Finished size 46" square.

The centre is a t-shirt!! I loved this t-shirt it was so sweet and pretty and once Laura grow out of it, I tucked it away.
Then I saw this Christmas fabric, at the time it stood out as almost all Christmas fabrics were very traditional, red and green. But this was at the beginning of the fabric manufacturers doing modern designs and colour ways, Scandi influence was just starting.

I loved the fabric but didn't want to make a full sized Christmas quilt but it also matched the t-shirt, so I bought just a Fat Quarter pack.

I cut the front of the t-shirt, stabilised it with light weight iron interfacing and then trimmed it to a rectangle. The borders where added round it to make a square. Then the border of triangles made, with more borders added till I used up the fabric!

In the right hand bottom corner is the label from the t-shirt, it's worked into the corner block. It was so sweet I just had to use it.

The quilt top was layered and then machine quilted. I used metallic white/iridescent from Madeira threads, it just adds a sparkle, when the light catches it.

This quilt holds memories of Laura being little and excited about Christmas!

Finished size 66" square.

This is made using Tilda fabric. I first bought a charm pack of 40 X 5" squares, I just loved some of the fabrics and bought metre of them!!! It was then what do I do with them?

From each of the 5" squares I cut a circle - 36 for the front and the four others went on the back. Rather than make two quilts, using the greens on one and the pink/blues on the other, I decided to make one quilt but double sided.

The front is the circles, which when you look closely, each circle is machine appliqued on to a 9.5" square of Makower Essentials white on white fabric, using a coordinated thread and blanket stitch. Each square was layered with wadding and either the other circles or one or the two pink fabrics and then I quilted the design on.

The centre of each fabric circle has a circle then a simple flower and then a more complicated petal design and outer circle was quilted on the background fabric.

The 36 squares were put together using my usual quilt-as-you-go method, I had to be careful and plan the placement as I needed it colour balanced on the front and also get the pattern in the back. Once the squares were together then borders added, these are quilted with half of the petal design but simplified.

For the binding I went with a pink flower fabric which picks out the colour in both sides.

Finished size 61" square.

This quilt is quilt-as-you-go in two ways!!!
Firstly the construction of the squares. Over the years I have ended up with a bag of strips - leftovers from borders, joining strips & bindings. For this quilt I pulled out those that worked, which was the more pastel shades. These strips got mixed in with Natural Calico which was used for the rest of the quilt.

Once I had all the strips, I cut the backing square and wadding roughly to 14" square. I layered them together and starting with the strip in the middle, began to stitching/quiltIng the other strips on. The strips create the top of the square and by stitching them together through the wadding and backing they are being quilted at the same time.

This method is great for stripes and log cabin style quilts - you are combining a few steps of making and quilting!

Once all 16 squares where all made, I trimmed them to 12.5" using my square ruler of that size. Before joining them together using the quilt-as-you-go method - the second way they are quilt-as-you-go!!!

For the borders I cut and layered 6" wide strips and machine quilted them using various utility and decorative stitches on my sewing. With the stitches I played with the stitch length and widths to change there sizes and look.

It might be a quilt that I call a utility one - meaning I am happy for it to be used - in the garden, holidays etc and it's made from leftovers and Calico but I really like the look of it.

Finished size 44" X 53"

Entered into National Quilt Championship at Sandown.

This is both Laura's and my work, it is something we had been talking about creating from about 2013. Originally it was going to be a Remembrance quilt for WW1, we had lots of ideas but we never got round to making it.

Then in 2017, the National Quilt Championship, announced the special theme for 2018 was Remembrance, this speared us on.
But we didn't want to just create a formatted remembrance quilt with poppies and silhouettes of soldiers. It grew into something much more, it is a quilt remembering those that fell in both World Wars and all conflicts since, plus their families, it's about hidden and lost memories of those men and women, also their Mothers, father's, wives, husband's, children, brothers and sisters - how loosing one person can effect so many.

It is also about hope and the future and how life goes on.

