When I was invited to be take part in this event I was delighted because both of these ladies have inspired me since starting my quilting journey. It was wonderful that both of them had quilts included in the Best of QuiltCon 2017 tour that visited the Festival of Quilts last year so I got to see Warp and Weft and Cursive is a Fading Art in real life.
There are 16 patterns in the book and we had to pick three we would be happy to make for the Book Hop. Which one to choose? Eventually I would like to make them all, time and finances allowing, but in the end I plumped for Plus Surround designed by Paige. We were allowed to make changes, resize or just use part of design for our project but I decided to make it true to the design.
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| Photo Credit Paige Alexander, Quilted Blooms |
Initially I played with colour choices as per Paige's layout but decided in the end I wanted more colour in my quilt. I have long coveted the Sun Prints collection by Alison Glass and finally bought some last Stepember. With a couple of extra FQs thrown in and Kona Snow as the background I had the fabric chosen.
The pattern is really well written and easy to follow. I couldn't use Paige's instruction for the block construction because I was not making multiple blocks of the same colour, however it still came together really nicely and quickly and was a great return to sewing after having the flu earlier in the year.
Then of course there was the question of how to quilt it ....... hmmmm that had me pondering for quite a while, in fact if I am honest there were still design decisions going on just yesterday! As you will see from the photo above it's not quite finished, what's a little trimming and binding between friends, because it literally is hot off the frame.
Pebbles and paisley feature frequently, in differing scales to fill the boxes I quilted around the plusses ....
I used lots of new tools and techniques on this quilt ....
I seriously underestimated how long it would take to quilt something like this ....
I think I am just a little bit in love with this, and also rather proud of myself having never quilted a design like this before ....
I think there is another post, an actual finish post if you will, required to talk about the quilting and techniques but for today I am just savouring this moment! I will also need to enlist the help of a quilt holder upper so that I can see what this looks like hanging - I think the texture and created shadows will be wonderful.
To see a couple of different versions of this quilt head on over to see:
Jayne @ Twiggy and Opal
Jen @ A Dream and a Stitch
Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl
Sandra @ mmm! quilts
Karen @ Run Sew Fun
If you are inspired by what you see on the Book Hop then you can get signed copies of the book from Cheryl's Etsy Store or Paige's Etsy Store. It is also for sale over at Amazon.
