Well it’s nearly November and whilst it’s still mild there is an autumnal nip in the air so the patchwork quilt is back on our bed to keep us cosy. I made this quilt about three years ago and I still love it. It was the first full size quilt I had made for 30 years, I was inspired after a trip to a WI exhibition where there was a beautiful stained glass window quilt on display.

I’m proud of this quilt, it’s not perfect by a long stretch, but I made it before I invested in rotary cutters and quilters rulers. As the design was based on a window in our hall measurements were sort of worked out as I went along. I love purple but I did struggle to find enough different fabrics  in nice plummy shades so as one person (rather snootily) pointed out, I have mixed batik and traditional fabrics, there’s even the odd Christmas fabric amongst the greens, so apologies if that breaks taboos in the quilting worlds, but I like it!

It’s a pretty big quilt, approximately 84″ square, I made it in pattern strips, then joined them together, used the leftovers to make the border and then used iron on bias binding for the stained glass window effect. It seemed to take an age to hand-stitch each length on and with hindsight I should have bought a 50m roll instead of the 10m ones. I discovered the multitude of sins that could be hidden under a strip of bias binding!

I took the quilt to Christine Marriage in Thackley for quilting, she is amazing on a longarm quilter and I thought very reasonably priced.

We had the stained glass window made about 10 years ago by a French glazier near Colne, Lancashire called Normandy Glass. I found the basic pattern in a magazine, we then chose the colours together. It looks amazing when the sun shines through it.

I’m very jealous of people who have that perfect spot in their garden to photograph a quilt! I’ve got a fairly big garden but no where to hang a kingsize quilt! I tried the washing line, but  the background is untidy, I tried the bedroom but that doesn’t show the whole quilt, although it does picture in in situ against our purple feature wall (I like purple!!) I even persuaded my daughter to hang it over an old railway bridge near us, though I’m not sure flipflops are the footwear I would choose for an autumn walk down the lane! So I’m afraid I still haven’t found the perfect spot, apologies, hopefully the next one will be easier as it’s cot-size 🙂