We’ve made a decision

When the English Quilt girls met this week for our regular monthly day of stitching at Gail’s there was lots of progress to be seen. 

Three of the four of us who had missed the June get-together because we were gallivanting around various parts of the globe (including our own wide brown land) were keen to prove our hands hadn’t been idle.

Rae has started on the hand applique borders for her Whirligig quilt in her signature mellow shades – she’s using plenty of terracotta, teal and sage, with some raspberry and a twist of lime as well.  You’re going to have to wait till Rae’s completed a border to see just how good this looks, but trust me it’s working a treat!

You can guess where Rae went on her holiday by this cute little souvenir she gave me.  It’s a sticky note pad with a design adapted from a patchwork coverlet in the grandmother’s garden design made in England between 1797 and 1852 hanging in the Victoria & Albert Museum.  Yes, our Rae has been to see the V & A special quilt exhibition! The colours in Jill’s kitchen chair cushions should give you a clue to her favourite landscape – red earth and gum trees, and a sky that goes on forever.  Jill’s been touring the outback of Australia, and I’m sure she was inspired by the terrain when she made these, the start of a bigger set.

As you know, I’ve been working on my Whirligig borders too.  I quickly laid out my 9 whirligig blocks on the floor (the order is absolutely random, so it will almost certainly not be the final lay-out) and plonked my unfinished borders alongside, just to get a feel for the colours. Our other wanderer, Lynne, is almost back home too and we’re looking forward to a little ‘show and tell’ soon.

You’ll recall that Anne’s been working away of a particularly gorgeous Candied Hexagon / Frederica Josephson quilt in mostly dusty pinks and blues.  It has the right amount of planned placement - with just a touch of randomness to make it interesting.     Robbie has been appliqueeing the blocks for this fresh floral scrappy quilt for months, it seems.  Suddenly it’s all together, and she’s well into the quilting.  Being a whizz at hand quilting, Robbie should have it finished quite soon. Gail is another one who doesn’t waste time, and her Prickly Pear quilt top is nearly complete.  She spent the day stitching on appliqueed leaves.  She was quite out of her comfort zone with these colours – deliberately so – but this quilt has lots of pizzazz and I think she should feel very pleased with the result. We had hoped to start another quilt together (not really together, but making the same quilt alongside each other, if you get what I mean) but we’ve decided to make this year a time to finish off our projects before starting a new quilt in the new year.   

Unusually sensible for a bunch of quilters, I know :-)) - but there you are!