The Wool Quilt

Hello again. I'm sitting in the dining room with the sun streaming through the window - though it is quite chilly outside. I hope you are warm and dry and not suffering from the flooding that has affected so may areas. I'm reminded that this time last year we were waiting to fly out to New Zealand and worrying that the airports would be closed with all the snow and ice!

Right I promised you a peep at the new book which has been inspiring my woollen quilt. It is by a woman called Sègolaine Schweitzer. It is called Voyage autour de la Laine - A Trip around the Wool. She uses her materials in a very loose, free way.

As you can see, Sègolaine uses raw-edge appliqué, and her applique is actually more like darning.

There are a few quilts to copy, and an exposition of her working methods. I would rather make my own designs, and so use the book as an inspirational jumping off point. The photographs are very visually tactile (if you understand what I mean!) and I gaze and gaze at them.

I think her quilts are mainly used as wall hangings, and mine are to be used, so although I do like her very rough and raw manner of working, I find I need to make mine neater. Not known much for my insistence on neatness in life, generally, I find I can't leave my work quite as 'unfinished' as Sègolaine.

Here are a few photo's of my throw so far.

And - Confession Alert! I still have not bound the Sunflower Farm quilt! I know, I know, what am I like!I promised I would do it for this blog-post. I have actually cut the strips, and pressed them in half and stitched them together, I just can't get round to pinning and machining the jolly things onto the quilt.

Anyway, here it is finished, just waiting for the binding.

I had intended to get the machine out to finish off this cushion cover and then do the binding.

But I decided to hand stitch the cushion instead, hence the machine didn't come out. This is sold, by the way, already!

Now then, here are a couple of shots of Victoria's SECOND huge quilt, all hand stitched. It looks and feels really gorgeous, and to think she had never touched a quilt before she met us! (Downhill all the way since then of course!) Victoria has used Liberty fabrics exclusively for the prints.

I put this shot of the garden in to show you how bright and cheerful the sun makes everything look. Even when the branches are bare, still lots of green grass and evergreen.

And I'll leave you with a close up of the lovely roses Victoria brought to Stitch and Bitch the other day.