St Germain quilt - finished at last

Designed by Laurie Simpson for Minick and Simpson, and published in the 100th issue of the Quiltmania magazine more then 5 years ago; so yes, the realisation, that I had been working on this for 5 years, has now hit me. 

But all done now. It was an enjoyable, be it a very long journey. All needleturn applique, hand stitched, and finished by hand quilting (around each applique piece at least once). And because this is a quilt to be used, rather than a wall hanging, I used a warm wadding, a mixture of cotton and wool; it was lovely to quilt through.

Needless to say that I am very pleased with it. It will now live on my bed.

 It measures approx 

160 x 180 cm, so it wasn't easy to take a picture of it outside ( too long for my washing line),

but luckily the quilt is bright enough for a picture inside, 

even on a dull winter day.

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My recent break in blogging was forced on me by a technical problem - one day last month my computer simply "died". My local computer chap soon found that it was the power supply unit which decided it had enough, but because of the age of the computer, it wasn't easy to find a replacement. But eventually one was located in Germany (!), so here we are, back in action!

Having to cope with just a small pocket size tablet in the meantime wasn't any fun, so I have a great deal of catching up to do. 

The autumn has somehow passed us by; it was cold and very wet; there was a brief break in the weather last month, when we visited Stourhead again, but only now it has been possible to download my camera, so here are some pictures.

I have nothing else to show you at the moment.

For the last couple of weeks both DH and I have been nursing a horrid cold, when all I wanted to do was to stay curled up under one of my lovely warm blankets in the front of the TV. 

Hopefully on the mend now. Why is it that as you get older it takes so much longer to get over any illness? It anything, we should be more resilient by now! 😒

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2019

Quilter's Patch is back!

Summer days have been back with us for the past week or so, 20C + during the day, but some nights have been very cold, down to around 6C.

I have returned to hand quilting 

St Germain quilt; the evenings are cold now, so it is keeping me warm 

while I quilt.

The  "Quilter's Patch" is also back, it had been rather neglected during the summer.

Prep work for the next block, 

no 11 -

"Coneflower" 

Every time I start one of these blocks, I am slightly worries, and I do ask myself: "why did I start such a large, mostly non applique project?" Every block is a small challenge; this one 12in block is made up of 71 pieces!

But the step by step instructions are very clear, and when I finish putting all those pieces together, I know exactly why I did embark on this journey - because I love the design! 

It is not quite "my thing" (as you know, I am an applique person), so this is stretching me somewhat. 

But thankfully I am not a perfectionist, so if not all the points are matching exactly, I am not that concerned. This is a large quilt, so "in the grand scheme of things", it will be OK 😉

The garden is still full of colour and the bees are loving the late flowers,   

but the crab apples are turning red, 

to remind us that autumn is very close.

What ever you are doing this weekend, enjoy it!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2019

back to "St Germain"...

Yes, this one has been quietly waiting in the corner of my room - the "St Germain" quilt with the largest amount of appliqued pieces I have done to date - but not yet finished.

I bought the backing fabric a while back, but I could not decide what kind of wadding to use.

I will be using this quilt on my bed, rather than as a wall quilt, so I want it to be soft and warm.

In the end I decided to use a mixture of cotton and wool; it is lovely and very soft, and judging how it feels on my lap, also warm. 

No, this is not the ideal time of the year to hand quilt a warm quilt, but actually, the evenings are so cold at the moment, that it is quite welcome to have a quilt on my lap.

So, sandwiched and ready to quilt.

I bought a new packet of quilting needles for this job, and to try out - "Clover" black coated ones. 

This will be a long job, but I have started. 

The new needle is a pleasure to use, it just glides through all the layers.

But also the cotton/wool wadding is lovely to work with, there just doesn't seem to be any resistance at all.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2019

St Germain quilt top and new web shop

All done at last!

Here it is blowing in the wind on the washing line. It is too long for the line, so you can't see the top border, but it does have one! This was a long exercise in needleturn applique!  

 I don't usually wash it at this point, but I had to draw a grid on the fabric for placements of the orange peel shapes, and although I managed to get rid of most of the lines, some just did not want to budge completely, hence a quick wash.

I think this quilt will look nice hand quilted, so it will take a long time yet before it will be finished.

The lovely people at Midsomer Quilting, just few miles from me, have now opened online shop,

and you can explore midsomerq.com here . What is unusual about this web shop is that they will cut you as little as 10cm, which will be very welcome by many applique quilters!

We had a lovely sunny day here today (after a frosty night).

I leave you with a couple of pictures from our local park.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

getting there with St Germain and woolly plans

Sigh of relief! 

The last piece of applique on St Germain quilt border no 4 is done!

I spent most of the evenings this week 

snipping away all the fabric behind the applique pieces to reduce the bulk.

It was a long job, but all done now, and I can stitch the borders on and think about the backing.

I have lots of fabrics left over from this project, so I think I might use it to make up a piece for the back.

With winter evenings coming I am thinking something "woolly".

Last year I made a wool embroidered cushion,

but this year I would like to have a go at wool applique.

I love some of the folk inspired designs and I like Sue Spargo's designs, but when I saw a pattern by Erica Kaprow, 

I instantly fell in love with it 

and this morning the postman delivered it.

It comes in a form of a leaflet, 

but cleverly has its own folder to keep the loose pattern sheets in.

I like that.

I am thinking of using wool felt instead of wool fabric. Wool fabric is more expensive, and unless you dye your own (not something I want to get into), the choice of colours is not so great.

I already have some hand dyed wool felt (bought at various shows) in my stash. You see, you just never know when something comes handy! 😉

For my cushion I used wool felt as the background and it worked well, but I am even contemplating using dark fabric, possibly batik, which I would stabilise.

I made this wool sampler at a workshop with Madeleine Millington.
She was using dyed blankets, which she brought to the class.
It was fun to make, and my first taste of wool applique (or any applique for that matter), but the whole thing is rather thick.



Something to think about.....

In the garden the delphinium and the clematis started flowering again, and the camellia thinks the spring is just around the corner.

I think they are in for a shock soon!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

FNwF

Thank you again to Cheryll for putting up with us for yet another Friday night!

What was I up to? 

This is not really very exiting, but it just has to done - prep for two last borders of my "St Germain" quilt.

 I am making them at the same time, not because I want them to be exactly the same, but I just want the distribution of leaves and circles to be even on the top and bottom borders.

In the afternoon I met up for the first time with a fellow blogger, Catherine . 

It was lovely to meet her in person at last; on Saturday we spent a very pleasant day doing the same thing..., but about that in my next post.

I just want to share with you few pictures from our garden - still lovely in the autumn sunshine.

  This beautiful salvia, which came home with us from Cornwall last week,

seems quite happy in the new flower bed.

The quinces are nearly ready for the last jam of the year.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017