Frosted Memories Quilt

My SIL was 40 this year - she won't thank me for announcing it to the world, but I've been there already, so I'm allowed, hee hee :o)! Unfortunately I didn't realise until about a month before her birthday that it was the big 4-0 this year, which meant that I needed a quilt fast. So, a fairly simple patchwork design was the answer, my bro said she liked autumn colours and a friend had recently made a gorgeous cuddly quilt in brushed cottons from a range called Frosted Memories by Holly Taylor which I'd fallen in love with. A quick surf of the web and I found what I was looking for, then ordered it from the States and kept my fingers crossed (you would have thought I had enough fabric in my stash, but you'd be wrong :o)). Anyway, the fabric arrived in good time and after paying a hefty ransom to the customs men, I got cracking straight away. I used EQ6 to design the quilt, with input on colour placement from OH. And this is what I came up with. Probably a bit more winter than autumn, but she says she likes it, and my bro approved the design beforehand.


In reality the colours are a bit more subtle that the EQ6 picture.



For the moment I'm afraid there are no pictures of the finished quilt, because I was in such a hurry to get it done and posted that I forgot to take any of it!! My brother has taken some and promised to send them through when he has time, so I'll post them as soon as I can. In the meantime I'll tell you that I used Quilters Dream Cotton Select (mid loft) as the wadding, to make a lovely soft and cuddly quilt which is 100% cotton. I quilted it with a King Tut thread called Pharaoh's Tales which picked up the red and green nicely. I used my favourite method with the Golden Threads quilting paper and did a fairly large all over flower design. I made the label on my embroidery machine that doesn't come out very often. My brother and SIL live in South Africa, so it's too hot for a quilt for a lot of the year, but the winters feel cold because the houses are all built to be as cool as possible. So whereas at the end of a long winter we think 10 degrees is balmy, in the subtropical climate that they live in, it feels darn cold, and the quilt should get good use in front of the telly during the cooler months.

I learnt the hard way with this one that it's not good to rush a quilt, I had plenty of fabric for the backing, but managed to sandwich it crookedly, and then didn't even notice this faux pas until I'd got the binding on. In the end I took the binding off again and trimmed half an inch off one side, and restitched, but what an idiot. This crisis delayed the posting for nearly a week, hence the final scramble to get it off and the resultant forgotten photos. And the good news is that it arrived on the morning of her party, so all's well that ends well :o). Happy Birthday dear SIL!!