Confession time…I’ve signed up for another Block of the Month…in my defense My Splendid Sampler will hopefully be finished by the end of February and thisis the only BOM I am stitching next year! I have to admit that keeping up with three this year has been a challenge and I did think long and hard before signing up for this one…well at least five minutes!

I’ve signed up for Sarah Fielke’s Down the Rabbit Hole quilt. I saw a sketch on facebook of the basic design and I couldn’t resist! It’s a beautiful design, it’s also a medallion quilt which I have been wanting to do for a while. A lot of it is applique, having got the Apliquik rods for Christmas and a gorgeous pair of Ernest Wright 5″ scissors, I’m hoping to master needle turn applique. One factor that persuaded me to do this quilt is the on-line support we are clearly going to get, there’s videos on techniques and a facebook page that is already very active with Sarah answering lots of questions and giving us advice on fabric choices etc. It’s the one thing I missed with my Anderson Farm quilt, I felt very much on my own stitching that BOM. With this one I already know there is someone up the road in Harrogate who is also signed up and lots more on facebook.

Our first decision is fabric, we have a comprehensive list of fabric requirements and the option to have a printable copy of the basic design for us to colour in and work out our fabric choices. Sarah advised A3 size so I e-mailed it to our local copy shop and then popped in and asked for four copies, it cost me the grand total of 80p!! It was really helpful being able to see how the colours worked out. I tried pencil crayons to start with, then tried felt-tips but that felt too hard for the colours I was using so I went back to the pencil crayons. One thing it has reassured me about is that I am very unlikely to get addicted to the colouring book craze, I was quite relieved as I could really do without a new hobby!

I want this quilt to go in our bedroom which is purple and duck-egg blue. My first thought was to use a layer cake and charm pack I bought a while ago, it’s Moda’s Potting Shed, it’s really pretty. I’ve even got a couple of metres of a border print. I realised fairly quickly that it would need supplementing with other fabrics. I happened to spot a fabric set I bought to make the Harebell quilt by Monkey Buttons, the colours are gorgeous. I think they go pretty well together, it is also reassuring that I know I can buy the fabric pack again if I need more whereas Potting Shed is not readily available now.

I just need to sort out my background fabrics now, I’m tempted to use two or three different muted prints if I can find the right fabrics, in maybe duck-egg, soft grey and very pale purple or cream. I’m planning a trip to a quilt shop tomorrow if they are open.

Our first installment is published on 31st January…exciting times 🙂