We choice green as the background, when we got the fabric for the background, we discovered it had uneven colouring where there had been a problem with dyeing. We decided that actually it wasn't a problem that the 'fading' worked with the theme.
We both wrote down quotes from books, poems and songs that spoke to us. Eventually we came up with the ones that Laura then hand embroidered onto the fabric. The pictorial panels are both mine and Laura's work and are appliqued on. The layers where put together and then machine quilted.

On the back of the quilt we wrote the following

In Memoriam - The is a time for everything.

The four trees represent the cycle of life and death, of loss, grief and the movement on of life. The war memorial represents all those who have died in any war at any time and in any place. The grave marker is that of those left behind at home in time of conflicts and those forgotten by time. The candle is the light of remembrance, burning forever. The poppy is Remembrance poppy, worn to honour all those gone. The dove is for peace and love. The pansy in flower language represents thoughts. The black void represents the helplessness of grief and the angel the hope that there is life after death.
Laura & I believe that all our forebears, not only through our DNA, but also in their actions, echo down through the generations and live in us today.

We will remember all those that have passed - Always.......

Size 65" square.

In Gail Pan's book Patchwork Loves Embroidery Too, is a really lovely wall hanging quilt with embroidered Dresden Plates. I love it, but I didn't want to make a wall hanging. It was the inspiration for this quilt.

I took the embroidery pattern and used the flowers, altered to fit on the wedges of my plates. Each plate has six embroidered wedges in different shades of threads. The other six wedges are made using six different fabrics - all the fabrics where in my stash, I just used what I had.

The Dresden plates are made using the paper piecing method and then hand sewn together, before the papers are removed and they are slip stitched onto the background fabric. The circles for the centres where fussy cut to have the flowers in the centre before being blanket stitched on.

Each square was layered and machine quilted with variegated thread. I stitched round the centre and up each wedge to the outside of the square, and I also stitched round the outside of the plate.

For the borders I just put strips of fabric together, layered and machine quilted. On the wider floral strip of fabric I quilted a flower design, otherwise the quilting is just straight line.

For the corner squares, I went with different fabrics, with 1/4 plates.

All the joining strips and edge binding are in the same fabrics.

66" square.

(Actually it's a quillow as it can be folded up into a 18" cushion)

You may have noticed that a lot of the quilts that I keep for myself are between 60" & 70" square ones. I call them topper size, meaning that they fit nicely on the top of a double bed from below the pillows. They also fit on a single bed, or as a big snuggle quilt! It's a size and shape I really prefer.

I have gone with nine squares, each of 18", there are three different designs, the centre has five flowers and a square feel, four have three flowers and a circular feel and the other four squares are made up of four individual flowers in matching squares.

Another thing you may have noticed is I like floral designs!! Especially the simple daisy type shapes - one of my favourite Quilted Postcards is the daisy one with French Knot centre!!

There is just something cheerful about daisy type flowers and there are a lot out there to inspire.

The daisy used on this quilt I draw up myself. But you could easily use a flower from the Accuquilt range of dies, there are a couple that are similar.

All the daisies and centres are machine applique, they are stitched on using blanket stitch and matching threads. I then embroidered on the French Knots around the centres of each flower. And also embroidered the green circles or square.
Each square was layered and quilted on the machine. The quilting is all done on the white background fabric in white thread. I have gone round each flower, around the outside of the embroidered circle or square and then next to the coloured border of each square.

When all the squares were completed I joined them together with the green strips. I then made the final borders in the same green patterned fabric. The borders are quilted with a leaf design. The binding is in the same green patterned fabric.

For a present I made another quilt with the same daisy design, I created it in strips, alternate strips had daisies all the way down and the other strips were quilted with a butterfly design, as was the borders. As I knew the quilt would be used and washed a lot I didn't add the hand embroidery.

Finished size 66" square.

This follows on from the last couple of Quilt Stories - hexagons and my love of them!!

In late 2013, early 2014, there was a lot of rainbow and general colour wash quilts around including a number of hexagon ones - but they were completely made from hexagons with graduations of colours. It all got me thinking and I wanted to create a quilt with lots of colours that showed off all the fabrics in my stash.

I needed a portable hand sewing project for 2014, and the hexagons for this quilt became that project, there are 304 hexagons in total!

