the steam car lovers quilt

I have finished the quilt for my friend's steam car loving husband:

and I'm pleased with it. I enjoyed the challenge of making something using a theme and colours I would never have chosen myself. 

It took a lot of internet searching to find fabric that featured pictures of steam cars, (thank you, Frumble!)
www.frumble.co.uk 
and I also used photographs of the car itself which I printed onto fabric by ironing the fabric on to freezer paper and putting it through the printer (with many crumpled pages and much swearing ).

Each nine inch square block is randomly pieced and then trimmed to size, and the machine quilting follows these seams, then I added hand stitching in perle 8 cotton.



The back is soft brushed cotton, with a panel of old cars from a vintage cushion cover.

I hope he has many happy hours of snoozing under it on the sofa!

pink ladies

My friend and I enjoyed joining in the Race for Life on Sunday in the beautiful grounds of Bath University. 

It was a great atmosphere despite the British drizzle and the cowpats, with lots of wild outfits. I really want one of those wigs next year!                                                          

I raised over £300 (some still to come in) for cancer research, thank you very much to everyone who sponsored me!

blue

I'm thinking about a quilt that is pale clear blue like the sea in Greece, like the softest old washed and washed linen....

... and made from my pile of old fabric recovered from sheets and shirts and battered old bits and pieces.. 

but does that bit of pink belong there too?

Also hoping for a dry day tomorrow for the Race for Life in Bath, in which I shall be participating at a leisurely pace, spurred on by the promise of a lovely lunch afterwards!

heritage hexagons- the Quilters Guild reply

I received a lovely detailed reply from the Quilter's Guild after sending pictures of the old quilt I found in a charity shop, and I am attaching it here in case anyone else is interested:

Hi Carol

Thank you for your email and the images you sent, it looks a very interesting and varied piece. I would say from the fabrics and style of patchwork that it dates from the late 19^th to early 20^thcentury. The colour combinations and patterns of print look very similar to some other items in our collection which have that date attributed to them, and mosaic patchwork was quite popular at that time. I have attached a couple for comparison – if you zoom in you will see some similarities in the fabrics, in their printed designs and colour palette. At this point velvets and silks were more fashionable and used for mosaic patchwork by those better off (or aspiring to copy them), and cotton fabrics were readily available and mass produced, making them cheaper and less desirable to the higher classes. The cottons used in patchwork which had dainty designs tended to be blouse, dress and shirting cottons, with some furnishings as well if the design is bolder and larger. The mixture of printed and hand written paper templates is also common in this period, and sometimes the printed text came from school text books, and handwritten text could be accounts, bills, old letters and handwriting practice.

It is a very lovely piece and it looks in fairly good condition as well, so it looks like a good chance find in the charity shop.

Heather Audin

Museum Curator

I think I'm going to back the quilt top with a vintage candy stripe sheet and actually use it on the bed. It seems a shame to lock it up in a cupboard, and maybe end up with my heirs sending it to a charity shop again in the fullness of time!

Links to the Quilter's Guild and Quilt Museum websites:

http://www.quiltersguild.org.uk/

http://www.quiltmuseum.org.uk/ 

The colours in this quilt make me think of the aquilegias which are all over my garden at the moment- so many subtly different shapes and colours, no two alike, and we didn't actually plant a single one of them!