Song Title Wall Hanging

The LPQ Presidents challenge one year was "A Song Title" the quilt was to depict the title of the song. Many came to mind and I procrastinated over the months trying to decide which to choose and how to depict it. The Presidents challenge entries are displayed at the November meeting each year and by October I still hadn't decided what song I would do. Two days before the meeting I finally chose my song "The Age of Aquarius". I made a small wall hanging with the astrology symbol of Aquarius on an Osnaberg background and machine quilted an oasis around the water gatherer.

Row by Row Swap

My group in Launceston regularly hold quilting swaps, one of these was a Christmas Row by Row there were eight participants in a group and the row size was 6 ½ X 36 inches. Each participant could include fabric that they would like to be used in each row. My row was a blue background with a Nativity scene on it and in late February our RXR started its trip around to collect their extra rows. We received our rows back on the last Thursday of October and the quilt was supposed to be completed by our Christmas luncheon in early December. I did an extra row for my quilt as one row needed another to help it get on with the other rows. I added three borders cream, gold and dark blue then machine quilted it with a pattern of freehand stars and Christmas bells.

Surprise Quilt for partner

My dear husband is a cat person. When I met him he had a lovely black Persian cross named Bono, Allan hand reared Bono from three days old as the mother cat died from post delivery problems. Bono was a very spoilt cat and definitely a man's cat, he tolerated me and after a year or so would jump into my lap if Allan was not at home. When Bono was around 8 years old he died suddenly one day in early 2002, he had an accident inside and the urine was blood stained so I raced him to the vet, unfortunately he died there a few hours later as he had an advanced bladder cancer which up until that day showed no symptoms.

In the June I decided to make him a quilt featuring cats and cat fabrics. I found a fabric that had different breeds of cats in different poses on it, using this fabric I cut around different groupings of the cats and appliquéd them onto quilters muslin. I put a resting cat onto a basket fabric, had two cats looking through lace curtains and I included one piece of dog fabric. Someone gave me a scrap of fabric with Persian cats on it from which I fussy cut the cats then appliquéd them onto the background sitting them on blankets and cushions. The work on this quilt had to be done while Allan was not at home which became impossible as Allan had a health breakdown early August and was off work for 12 weeks. When he went back to work I was able to do more work on the quilt, when I gave it to him at Christmas it was still a WIP, the top was complete and it was basted but not quilted. I made a special label for the quilt by printing a photo of Bono onto muslin with all the quilt details. During 2003 I machined quilted the quilt with diagonal lines with varying widths. Allan loves his quilt and it is travelling with us around Australia.

Quilting Progress

Amongst the workshops I completed from 2000 – 2002 were ones covering Stack and Slash, Hidden Wells, 3D Flowers, Pictorial Embellishment, Reverse Appliqué and many others. My confidence was growing and quilts were being finished. In 2001 my first granddaughter was born Chloe Nicole, I made her a colourful floor quilt using the Stack and Slash method, the quilt was reversible with a different colourway on each side. As this quilt was made pre-digital camera I don't have a photo of it with me it is packed away in our boxes in Launceston. Chloe now uses this quilt for a doll 'blanket'. Each time we visit she shows the quilt to me and remarks on how pretty it is.

Using some of the flowers from the 3D workshop I made a wall hanging for Carlene as a Christmas present. My friend Marie was an avid collector of frogs anything that had a frog on it or in it. I found a pattern for a lap quilt that had four big frogs on it and decided to make it for her. The colours were mauve, purple and emerald, I also made a cushion from 1 block. The photos of these were lost when my computer crashed in November 2006, I will have to take more when we return to Tasmania.

During this year I also started a quilt for Chloe’s first big bed, which was to be a quilted bedspread. I found a lovely fairy fabric range all with a pale lemon background. One fabric had alternating strips with fairies standing and younger fairies sitting ideal for fussy cutting blocks from, the other fabric had small posies of flowers on it, the colours we bright pastels. I found a half log cabin pattern in a very old Quilt World which the parents loved. We sourced coordinating Home Spun for some of the strips and alternated with the posy fabric. I machine quilted this by following the lines in the log cabin part of the quilted in the squares I quilted a simple flower design. Chloe ‘helped’ me finish the binding on this quilt by moving the clips for me, when we had finished stitching down the binding, her bed had to have clean sheets and pillow case and all the family came to her room to watch the quilt go on her bed, this was Christmas 2004.

In 2002 LPQ had a ‘Fat eighth swap where we cut 1 metre of fabric into eigths and gave them to the swap divas, who them sorted them and handed each participant back a mixture of 8 fat eighths to use for a quilt to be finished by the November meeting of that year. We were allowed to add a background fabric and I think 1 other. (a good reason for a quilt journal to help you remember what occurred when you made your quilt). For my quilt I made a medallion style quilt with an on point centre with machine appliquéd blocks I sourced from EQ, the background I used was a light coffee coloured Home Spun and the other fabric I added was the Fossil Fern featured in the outer squares. The flowers in the centre basket were made from gathered strips of fabric to give a 3D affect. I machine quilted the quilt using a garden themed pattern, in one of the plain blocks I quilted in an arched garden gate, which gave the quilt its name ‘Through the Garden Gate’. On the backing I included all the left over swap fabrics around the printed label which I stitched into the backing. I gave this quilt to my sister for her 60th birthday in May 2006.

Gaining Experience

To broaden my knowledge of patchworking I attended as many workshops as I could to learn different technique and patterns. One of the workshops I did in 2002 was 'Hidden Wells' technique, for this workshop I used an assortment of 'cat fabrics' that I had sourced from many quilts shops and catfabrics.com which unfortunately has closed its business, I added a motley fabric which had a wavy look to it that bought all the colours together. In the workshop I completed two of the blocks, later I finished all of the blocks for a single bed quilt and the top languished in the UFO box until 2006. This quilt was one of the quilts I finished in TGQ's UFO Challenge and as I had one too many blocks it became a quillow. Pam Jarman of Burnie machine quilted it for me and the quillow was given to our granddaughter Chloe for sleepovers and too use in their caravan.