Sneaking under the wire!

I wasn't going to enter the Bloggers' Quilt Festival but after seeing all the wonderful quilts out there I decided that I would enter at the last minute!  I was going to enter 'Going in Circles' but that's already been in a show this year (The Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate - see this post if you're interested in seeing more)so I've decided to share a different quilt with you that I've not shown on my blog.

I started my sashiko sampler quilt in 2007 when I'd been quilting for about six months.  I'd seen a sashiko cushion at a local quilt show (the first I'd ever been to!) and had instantly fallen in love with the intricate stitching designs and I knew I wanted to create a sampler quilt using some of the patterns.  I bought The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook by Susan Briscoe and set about choosing which of the many designs I was going to use.  I used a hera marker to create the stitching grid and stitched the designs using a variegated quilting thread rather than traditional sashiko thread as I wanted a more delicate look to the stitches.

From memory each square took approximately two or three hours to mark and stitch but it took me about 15 months to complete the quilt as I kept starting other projects!  I decided to leave a ½" frame around each design and then add sashing to the blocks in a batik that has similar colours to the quilting thread as I wanted to keep the look of the quilt quite simple with clean lines as a contrast to the stitched designs.  Here are three of my favourite designs - sorry about the photos, it's a grey and drizzly day here!

The quilt lives on my settee and it's lovely to snuggle under on a cold evening as it has a comforting weight to it!

Quilt stats:  (my first quilt stats!)
Block size - 7" square
Quilt size - 76"x50"
Fabric - solid indigo (no idea what type but I got it here) and a Kaufman batik
Wadding - Midnight Dream Poly
Quilting - in the ditch around each block
Thread - YLI variegated quilting thread 'Danube Blues'
Hand stitched, pieced and quilted

I hope you've enjoyed my entry into the Quilt Festival - I've certainly enjoyed looking at lots of the entries (but I'm afraid I haven't managed to visit all of them!!)



In case anyone is wondering my chocolate flapjack turned out beautifully and it went down very well with my friends at the Knot studio (where I go for classes and workshops) this morning!

I forgot to take a photo before I packed them in the box - oops, bad blogger!

And it wouldn't be a post on ATWD without a photo of the man dog himself, would it?!

Well I don't know about you but I'm exhausted after all that typing...it's a dog's life!

Thanks for popping in, I'll hopefully see you again soon!