Hi Everybody,

This is just a short post to show where I have got to with my Scottish themed quilts in progress. I’ve added little bits to three of them and they are now ready to square up, surface quilt and embroider and then bind. Seems like a long way to go still but they are looking a little more promising than when I last posted. These will be the first to be finished and then there will be another two to follow.

First up is my black and white ‘Wind in the West’ mini quilted picture:

All I have done to this is to add a window and door to the cottage, appliqué  a strip of fencing around the edge of it and pop in a running rabbit (bottom right). I think its’s about ready to quilt now. I’m not sure whether to add a touch of colour or keep it all black and white, or grey . What do you think?

The second one has had a lot more detail added now:

The cottage has chimneys as well as a door and window and a series of conifers have sprung up around it which I hope gives the scene more depth. I haven’t  decided whether to outline some of the ‘hills’, and continue the quilting lines from one hilly square to another, or to quilt tree shapes here and there. That might mean the quilt ends up being called ‘Into the Woods’ instead of ‘The Glen’

Then there is my mystery quilt. Are you any the wiser? The clue is probably in the crown:

I shall probably outline-quilt the surrounding squares and rectangles and add some surface embroidery, especially across the seam in the heart and around the edges of the crown. I have stuffed the heart, so that it sits proud of the rest of the quilt because, for me a meaningful heart has to be one that is full.

Ok, time for the big reveal. Ta-da! This mini quilt is a representation of a Luckenbooth, that very old, traditional form of jewellery, usually a brooch and usually wrought in silver, that originated in Edinburgh in the early 1500’s. The design is a heart, or a couple of entwined hearts, sometimes with added gems and almost always topped by a crown. The brooches got their name from the stalls that popped up along  The Royal Mile (Edinburgh’s High Street), a patch of which become known as the “luckenbuiths” or locking booths out of which merchants traded. Although the  Luckenbooth was originally a brooch, as time went on the same motif has been used in various traditional and stylised ways, to fashion rings, pendants, charms, earrings and bracelets.

Here is a simple, inexpensive one I found on Ebay, sold by the jewellers Alexander Castle in Glasgow:

As you might expect, the Luckenbooth was a love token, given as an engagement ring might be today but also presented to new-born babies to bestow love and protection. They were also handed down through families from mother to daughter. I found one among my mother’s belongings after she died, a gift from my father almost half a century before.

I wanted to celebrate this lovely Scottish emblem and the sentiment it has carried with it for so long. Maybe my little quilt can be yet another means of sending love down through a family.

Till next time……