Snakes & Ladders

In my last post I talked about experimenting with Deborah Boschert’s Design Guides and trying out her “One Amazing Line.” I have now completed this project: Snakes and Ladders anyone? It was certainly a fun way of using up scraps. I might add some French Knots down the centre of the snake’s back though it’s probably unnecessary to spend any more time on a simple experiment.

Soon I will start on the second Design Guide which is “Third Plus” and I am excited about the idea I have in mind for it. But first, it’s time for me to start making Christmas gifts for my family. I would love to tell you about them but can’t risk them seeing this post and spoiling the surprise. So that will have to keep for now.

In the meantime I want to tell you about an adventure I had once and how it led to a desire for a quilt that would preserve it for ever. I once lived in a castle in central Scotland. It had been inherited by a young family after the older inhabitants had passed on and they were working hard to refurbish it. My husband worked as gardener and handyman and I helped to sort, pack and store belongings that would make room for the changes the family had in mind. These were temporary jobs for us while we waited for our house in England to sell, so that we could buy a place of our own in Scotland. It was a bad time to sell, so we lived in the castle for almost two years.

It was summer when we arrived and the extensive grounds were full of flowers. I had a lot of free time to explore the gardens and began to record the areas that were special to me. I am certain that this garden led us to choose the garden in which we live now. It has the same wild and sheltered feel to it; a world removed from the real one. We have a long drive leading to our house too, though not quite as long as theirs!

It wasn’t a very big castle as castles go but it had a medieval cobbled courtyard that was breathtaking when you saw it for the first time.

a walled garden that trapped the sun, and so many charming ornamental additions that I came across in unexpected places, like a sundial, or a dog statue or a little house in the woods, built for the children.

There were animals too: Dogs, a horse, rabbits and a family of peacocks that filled the air with their exotic cries. Best of all they came to our windows and tapped on the glass. Unfortunately, they also liked to sit on the roof of my car and it still bears the scratch marks to prove it.

I began my interest in patchwork and appliqué while I was living in the castle and bought this book by the much loved needle turn appliqué artist, Janet Bolton.

I saw that her Patchwork Garden also had a summerhouse, a fish pond, animals statues and topiary just like the one I walked in every day, and I began to think I could translate my castle memories into a quilt of my own. But I didn’t have the skills. I read the book, took notes, started to collect fabric and began to learn. And this is how my adventure began. Now almost seven years later, I think I am ready to make this quilt.

Janet Bolton’s book encloses templates so that you can make her pattern, a wall quilt in a T-shape to suggest a Japanese kimono. However, the templates could also be used as a guide for your own garden quilt. I don’t think it would take much to adapt the drawings, though I would choose to arrange them in a more traditional square or rectangle. And it’s perfect for English Paper Piecing and appliqué lovers.

So this is my project for next year, or the next few years of fitting it in among all the other projects I’m itching to try. Perhaps you have memories of a particular garden, or series of gardens you would like to preserve in fabric?

Till next time……

Hi Everybody,

I have lots of English Paper Piecing works in progress but nothing finished as yet, probably because I am trying to do too many at once. Why can’t I just finish one thing and then move onto the next?

The main reason for this post is to begin a series of experiments inspired by a book I have, entitled Art Quilt Collage by Deborah Boschert. In her third chapter she talks about design and composition and offers eight Design Guides to use as templates and a checklist to help “strengthen your composition skills” once you have completed them. She also suggests combining some designs and offers variations on a theme.

The first one I decided try is One Amazing Line.

Deborah’s example of a possible line. Could it be a profile?

She convinces me that I can make a whole mini quilt by focusing on a single line. It can be placed anywhere in my piece of fabric, can be wiggly or not, can represent words, or suggest a profile.

I made my line using a variety of square and tumbler paper-wrapped shapes (to take me around corners) from fabric scraps, and joined them together to make a wriggly line.

my little pieced sections of the snake – all numbered

I thought it looked rather snake like, so I gave it a head and the suggestion of a tail. The collection of browns and greens made me think of a grass snake. I didn’t have as much of the background fabric that I wanted to use, to allow it to move from one corner to the opposite corner as I had originally planned. However, that would have made the whole thing quite large. It was meant to be an experiment using scraps after all. It didn’t make sense to use more fabric than I needed, or to buy more. So I appliquéd my snake onto a long, narrow strip of olive green fabric that I liked. It’s much more olive than the picture below suggests.

Snake in progress. Only one ladder so far but you can see another drawn on.

The snake looked as if it needed more definition on this background so I added black embroidery (stem stitch) between the pieced sections that make up its body, around it’s head and all along the bottom of it’s body, to suggest shadow. I didn’t do it at the top because I didn’t want to outline the snake. It would look too heavy.

I began to think of the snake as a metaphor for life, how people start at one end and work their way to the other, moving on through each ‘stepping stone’. This reminded me of the ‘Snakes and Ladders’ board game I played so often as a child, so I decided to add some random ladders and the suggestion of a snake appearing and disappearing at the top corners. And to use a grid to quilt the whole composition, as in a board game.

I found some leafy fabric (where I felt my snake would feel right at home) to back my quilt, and I chose Vilene VLH630 fusible fleece to use as batting. This is a low loft fleece suitable for medium weight cottons and for top stitching and it felt as if it would keep my project thin enough to frame as a mini art quilt if I liked it enough.

When it is complete, Deborah suggests rotating your composition because often it can look better another way round: So, what do you think? Will this turn out to be better?

I never like my creations while I am making them. They look so ugly when they are tacked/basted, with lines drawn on and none of the colour and texture they will turn out to have. It’s amazing to witness their gradual transformation. We’ll see how this looks when it’s all done, in a later post.

Another project that is not far from completion is a soft-toned mini quilt of a bunny and a basket. Why I am putting bunnies and baskets on quilts in the run up to Christmas is anybody’s guess. I just wanted to use up some scraps of pastel fabrics. I thought it would make a pretty nursery picture but maybe it is too suggestive of Easter.

I have finished the piecing but it is still basted (tacked) and the appliqués are not sewn down. The bunny has no tail, but he will have, eventually (you can see it pinned on to the top right hand corner of the backing fabric. The backing fabric has stags on it. So pretty. I love it, even at this part-done stage, but then it’s not my design. It is closely based on one by Merumo from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/source/pleasentreeus.blogspot.com/ that I found on Pinterest, which is in turn based on a traditional quilt block.

‘Antique Fair Basket’ by Merumo

I am working on another of Deborah’s Design Compositions called Third Plus (post coming at some point in the not too distant future) as well as a second long and narrow composition which will make use of organza fish, metallic thread and Kantha stitching, none of which I have used on a quilt before. But more of these two projects later.

So, till next time….

An English Paper Piecing Journey

Crafting by hand In a corner of Scotland

A Garden Quilt, Like No Other

Design, Composition and Play

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