Auspicious Quilts

We now slip back in time to the last months of 2012.

Late in the year, my brother announced that one of his daughters was expecting a baby. Well, that family thing kicked in and I said I would make a cot quilt for the latest addition to the burgeoning mob that is his family. About a week later, one of my team asked to see me privately and advised me that she was going to have a baby. Office tradition required some recognition of the event.
Two cot quilts then.

Not that there was any hurry, the big event was still some months away and you can't give something like a cot quilt until the mother is, as they used to say, 'safely delivered of a child'.

Not that I designed two different quilts. There is a limit!
I decided to go with an oriental design using the stylized bat stencils I cut for "Batique Out of Hell".
In Japanese and Chinese mythology, bats and the numbers 3 and 5 are considered auspicious, with 3x5 being especially lucky. The design shows three columns of five bats.

Auspicious I

Auspicious II

 Both central panels were created using English Piecing, basting each piece to a paper template, then stitching them together by hand. The papers were then removed and the bats appliqued to the top of the quilt. The wadding and backing were basted to the front and then quilted together.
Heavy, close quilting can make a quilt quite stiff and hard. As these were cot quilts, I did only a minimum of quilting. I quilted the outline of each bat 'in the ditch' and expanded the lines to create an inner border, probably best seen in Auspicious II so that there was a wide band of softer, unquilted fabric round the edges, before binding it with soft satin bias binding.

The quilts were presented only after the births, with a wish that the child have a Long life, Good luck and Happiness.

Auspicious I and II were worked together and took 140 hours.
And I still have the templates.

Kites

I made this small wall hanging in 2005, and it's only as I write this that I remember why I made it.

It was to be entered in the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh in 2006. The Highland Show is a big annual event and the Handicraft section always has an overall theme, with sub-themes for different crafts. The theme for 2006 was, I seem to remember, "Air" and the sub-theme for Patchwork and Quilting was "Kites".

The background is completed in 1" squares, the kites were appliqued on.

Did I win a prize? Not a chance! When I saw the other entries I knew I just had not achieved a high enough standard. I had spent 120 hours on this, and looking at it compared to the other entries I could see that it would have been much better if I had spent another 20 hours on the quilting.
What I did learn was that Patchwork and Quilting is more likely to mean 'patchwork and QUILTING' than 'PATCHWORK and Quilting'.
With 20/20 hindsight, I'm not sure that my colour and fabric choices were the best either.

The Bear On The Chair

This was a request from one of my Sister-in-laws. 

Would I make a cot quilt for H? With a bear on it like your big quilt? With lots of bright colours?

Why not?

You can't have a bear floating in mid-air, and most bears that I know are fond of a comfortable chair, so there had to be a chair for the bear and he became The Bear On The Chair.

As it was for a baby, I kept it simple and washable!!! The materials were all cotton and the wadding machine washable so that it could be put through the machine. We (still) have a wide selection of quilting fabrics so I had a search and selected two fabrics with bears on for the body of the bear and another larger pierce for the border. Since it was for H, I created the background as a series of interlocked H's in bright blue, yellow and red, the Mother's favourite colours. The quilt was all hand stitched using English Piecing, in 1" squares and hand quilted 'in the ditch'.

For those who don't recognise the term, "English Piecing" is where you tack each piece of material onto paper, in this case 1" squares, then join all the pieces of the quilt top by hand before removing the papers. I love English Piecing because it gives sharp edges and accurate corners.

Looking back, I'm not sure I actually enjoyed making this quilt, but I was determined that it would be properly done. I spent 140 hours designing and stitching this and whether I liked the finished product or not, H's mother liked it. She even sent me a picture of H on the quilt - a picture I am not going to share - no man wants his 'Cute Baby Snaps' to go public.