I’ve just had a couple of days off work trying to get on top of a cough and cold virus, rather than just sitting around doing nothing I decided to do a bit of sewing.

Earlier this year I finished the top of my Secret Garden quilt, this was a block of the month kit from Raggedy Ruff designs. I’ve done several of her designs now, I love the detail and the style of her designs. Although this one isn’t very big (about 26″ square) it’s the busiest one I’ve done so far. I personalised the design slightly by swapping the cat sitting in the garden for our three dogs walking through it. I love the fact that all the birds portrayed have visited our garden, some regularly and some very occasionally. Here’s my finished top…

My next dilemma was how to quilt it. I put it up on my design wall, hoping for inspiration. Whatever idea I had, I could see issues, whether it was quilting round major blocks such as birds and roses, weaving a vine round the border or a meander round the background. Andrea, the designer had quilted hers pretty heavily with a background pattern, but for one thing, she’s a much better quilter than me.

As a last minute thought, I took it with me when I went to collect my Coming Home quilt from Althea, the long-arm quilter at the Harrogate Quilting Studio. I showed her the quilt and asked her advice. Without hesitation she said cross-hatch, anything else would distract from the applique and embroidery. I could see where she was coming from.

I decided to take her advice and tackle it whilst I was at home with a bug. I wasn’t sure how big a cross-hatching to do, I started by drawing it on with a Frixion pen. These are heat erasable pens which as many people are keen to point out, they’re not designed for fabric. Personally I’ve never had a problem with them not disappearing or with them reappearing in the cold, I usually use them pretty lightly, just marking with dots or dashes. With this quilt being so busy I did just draw the lines.

I was originally planning to do the cross-hatch based around the star in the middle of the sky but having stitched every other line to start with, I found that Zach, my little black dog, was nicely framed in a square. I decided that was enough quilting.

I found some batik in my stash which was left over from one of the first quilts I made, it has a soft green background with large pinky-purple flowers, it matched with the quilt beautifully. I also added two triangles at the top corners to use with a hanger. I hand-stitched the binding down, catching in the triangles at the same time.

All that was left was a label with the name and the date. I decided to call the quilt Dog Roses as it includes our dogs, one of whom is called Rosie, and some of the flowers look like dog roses.

I hung it on the wall straight away. I chose this spot for it as soon as I started making it, it’s just the right size and I think it looks great at the bottom of the stairs. So far I’ve not found myself putting a hand out there either, so hopefully it won’t get grubby.

I need to finish the Winter Wreath quilt next which has the beautiful barn owl (see below) as it’s centrepiece, but that will wait until next year as I’ve a few simpler quilts to make as presents first.

If you fancy trying some of the beautiful designs from Raggedy Ruff, she has a sale on, I think all pdf patterns are half price until Monday. They’re not all complex like this one, there’s some very pretty simpler designs too. She has also started printing panels of her original watercolour designs which are great if you don’t fancy the applique, I’ve just bought two for my sewing room as they have mice and squirrels making quilts or sewing. Here’s a few of the Raggedy Ruff designs I’ve made over the last few years…