The 'use what you have' Quilt

I have accumulated a lot of fabric over the years from various sources. It is all stored in what appears to be a haphazard fashion in my Whitfield Workshop, but I know what I’ve got. Enough blues and greens to create this riot of those colours.

This one is ‘foundation pieced’ - I took strips of lightweight cotton six inches wide and stitched random blues or greens onto each one. Stitch one strip, iron it flat, stitch another and so on.

I have a big ‘design board’ in my workshop, nothing fancy - just two sheets of polystyrene covered with plain fabric, onto which I can pin a work in progress. I pinned this one in a variety of ways and finally settled on this alternating pattern.

The wadding is 100% organic cotton, the backing is a big piece of cotton fabric with a flower and dot design.

I quilted this one along the seam lines of the blue and green joins. Then I decided to quilt at right angles to these lines. Three strands of embroidery thread in blues and greens of all shades. You would have to look hard to see the stitching on the front, but it makes a nice grid pattern on the back.

48 inches by 68 inches

rolled and tied and ready to go

(The first picture shows this quilt at the design stage, in my workshop. In the second picture you see this quilt draped over the sofa (left) in the exhibition 'Home is where the art is' in Cumbria in may 2013)