A 40th Birthday Quilt

Even knowing that that this was delivered about a year late… this must have been completed five years ago. Eek! I have no good photos of this quilt, but plenty of bad ones, which will have to do.

Looking at it now, I would have quilted it differently and maybe contracted it a little more traditionally, maybe. Sanchia had requested (and seemed to be happy to receive) handmade gifts before, but still, I had checked with her that a quilt might be something that she would like to have and asked her about colour choices, she said anything in ‘Cath Kidston’ colours or in navy and coral. I crossed my fingers and looked for fabric that was, or was reminiscent of, Cath Kidston. At the time, I saw a lot of the red, green and floral combinations so went with this. In retrospect, and having since visited a Cath Kidston shop, I wonder if I should have gone with a navy blue instead of the green, and perhaps coral instead of the red. Looking at it now, I think the navy in place of the green would work really well. If only I had had EQ8…

I wanted the pattern to reflect my friend’s ancestry and to be personal to her. She is very proud of her Irish and Welsh ancestry so I wanted to include references to this. For this reason, I decided early on to make an Irish chain quilt with Welsh quilt inspired heart appliqué motifs. 

I used the Irish Chain pattern ‘Chain Reaction Quilt’ designed by Pam and Nicky Lintott found in their book ‘Antique to Heirloom, Jelly Roll Quilts’ published by D&C in 2012. All the quilts are based on antique quilts, but adapted to use jelly roll strips. I have a couple of their quilts and find their patterns quick and easy to put together.

The other appliqué shapes are reflections of things that are part of her life - spoons for cooking; fountain pens because the is a dedicated and diligent letter writer and pen friend; crosses as she is a nurse; and cats because she is a cat lover. The letters around the outside of the quilt are the first initials of her husband, children, parents and siblings. 1975 her birth year and 2015 her 40th year. I have a sneaky way of making the appliqué easier and quicker - while still giving the same result as needle turned appliqué. Next time I use it, I will take pictures and describe it here as I have not seen it anywhere else. I don’t use patterns for these things, I just draw them on paper, or more often, just cut them out of scrap paper as I need them. The cat motif was even more fitting in the end, as they had a new cat come to live with them on her 40th birthday. 🥳 

 

I think I had intended to do some fancier free motion quilting, but it was quite a large quilt and I expect that I was behind time. Also, I had placed the appliqué in the large squares where I would have put more decorative quilting. In the end, I quilted this very simply with straight lines using a walking foot and variegated pinkish thread. I did use free motion to make the label, as on past quilts. 

To sandwich the quilt, I had to pile up all the furniture in my living room behind the front door to just about make enough space to lay it out on the floor. This is probably when I started dreaming about owning a longarm. The backing is a 100% cotton double duvet cover from Ikea bought for this purpose.