Thursday, January 18, 2007

Under the Rainbow





I've finally come up with a plan for the future of my blog. I wll be moving it to my own server running wordpress. It is going to take a month or so to get moved but in the mean time there will be photos :) I have decided to accept the terms on a temporary basis and hope I can move before they decide to use any of my images. It seems likely given this is a low traffic, specialist blog. All this means, I can show you some photos! Yay!

So here it is. I was asked to come up with a pattern for a bed size quilt, to use a range of fabrics from the Ombre range and spraytime if I needed something more plain. It had to be a quick and fairly easy project. I had three quarters of a meter of each of the Ombre fabrics. I was told I could ask for more, but I like a challenge so I set out to design something that would only use what I had and some spraytime. The black is spraytime so is mottled, I really like it.

The biggest challenge was how to stretch a 44" width of fabric to the width of a bed. As you can see I did manage it, but boy it took some thought and fiddling. Remember I also had to be sure other people would be able to recreate it, and believe they could.

As ever I used a Ricky Timms style machine binding. I don't know what I would do without it for urgent quilts. The one on the frame now will have this type too. The main body of the quilt uses a Dave Hudson pantograph, and the borders are also a panto. I hadn't used either of them before, but I quite like them both. However I am already planning my own designs to do the same job, but the way I want. I am thinking of doing a series of patterns starting with one inspired by the watery pattern here. Rest assured you guys will be the first to hear about it.

I know the pictures aren't great but hopefully they will give you the idea. I was in a hurry to deliver it and couldn't wait for better light. If you want to see some good pictures, I guess the magazine will have them. It will be in the March edition of Popular Patchwork, which I think comes out about the 15th of February.

8 comments:

Joyce said...

I totally love this quilt but then I am a sucker for colors with black. My first quilt was like that but a rail fence pattern. I will be looknig for the magazine.

Ferret said...

Glad you like it. I was worried it might be too much for most people. I love black in my quilts, but you don't often see it in more traditional patterns or in magazine projects. Hopefully other people will either like it as is or just change the black. I've got everything crossed for it.

Janet said...

I love simple Amish-style quilts. They are hard to find nowdays. Yours is simply spectacular, and I have already put a reminder on the calendar to get that issue.

Ferret said...

Yay, I am not as far off the mark as I feared. Just hope I got all the instructions right. I giess you know what to find me if you get stuck :)

Nellie's Needles said...

Marvelous! I love the simplcity of your pattern. Black makes colors sing. I hope this is realized by anyone who is inspired to make one by seeing yours, but are tempted to substitute something else for black. The quilting almost looks like script. Did it feel as though you were writing when you quilted it?

Ferret said...

It was very boogie quitling. Partly because of the flow or it. It is called River Run I think but to me it looks like water on a window. At the same timae as I was working on it there were two people in the room planying a computer game calles Guitar Hero. It comes with a plastic Guitar (well we have 2 now) and you have to play the guitar along with songs. So I am listening to this quilting a really flowing pattern. Boogie.

I can see what you mean about script though and that would probably look really good. I would have to find something replated to either rain or rainbows if I was going ot do it. I suspect that script would have been a lot quicker to quilt :) I don't really get on with pantographs, maybe I just don't like being told what to do.

Hmmm doesn't that say it all, others see pantographs as a useful guide...

carrie said...

mmmm nice. and we can buy the pattern where?

Ferret said...

I sell the pattern, or I will in about a week :) I am just waiting for the proof to get here. If you would like to get in touch by email (see the contact me link) I can figure out a way of getting one to you.