I tried as much as possible to make each hexagon unit from nineteen different fabric and then each edge of the colour frame in another fabric, so in theory each square should have 23 different fabrics. This didn't always happen in practice as some colours aren't ones I have used a lot of the years, I had to buy a few bits of orange and yellows. This quilt has over 25 years worth of fabric pieces in it. I sometimes only had enough for just one hexagon but in a way this quilt is also a memory quilt.

The hexagons are paper pieced and sewn together, then appliqued onto the background and the borders added. Each square is layered and quilted.

The quilting is a mixture of hand on the hexagons and then machine on the background and borders.
The squares are joined using the quilt-as-you-go method in a black and the binding added on.

The quilt design was featured in the July 2015 edition of Popular Patchwork Magazine, it even made the front cover.

Finished size 64" square.

This quilt is in a way the follow on to my hexagon heart anniversary quilt, as all the hexagons in the star are leftovers from that quilt.

Years ago I saw a Hexagon star quilt, where the how top was made from hexagons, it stuck in my mind. And so when I was looking to do something with the leftover hexagons, being that they were silver grey colour, I thought about a star. I really love the star shape.

I stitched all the hexagons into the star, then machine appliqued, using blanket stitch, onto the background square. The background square was then layered and quilted. All the quilting was done on the machine, I have quilted parts of the hexagon star and then stars on the background square.

The stars on the border are cut using Accuquilt Baby go!! And the star die and then machine appliqued and quilted. I used all three star sizes and just scattered them down the borders. Once all four borders and four corner squares were made, then they were attached to the centre star panel - quilt-as-you-go method.

Finally the binding was stitched on.

Finished size 64" square.

I made this for us - Tony & me for our 25th Wedding Anniversary in 2017.

25th anniversary is Silver and so I tried to find as many silver/soft greys as I could. This was actually really hard to do!! I didn't want big patterns, but tone on tone ones with smaller designs. For months when we went anywhere and it had a quilt shop then I would go looking, I bought one or two fat quarters each time. I also ordered some online when buying other bits and pieces. I ended up with a box of greys! But each manufacturer used a different shade of grey - some where green greys, others blue greys, purple greys...etc. So trying to find a set of greys that worked together was interesting. In the end I settled on a selection of them and the rest went into my stash!

I love hexagons but they aren't a quick make! This is slow stitching. I have an Accuquilt Baby go!!! cutter which I got to speed up cutting hexagons, the die cuts both the fabrics and papers. But the fabric still need tacking over the paper and the hexagons sewn into the hearts. The nine hearts slowly took shape.

Once each heart was finished, I pressed it, removed the papers, pressed again and then centrally pinned them onto the background fabric - Makower Essentials white on white scroll pattern. Then I slipped stitch them in place.

I added borders in the fabrics used, to each square, layered with wadding and backing fabric, then quilted. The quilting is a combination of hand and machine. I hand quilted a heart in the hexagon heart and also hearts on the background at the bottom. Then I machine quilted round the outside of the heart on the background, the background square and border - all the quilting was done in white threads.

Finally when all nine squares were finished, I joined the all together and finished off the quilt - in time for our anniversary!!

Finished size 80" square.

Sorry the photos aren't brilliant, but it's a grey rainy day here.

This quilt is in a way the pair to the Floral Quilt I wrote about last week. They where both made in the same year, and I taught them side by side.

This quilt is one we use in the winter months on our bed, I think it is one of Tony's favourite, as he asked for it to go on our bed when I finished it. I guess many of the quilts I make are very feminine, with flowers either as the theme or in the fabrics I use.

In the winter months, rather than having a thicker duvet we have a quilt on the bed, many of my quilts are smaller size so just cover the top of the bed, but this one being bigger hangs over the sides and doesn't slip off at night! I will have a second quilt folded up at the bottom of the bed for more layering and cosy feel.

The inspiration behind this quilt? Marble block pattern floors like the marble hall at Kedleston Hall, to tiled floor in churches and even the floor in Marks & Spencer's in Lakeside Shopping centre!!! The traditional block patterns, those we think off as American patchwork, worked into this inspiration, as does the range of fabrics that I have used.

