Thursday, May 19, 2011

London quilt

Before I left for London in March, I gathered supplies for English Paper Piecing and a William Morris design charm pack. No plan beyond keeping busy on the plane. When I was in London I bought some fabric to add to the mix. And I began sewing pieces together. While I was ill in April, I kept on covering cardboard bits with fabric and playing with them like puzzle pieces. I sewed some more together and decided I needed a plan. I settled on a a "map" of central London with the Thames running through it. I drew up a bunch of plans, settled on one and got going.
This is how far I got over the weekend. The weather was nasty--cold and rainy and windy--and I stayed in and stitched obsessively. It's slow work but in addition to sewing hexagons together, I covered a whole bunch more with fabric. I joined the big hexagons to the smaller river hexagons and began to see how it will fit together (and where it's not quite fitting...)

My overall plan is to make a wall hanging. I expect to have borders at least on the sides, using some of the ribbons and laces I got in London. I want to put daffodils on it--London was abloom when I was there. I had thought ribbon embroidery but I think the scale will be wrong, so now I'm thinking fabric applique or perhaps 3-D fabric flowers. I don't know about quilting it. I thought about putting the flowers below the river and above quilting it with the shapes of buildings. Those decisions can wait.

This paper piecing is addictive--like popcorn, just one more...and what if I put this color here...

2 comments:

Miss Holly said...

Wow this Is going to be a fantastic quilt!!!

Jenny Woolf said...

Oh! I remember the beginnings of this in London, with the pieces over the dining room table. This is a lovely idea for a quilt.