Dundee 2012

This is my 8 year old daughter Caitlin's Australian quilt which she had been working on since Christmas, her answer to the theme of 'Around the World' inspired by a school project on the country and my fabrics brought at my very first Festival on Quilts in Birmingham from Aussie Dreams, these make up most of the territories of Australia on the top right panel and the various animals and Uluru in the bottom left panel.

The rest of the fabric was all bought at the 2011 Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate, the bottom right was a Langa Lapu sun print from The African Fabric Shop.  They are a long time favourite of myself, my daughter and my mother, the owners, Magie and Bob, travel around Africa to source their fabrics directly from the weavers and dyers and each piece is unique.

For the first two panels, Caitlin sewed strips of fabric together then cross cut them to make the backgrounds of squares, using the sizes to give the effect of zooming in from outer space.  In the first panel she appliqued on Australia, New Zealand, Antartica and Indonesia and then appliqued the whole globe onto the dark spacey background.  In the second she used 505 spray to stick the Aussie Dreams fabrics down and appliqued them onto the squares background with a space dyed WonderFil thread she bought at her Quilters Guild Region 16 Regional Day.

In the third panel the sky, land and billabong were strips of fabric sewn together, then all the animals and the rock were appliqued on.  The sun and Uluru are reverse appliqued.

The koala and kangaroo joey were the successful product of my first foray into printing onto fabric with my laser printer with Crafty Computer Paper, who I've used before for inkjet printable fabric.  I printed onto their laser heat transfer paper and we carefully ironed the animals onto white fabric.  I was so nervous because the paper is not cheap, but the results were stunning.  Caitlin then used my Derwent Inktense pencils to colour in the kangaroo joey and a little bit of the koala joey, they are quite grey anyway, and then appliqued them on.

You can't see it, but the quilt is backed with the most fabulous green liquorice allsorts fabric.  Caitlin quilted in the ditch round each panel and also quilted a couple of stars with invisible thread.  She sewed on the binding, which is from the Very Hungry Caterpillar range by Makower, and I slip stitched it in place.  I found basting with 505 spray easy and it held the sandwich of quilt top, backing and 80/20 backing in place perfectly while she was machine quilting.

The borders are strips pieced in turn, and there is a kangaroo button from The Button Lady sewn onto the central square.

It can be difficult to fit the time and mental energy needed to focus on sewing inbetween the busy day to day life of an 8 year old and I was very proud of her hard work.  She created really all of this, designing and executing the whole thing with me acting as faciliator more than anything else, holding down the ruler for rotary cutting, paying for fabric, being an extra pair of hands and providing support if needed, moral and practical!  She won her class in the YQ competition for the Quilters' Guild AGM in Dundee and I freely admit to being a very proud mum!

Lap Quilts

Margaret's Quilt Front

It was me who was the bright spark that wanted to create lap quilts for my maternal grandmother and Scott's paternal grandparents, after all, when you've reached their age what do they really need?  My grandmother is in a nursing home and I'm sure is thoroughly sick of chocolates and bath salts, me and Caitlin are going to visit her in November so this was an opportunity to make something that would be useful and hopefully look good.  Scott's grandmother always admires my sewing, so it was a no brainer for her too.  They will have names when I've decided which one is going to whom, I think this one is Margaret's colours but will have to consult with the big man.

I decided to use only fabric and piecing thread from my stash, which included some heavier weight cottons and some polycotton, the latter giving me enough trouble that I will sort through and put them out!  The former was a pretty William Morris fabric that I was happy to have the difficulty working with.  I adapted a Lynne Edwards design from her Stash Buster Quilts which I shamelessly stole off my mother, very much learning as I went how to fit the full size quilt design down to a lap quilt.  Her easy method for creating the nine patches is great fun but needed adapting when I didn't have enough fabric to do more than three or even one block.  I machine pieced the quilt with hinderance from my cats who were determined to sit on the blocks

Lap Quilt #1: Reverse

I bought the wadding (Hobbes 80/20 Heirloom, white) and backing, choosing to use a plain flannel which is lovely and warm but a pain in the butt to quilt, even with careful basting it moves!   I was hand quilting though which made it easier to manipulate as I went along.  I quilted in the ditch all round the star panels on this one and did swirls for the 9-patches.  Most of the fabrics in this one are from my and my mum's stash, so I have no idea what they are, but two are V&A fabrics from the Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition (Hearts (Red) and Seaweed).  The blues I can identify are a Fossil Fern from Benartex (possibly #2 Patina) and Leafy Glade #36.  The quilting thread for all three was Superior King Tut, in this case Jewel of the Nile (#913) which beautifully matched the red and blues.

So, one down, two to go.  Having said that, I'm a good way through quilting the third and the second is just being bound, so I may be there soon.  All I have to do then is choose which one to give to whom.

An update in January, it did go to Scott's grandmother and she phoned a few days later to say she loved it.  The matriarch and heart of a loving extended family, she and Matthew have them on their laps in the evening to protect them from drafts.  What more could I want.