The fabrics are Northcott Stonehenge - I loved this range. It look likes stone. After making this quilt I bought some more of the fabric and I use it lots for my Quilted Postcards, for walls and dry stone ones especially!! They don't make these colour versions any more and I don't have much left!

The fabric came from Quilt Essential, when it was a physical shop at Cromford Mill in Derbyshire. They had the biggest range of this fabric and I knew I wanted to use it. When we went to visit my sister and her family in Derbyshire, as a family we headed to Cromford Mill, they all wandered round the mill, which all those years ago was still a big rebuild and conservation site and then they wandered down the canal. I went into the quilt shop and spent ages finding the right fabrics and trying to find ones for the Floral Quilt!!

I love the fact that these fabrics came from a shop in an old mill - not any old mill but Sir Richard Arkwright's mill - as it says on its website ' the birthplace of modern factory system'. A lot more work has been done to preserve it and it is a tourist attraction, a lovely place to visit, even if the quilt shop is no longer there.

The quilt is all machine pieced and quilted, it is quilt-as-you-go, there are the sixteen block squares and then the sixteen narrow borders and four corners, to balance it all up.

Years of use and washing have given it a soft feel and it is a quilt for cold winter nights!

Finished size 80" square.

I still am really proud of this quilt & love it!!

It is one of those quilts that I loved making and at no point have I ever fallen out of love with it. Often when making a quilt I will get fed up with it, or after a while lose interest and it will get folded up and put away. But that has never happened with this one. It lives folded up on the back of my dressing table chair, and each week I fold it to a different square.

The inspiration behind this quilt is the traditional design Rose of Sharon. I took the design, tweaked it and then all the other squares are made from this, using a limited number of flowers and leaves.

In 2013 when I was thinking about teaching this quilt, I also decided to teach another quilt at the same time - a block design one - but more about that one in a different quilt story!

The previous three or four quilts had all been made either predominantly or included the purple range of colours, so I was determined to work with other colours. I dragged Tony & Laura round numerous quilt shops, looking at different colours and patterns but I kept being drawn to the pinky purples, each shop I went into I picked up another batik - those in the leaves and flowers. Till in the end, Laura told me to just go with the purples as we both liked them best. I then got the plains, the batik for the border and joining strips and the soft mottled yellow for the background.

More often than not I use an Essential white on white, or cream on cream as my background fabric but with this the deeper richer colours called for a different background, personally I find plains too flat and I loved this soft yellow, it is warm and makes the other fabrics stand out.

Each square is machine appliqued, using fusible web and then stitched on using blanket stitch. The sixteen squares were layered with wadding and the backing fabric and then I free motioned machine quilted it.

I then put the squares together using the quilt-as-you-go method, adding narrow borders all round the outside, to make it balanced. By using a batik fabric for the borders of the squares and all the joining strips, it looks like one piece, the joins aren't a feature and also any mistakes or slightly uneven joins don't show!!

I offered this quilt design to Popular Patchwork Magazine and it was in the May 2014 edition.

Even though I machine appliqued and quilted this quilt, it can easily be made with hand applique and quilting or a mixture of both.

Made in 2017, measuring 20" X 84".

This runner was made using a special template from Sew Easy called Pinwheel Magic and it comes in two sizes 4.5" & 6.5".

This runner is made using the 4.5" size template.

With each template you have the ability to make three different styles of pinwheels.

To make a Pinwheel usually you have to cut the pieces with the different angles and then stitch together, trying to get everything to match up perfectly.

With the template you cut squares in the colours you are using, so in this case black and white. The blacks are in fact all different blacks, from plains, mottles and also self coloured pattern ones (blenders). The squares are stitched together in a chequer board design and the borders added. The template is placed on top, following the lines for the design type you want and you cut round, creating the Pinwheel squares.

Then you stitch them all together again!!! Making the finished top. Somewhere there are a couple of videos we did of how to use the template.

The runner top was then layered with wadding and the backing and machine quilted, I have used a purple thread and stitched through the pinwheels, I haven't tried to keep the lines straight, they have slight curves to them.

