I’ve just finished my Spring Wreath quilt, I’m so pleased with it. It’s a BOM by Andrea Walpole of Raggedy Ruff Designs, I first saw the finished quilt on facebook and fell for it a few months ago!

It’s been a huge learning curve as I’d not tried free motion machine embroidery before. Andreas instructions are great and the detail in the pictures is amazing and I think that is what makes them so beautiful. As she says in her instructions ‘just take a deep breath and go for it!’ so I did…

I stitched the rabbits first…

I still can’t quite decide which is my favourite. I think it’s the owl…

but I also love the deer…

…and the foxes are pretty sweet, I like all the flowers round these two…

and I’ve always loved red squirrels!

The background is a lovely mix of muted shades of cream, taupe and mauve. There’s also an interesting mix of fabrics, a little bit of sparkle here and there, little pops of colour and stars too.

It took me a while to decide how to quilt it, I didn’t want to spoil it at the last stage. I’d ordered some variegated cream thread on line, but whne it arrived I felt it was a bit too yellowy. In the end I just used standard ivory Gutermann thread, which is that bit finer than machine quilting thread too.

I backed it with Liberty tana lawn, which sounds very extravagant, but there’s thousands of yards in local fabric shops as apparently it was made for Liberty but then they wouldn’t pay for it, so it’s being sold off cheap. I got 2.5m for £10 and it feels beautiful, soft as silk, it’s made a wonderful backing.

Anyway, back to the quilting. after much deliberating I decided on the following – I stitched four petal shapes in each pop of colour, I stitched round the outside of the stars, I love how they stand out. I stitched a fine meander in the centre of the stars. The rest of the quilt I stitched with my variation of curves and corners, it could look sort of leaf like, I stitched a few flowers and fern fronds too. I stitched it alot more densely than I’ve done before, it’s not perfect but I’m happy with it. It feels really light and soft, cuddly, though it’s going on a wall, not a bed!

I ordered two different shades of mauve from the quilt to use as the binding and chose the darker one, I think it finishes it off nicely. I spent the last couple of evenings hand stitching the binding down, I rather enjoy this bit, it’s a relaxing sort of sewing, you can get into a rhythm with it and let your mind wander! Having said that the tana lawn was actually quite tough to sew, I think possibly because it’s such I high thread count. I stitched a hanging tube into the top as I was binding it.

All I need to do now is hand embroider a label on the back with the date and my initials on. It’s going to take pride of place at the Open Garden & Quilt Show at the weekend!

I can’t recommend Andreas designs and kits enough, they’re beautiful designs, full of detail, the instructions are great, if you order the fabric pack as well you get just a comfortable amount, so you don’t feel you’re paying for stuff you don’t need. If you need say two 3″ squares you might get a piece that’s 4 x 7″. Every piece is labelled too so no confusion over which colour. I’ve got about half a dozen more of her kits (little ones) to do, so you’ll be seeing plenty more of her designs.

As I’ve spent a couple of evenings hand-stitching the binding down I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday.