My friend, Anna, has finally finished piecing this beautiful quilt, a sampler for her eldest daughter. As with everything she does, her work is meticulous and it’s hard to believe this is her very first quilt.
Last week we spent a lovely morning discussing how she’d get started on her hand quilting journey and drinking the most delicious hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted!.
Anna has used predominantly gold, burgundy and red fabrics, giving her quilt a warm, mellow feel. 
Don’t you just love it!
It’s finished! I’ve finally drawn breath after free motion machine quilting the Flower Fairy quilt, and what a challenge it was.
As part of Amanda Daly’s free motion quilting class earlier this year we were encouraged to buy a panel, stitch borders on it, and use this very quickly pieced together quilt as a practice piece. 
As someone who always wants to run before she can walk I think that was such a great idea, much more interesting than working on endless mini-quilt sandwiches.
Quilting needs to be of uniform density throughout the quilt - and using nasty thick poly batting, just because I had it on hand, was not a good idea. A thinner cotton/wool batting might have been much more forgiving.
As I pick myself up and dust myself off I’m reminding myself that it was only a practice quilt and there’s a very strong chance that The Princess will adore it for her new ‘big girl’ bed.
Sitting at my sewing machine, keeping those shoulders relaxed, holding my tongue at just the right angle, and trying hard to remember all the lessons learnt in Jenny Bowker’s and Amanda Daly’s free motion machine quilting classes. Occasionally doing a little frog-stitching (rip-it, rip-it!)
Back soon :-))
Take a look at Erica’s, Lindi’s and Sarah’s (scroll down her birthday blog post). Pretty little toys! We’re so easily amused :-)
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.
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!
On a recent trip to England my friend Rae was given this beautiful antique quilt. 
As you can see, it’s magnificent! The silk hand-pieced blocks glow on their black background, and many are still in very good condition.
But dozens of the tiny pieces are either threadbare or have disintegrated completely. 
So Rae (and her willing friends) faced a dilemma. Should the quilt be restored? And if so, how should this be done?
Timing, as they say, is everything.
I was about to go along to a morning tea where world-renowned Australian quilt historian Dr Annette Gero was speaking, so I offered to take Rae’s quilt with me.
It also meant I had extra time to fondle and admire her new ‘treasure’ :-)) Sneaky, eh?
A delightfully approachable person, Annette was more than happy to take a look at Rae’s quilt. She agreed that it was probably from the late 19th or early 20th century, as Rae had been told, and said it would probably have been made as a table covering (it’s only about 5 feet square).
She pointed out some irregularly pieced blocks and said these were evidence of previous restoration attempts. 
According to Annette, restoring the quilt’s appearance by adding new pieces of silk is a good idea, but these days restorers would simply cover the worn original pieces, leaving evidence of the quilt’s beginnings if quilt ‘detectives’ went looking through the layers in the future.
So now we know. I hope I can bring you more photos of Rae’s beautiful quilt once she’s restored it to its former glory.