I had forgotten all about the template till I pulled this runner from the unit!! It was the last one in the unit and so, next week I will start on the pile I keep on the blanket box in our bedroom. The blanket box doesn't hold blankets or quilts but boots and shoes!!!

This was made in 2011, and measures 22" x 77".

Sorry this runner is a little creased, but it has been folded up for a while & although I do occasionally press my quilts, I try not to. I like the folds and creases to drop out naturally when I use a quilt or runner.

I think, with the quilts I have already shown in my quilt stories & those still to write about, that I use a lot of fabrics in the Purple colour family!! And this one is no exception, soft lilacs in this one.

The runner was designed so that if you didn't want it so long, you could take out the smaller sections either side of the centre panel and the runner would be the size for a single bed and yet the pattern would still flow.

I have hand appliqued the leaves, flowers and butterflies and also hand quilted it using coloured thread. I have then used French Knots as decoration on the butterflies and flowers. The whole design could easily be created using machine applique & quilting.

To go with the runner I also made a cushion cover that is 15" square.

Finished size 43" square.

This is just a small quilt, for a long time it was used over our headboard on our bed, the headboard didn't go with the colours in our bedroom but we couldn't afford to buy a new one at the time - so I covered it with a quilt that matched the colours!

It has been used and washed and has that rather faded worn look and feel. It has a polyester wadding and has been machine quilted in the ditch (right in the seams so that the quilting is hidden).

The Roman Stripe pattern, is a fairly quick one to make, it is best done on the sewing machine. It's not one I tend to teach now as it isn't one you can do for quilt-as-you-go, it's got to be made as a whole top and then quilted. It would work for the centre of a quilt or as a cot quilt - where it isn't so big that it's hard to quilt.

You decide how many stripes you want and what width, I have used five with a finished width of 1". These stripes you make as long as you can, usually you cut across the width of the fabric. Then you stitch them together and press. Next you measure the width of the stitched stripes and cut a piece of fabric to this size. Place a strip of stripes on top, right sides together, and stitch both edges, making a tube.

From this tube you cut triangles, unpick the stitches at the points, open out and press and you have a square - half and half design. The squares get stitched together to make the quilt top.

I have gone with traditional layout but they can be placed in different directions to create lots of different patterns.

When it was made ? I'm not really sure, as I haven't stitched on my tortoise logo or date. Looking at my teaching instructions, the date on those are 2007, so it possibly could have been made then. But I have taught Rail Fence before and after that date.

Finished size 55" square.

This is what I would call a 'utility' quilt - meaning that I made it to be used and washed a lot, these are quilts I am not precious about, they get used in the garden, away on holiday etc - to be fair to this one, it's not been used a lot and has spent years folded in the unit in our bedroom.

The fabric is Dorma sheets, the plain colours and a Dorma duvet cover is the patterned fabric, which is also used for the borders and the back of the quilt. The plain colours would have been seconds, as I used to buy a lot of them in white or cream, in the sale for backing quilts - they were 100% cotton, and where lovely for the backs of quilts, if I got a double or king size flat sheet they easily did the whole back with no seams. There was usually only a small slub line or the stitching of the hems wasn't right, never any big thing to make them seconds. Being seconds they were a lot cheaper plus I used to get my staff discount.
The Duvet cover was x- display, unfortunately it had somehow got caught with a trolley or pram and it had got a bit damaged and dirty along one edge. It couldn't be sold, so I was given it, rather than it being thrown away. I washed it and it worked for this quilt.

Rail Fence pattern is one very much associated with America. I have used just three strips to make up each square, I have also made it using four strips and seen lots of different variations with different numbers of strips and also a mixture of widths.

Writing this has made me want to create another one, with different width strips and more of them. 😂 In soft pastel fabrics! But it isn't a design you can make as quilt-as-you-go, it has to be made as a whole top quilt.

It's not a complicated design to create. Decide on your width and number of strips. Cut as long a strip in the width you want in each colour. Machine the strips together, press and then cut into squares. Stitch the squares together, alternate ways to make the width you want and carry on stitching lengths together to make the pattern, build up the design.

