My first quilts

I’m escaping the Melbourne winter off on holidays to Hawaii (LOVE Hawaii!!) for a couple of weeks so my relaxation time will be spent reading, swimming, eating, drinking and shopping (what more can you ask for in a holiday??) rather than playing with fabric.

I have said before that I want my blog to be an online journal of all things I have made so my posts for the next few weeks will be quilts made in the past.

This week’s post is my first two quilts. I can’t actually remember which one I did first. I used to do a lot of stitching and embroidery and knew I wanted to make quilts. I also knew that once I started I might not be able to stop, so I put it off for a little while. Of course I eventually succumbed to the lure of the fabric…

This quilt started as an embroidery, perle threads on white made in a wonderful Saturday class I used to go to at Lizzie’s shop taught by Gail Bett of Mrs Sew and So. Gail’s work is just gorgeous and this was one of her more simple designs.

The borders and binding are both Les Olivades. At the time there was a shop in Melbourne and I was so in love with this French provincial fabric. There is still a shop in Sydney and some quilt stores carry it. The quality of the fabric and the colour and clarity of prints is wonderful. I hand quilted this one, also in perle thread.

The centre block that I embroidered was a light weight almost voile like fabric and looking back, knowing what I know now, I should have used a fabric the same wight as the others as it’s a bit sheer. I guess that’s the point of learning though!

This next quilt is the one I think of as my first “real” quilt. I took a class with the wonderful Trish Harper. I find it really interesting to look back on my fabric choices; they were more like shirting stripes and dress making fabrics that I was more used to. Even then, my love for including white in my quilts was beginning!

It was a great class to start out on as I learnt to make templates and cut all the fabrics (although I think I used scissors and not a rotary cutter!), I learnt to hand piece including all those points and I learnt to hand quilt. The quilting was done with a traditional thread. I bought a lovely large hoop and at the time it seemed so expensive and such an indulgence, but I have used that hoop time and time again and it was such a great buy.

I never label my quilts , I don’t like the look of a label so it’s my own fault that I have to guess when these were done. I would guess about 10 years ago. Now I do simple discrete machine stitching on the binding with just my name and the date.

I still love them both to bits, they are like old friends…