My Great Quilting Expedition

A long time ago, I attempted to make the Flowering Urn Quilt by Rosemary Makhan.  Unfortunately, I did not have the skills and I gave up.  It isn't like me to give up on a quilt, but at the time, it was easier to put it in the bottom of a storage box and forget it. I want to have a different wall hanging for each season of the year - to hang in my sitting room.  I have a Spring and a Christmas wall hanging, so summer and autumn to go.  I love the Flowering Urn pattern, but don't have room on my wall for the whole quilt, so will just add two borders to the centre block and it should fit just great. I decided I would hand applique the quilt.  Sometimes it is nice to be able to sit and be sociable while sewing.  Although I have done some hand applique over the past two years, I had never appliqued onto a piece 30 inches square before.  I didn't realise it would be tricky to sew on such a large piece of fabric.  I think in future, I will think t...

I have finally managed to finish a couple of quilts over the last couple of weeks. The first is an old embroidered tablecloth.  I started quilting this one last October.  Initially the quilting was done using a matching Wedgewood coloured thread.  I found that the quilting underwhelming and the motifs were very difficult to see, despite using two layers of batting - one layer of Hobbs Tuscany wool and Hobbs Polydown.  What did I learn?  I should have used trapunto!  The two layers did not allow the quilting to 'pop'.  I used a dense scribble stitch as background quilting.  I found that the coarse weave of the linen top made it difficult to get the effect I wanted.  I put the quilt away for 5 months, but I HATE giving up on a project.  I finished the quilting and used Jacquard Fabric Paint and Derwent Inktense pencils to colour the motifs. I used a different finish at the edges.  I folded the backing cotton to give a quarter inch h...