By the feel of the quilt I have used Hobbs Polydown wadding, I used to use it for utility quilts as it would dry quicker. But it can't be pressed. For the quilting I have taken one of the simple leaf motifs in the pattern fabric and enlarged it, then hand quilted then randomly on the quilt. As it's a polyester wadding used it can be quilted further apart.

Made in 2014, measuring 57" square.

When Laura was younger, she had a couple of years with a number of t-shirts we loved. Rather than pass them on, I kept them, knowing one day I would make them into something. One got turned in a cushion. With the three pink fairy ones I made this quilt in 2014.

Working with t-shirt fabric is very different from working with patchwork cotton - it stretches and it is a different weight and texture.
The first job was to unpick the t-shirts, and then gently press a light weight iron-on interfacing onto the back of the pieces going to be used. You have to be really careful not to stretch or distort the t-shirt fabric and also not to damage the motifs. It takes time and careful handling to do.

Once stabilised, the t-shirts can be properly cut into the sizes needed. One of the t-shirts has made two squares as it had motif on both the front and the back, plus bits have been used for the corners and also in the borders.

I decided that I wanted four squares with a finished size of 15" square. Each motif was in the middle and then I built up with cotton fabric to the make the final size. I went with white sashing to join the squares.

The first border is made up of both squares in the t-shirt fabric and cotton fabric. The second border is white with corner squares in a mixture of the t-shirt and cotton fabric.

I then appliqued butterflies randomly on, before layering with polydown wadding and cotton backing and machine quilting.

The quilt lives in my bedroom, by the the time I made it Laura was a teenager and didn't want it in her room! I think it is a lovely memory of when she was younger and loved these pretty girly fairy pink t-shirts and fairy wands!!!

Made in 1998 and entered into the National Patchwork Championship at Olympia that year, it measures 72" X 74".

The inspiration for this quilt was from the Canada geese that flew over our house. Early every morning & in the evenings as the sunset we would hear and see big numbers of them go to and from the lakes, in the park a few roads over. There was always a big flock over there - there aren't any more!

Even back in 1998 I loved watching the colours in the sky, the big challenge was to find the enough shades to work. We just didn't have the range of shades and tones we have now.

It starts with the dark blue of early morning, going through the pale washed Grey blue, greens and yellow of cool soft dawn, into the soft blues of the morning and then the stronger blues of midday and afternoon. The oranges and reds of a bright brilliant sunset that glide into pinks and soft mauves, before turning into dark purples and blues of the night sky.

For the geese I went with a grey brown, which was just one colour of the Canada geese but also when you looked up and saw them in silhouette flying over in there V formation, this was the colour they looked.

The quilt has 32 rows of colours and the 'geese' are a traditional layout for the Flying geese pattern. All the squares and triangles are worked over papers and stitched together. If you look closely you can see the stitches in places, were I have struggled to find thread that works with both the 'geese' & sky.

This quilt was made a number of years before I learnt about grey thread!! It was only when I became a haberdashery buyer and the rep was going through Gutermann thread ranges, when we where going over to them from Sylko. And he was teaching me about the different types, weights, uses and how to colour match, that I first learnt that grey will blend with any colour and is really good for piecing mixed colours together. Since then I have always kept a light, mid and dark tone of grey for piecing in my thread drawer.

The quilt top was made as a whole, centre design and borders and then it was layered and quilted. The wadding has gone very flat and thin from the quilt being used and washed - it has faded on some of the colours, especially the blues.

The quilting was hand stitched to represent the weather maps, the lines of weather fronts and areas of highs and lows. I can remember that it was impossible to find a fabric marker to mark the design on. We only had chalk or silver quilters pencils, and they just rubbed off so quickly. Or we did have water erasable but they are blue!!! And didn't show when I tested them. So I marked the lines with 1/4" quilters masking tape, and stitched along the edge.

The other thing I can remember is it was getting very near the time to send the quilt in for the exhibition and I hadn't finished the quilting and I had some very early mornings stitching before I went to work!!!

I do have a habit of leaving things to the last minute!!! I have over the last few years, tried not to do it but ...it still happens, I seem to work better to tight deadlines!!

It is a quilt I still am pleased with and proud off.