Federation Stars

This, by far, is one of my favourite quilts that I’ve made, aside from Nanna’s quilt. It is the first quilt that I’ve made without a pattern and it is by far the largest quilt I’ve made (fitting the top of a queen size bed).

Whenever I was looking for a new project in 2002 and 2003 (judging by the amount of quilts produced in 2002 & 2003), I’d flick through my patchwork and quilting mags – primarily Quilters Companion, Homespun and Patchwork & Quilting. In one of the magazines, I kept coming back to this photo. Someone had made a quilt – either created or used a pattern, not sure which – called Federation Stars. I admired the use of colours used, the wash of shades from blues to reds to greens to yellows – and began to think that this kind of patchwork wouldn’t be hard to do. After all, it was square blocks, with rectangles with white triangles, intercepted by squares of white – which made the stars. Once I’d broken down how it could be made, it made it easy to figure out size and dimensions, which were repeated as needed.

That was the easy part – getting the right shades of fabric was another. I clearly didn’t have enough fabric, so the fun part was to visit patchwork shops and get plenty more. Once I’d stockpiled enough, I started to lay them out on my parent’s dining room table, which almost wasn’t big enough. Laying them out like this made it easy to change fabrics and swap for more appropriate shading where needed. Having a digital camera meant I could take a picture of the layout for later. Handy as a reference when assembling the pieces before they were sewn. It’s a trick I still use today when pinning together patchwork pieces.

Of course, having all these fabrics meant I had quite a stockpile of fabrics to use in future, since the most I’d need from one fabric would be about 6 inches by 6 inches. The excess fabric is still being used in quilts today, and it’s a nice connection between each quilt that I’ve made.

Sewing all the squares and rectangles were easy. So was laying the base, wool wadding and top (pinned together with large safety pins). It was the quilting that gave my Bernina a workout. Normally the poor old thing has its work cut out for it doing a 52inch square quilt, but something that was made for a queen size bed was another thing! It wasn’t so much a problem quilting it as such, more the enormous amount of fabric to push through. It’s probably the reason why I haven’t attempted to quilt anything so large since. It was quilted in the ditch, and the outside border quilted in 1 inch intervals (easily made with masking tape). Once finished, the binding was sewn on, excess edge fabric and wadding sliced off with rotary cutter, and the binding was handsewn up. A label was blanket stitched on the back, which I usually name the quilt, date it, list by name and its recipient. Done!



This quilt brings back memories of the time just before my grandmother passed away – I know I was working on it when she was taken to hospital, because I’d taken the top to work to show some co-workers, and had it with me when I rushed to her hospital (driving over an hour and a half to get there). I’d desperately wanted to show her the top, but her condition had worsened and it was neither the time, nor the place. Another memory I have is taking it to Scarne, my mother’s family’s (and grandmother’s) ancestral home, the family homestead located in Glengarry, and displaying it for visiting relatives to see.

These days, the quilt is pulled out in winter and keeps my bed cosy at night. Its bright colours cheer the room despite the gloomy weather outside. It always makes me smile, reminding me of the enjoyment I got out of it as I selected fabrics and shades, and as I put it together. It still amazes me how the shades flow from one to another.

Cushions

Having completed the 2 quilts for my Nanna and Aunt, I began to think that I ought to do something for my other two maternal aunts – Wendy and Pauline. Somehow I came up with the idea of doing personalised cushions, using a simple block patterns with panels for stitched names, which my mother kindly did since she’s far more talented in the embroidery department.

My Aunty Wendy’s cushion is comprised of a Log Cabin Variation using soft romantic fabrics of blue, red and cream. The panels were stitched with the names of my Aunt and her sons (my two cousins), again using a truetype font from Windows (‘French Script’) which were copied onto the cream panels using a fabric pen (disappears when moistened). My mother then embroidered the names over it and these pieces of fabric were then sewed to the other border fabric.











The cushion front was then quilted, again in the ditch and repeating the lines in the border corners (as above) and then the cushion backing was sewn and the cushion insert added later.

Much like Wendy’s cushion, the end process for my Aunty Pauline’s was the same. The only difference was the centre block – a block called Dutchman’s Puzzle – and its thinner sashing border. I still quite like the fabrics I used on Pauline’s cushion, especially the darker purple centre of the block, and the thin border.











Again, like Wendy’s, the panels on all four sides were embroidered (again, by Mum) with the names of my Aunt, Uncle and their 2 daughters (my cousins). The font is 'Bradley Hand Itc' and is stitched in matching colours teal and purple on opposing panels.

S is for Suzanne

Once I’d made the quilt for my Nanna, intending it to be a Christmas gift, I also thought that making a quilt for my Aunty Suzanne – my mother’s youngest sister – would also be a good idea. Again, like Nanna’s quilt, I used a pattern from Quilter’s Companion magazine, although I changed the colour (from the pattern’s bright carnival look to a mixture of green and purple hues) and block pattern (the blocks with appliquéd letters were originally embroided balloons, something which I’m not confident about doing). Also like Nanna’s quilt, the quilt size was a square 52inches – more like a lap quilt than for the bed.

The design was very simple, lines of wonky star blocks (themselves comprised of 9 squares each) set between lines of simple 9 patch blocks and squares with the letter ‘S’ appliquéd on in blanket stitch. The appliquéd letters were made from oversized printouts using the letter S in different fonts (via Word), then traced onto vliesofix and ironed onto fabric of choice, then cut and ironed onto squares of cream coloured fabric. Again, I quilted in the ditch – lines across rows of blocks – and quilted repeated lines on the border fabric.

The end result came out well and I know my Aunt was impressed!