thecraftycreek

All quilts are meant to have a name so after much thought I’ve named this one the Apothecary Cat Quilt, more about that later…

On Sunday our clocks went back an hour and the day seemed to go on and on! I got all sorts done, a bit of pruning in the garden, a bit of tidying up in the house and I managed to sandwich and quilt one of my current projects. I’m making this quilt as a well done gift for a young friend who after five years hard work qualified as a pharmacist in the summer. I used the disappearing four patch pattern, I showed the makings of the blocks here. It’s a fairly quick quilt pattern to make up once you get past the idea that you’re stitching all the blocks up only to cut them up and stitch them up again!

The fabric is mainly from a range by the British company Lewis & Irene, I do like their fabrics, lovely designs and great quality. I particularly love the two passion flower ones and the bees are gorgeous too!

Having made the basic quilt I felt it needed a border, both to finish it and to make it a bit bigger, I found this fabric in Samuel Taylors, I love it, it’s in beautiful muted shades with dressmakers dummies (sort of!) I’m very tempted to get some more to make a shirt!

I sandwiched it on the lounge floor as usual as it’s the only place big enough, I do vac it first and then I pin the bottom layer into the carpet to keep it smooth! I had some double width ivory cotton in my stash which had been just waiting to back quilt like this. I use 505 spray adhesive to baste the three layers together, I love the look when it’s perfectly smooth on the floor.

I decided with this quilt to quilt in the ditch which is where you just quilt along the seam lines, it should be pretty much invisible if you don’t wobble! I felt an all over design like I have done previously would have detracted from the quilt pattern, particularly with the extremes of light and dark. The quilting went fairly well, there’s the odd wobble and one crease underneath. I wasn’t sure whether the quilting lines were close enough together but having checked with the shop where I bought my batting I’m just within the limits, apparently different makes of batting do vary with their recommendations.

I used a darker purple for the binding which finishes it off nicely. I hand stitched the binding down over a couple of evenings, then all that was left was to stitch the label.

I used one of the quilted squares on the back and embroidered the details in back-stitch with DMC variegated thread.

As I said at the beginning, it is traditional to name every quilt, I’ve been a bit lax so far, mainly because I couldn’t think of suitable names! I’m making a concerted effort now and including it in the label for posterity!

So why the ‘Apothecary Cat’ quilt? Well, apothecaries were the old chemist and pharmacists back in medieval times when they used herbs etc, the fabrics also fit in here as the flowers and bees would have all been of interest to the apothecary. Cat is a nick-name for Kathryn whose quilt it is. It also happens that as I was finishing the quilt their beloved 18 year old cat died, so it’s also named with a nod to Basil, a very cool cat.

The Apothecary Cat Quilt

I’ve been on annual leave this weeks and I have to admit I’ve had rather a nice pottering week, despite getting a cold and cough (isn’t it always the way!!) I’ve done bits of gardening, bits of sewing, even a bit of housework for good measure! I’ve done workshops, walks and had a lovely weekend with my daughter home. I’m trying to keep up with my plan of a couple of hours housework, a couple of hours gardening…and then several hours sewing…sounds a good balance to me!

I started another quilt, I know, I’ve got two on the go and another waiting to be quilted. However I wanted to make a quilt for a special young lady I know who after five years hard work, qualified as a pharmacist this summer – I think that deserves a quilt as a well done!

It needed to be a fairly quick quilt and after a conflab with her mum purple was the chosen colour (a girl after my own heart!) I selected some Lewis and Irene fabrics in Samuel Taylors. I really like this range, it’s sort of traditional with a modern look, if you get my drift. The passion flower ones were the starting point, but I loved the bee and dragonfly ones too, so a touch of mint green was added.

I decided on disappearing four patch as a pattern. I’ve done a couple of disappearing nine patch quilts recently where you stitch nine squares together then cut them into four. This is the other way round, you stitch four squares together and then cut it into nice, rearrange and then stitch them back together again. There are various variations on this, you can do the cuts diagonal, wonky…or keep it simple kike I did. I started with 7″ squares, stitched them together and then cut 1.25″ either side of the seam so once it was stitched back together again I would have 2″ sashing round the square sets. I managed to take a photo of the four stages of this block.

I made thirty blocks altogether, so the quilt is 6 x 5 blocks. I tried stitching them in a bit of a production line and whilst my systems did improve, I always ended up getting the stitch ripper out at least once per batch! Each block, in theory, measured 12.5″ square, there was a bit of variation in mine so I decided to trim them all to 12″, it was definitely a good move, I was able to check the centre seam was in the middle so when I stitched them all together they went together pretty well.

It took a while to arrange them all, I wanted a bit of order to it so it’s not just a random pattern, it didn’t help that I got them all in a nice pattern on the floor and then I realised the bees were all flying the wrong way, so I had to turn everything! I feel the quilt needs a narrow ivory border and a wider dark purple one now, so this ones going to have to wait until I can get some more fabric. I can hopefully get my jacket stitched now 🙂