I’ve made a few quilts before…the very simple, all squares the same size, then sewn together types…which are lovely but I always felt like I was muddling through it a bit, and wanted to learn how to do it properly. Well luckily after dropping (not so subtle) hints to the husband, he bought me a place on a Patchwork Quilting course! Ten Thursday evenings of learning how to make a proper quilt step-by-step, learning different quilt blocks and producing my first sampler quilt – I loved every second, and think I’ve caught the quilting bug! Check out the quilt course here run by Butterfly Bright in Sherborne, Dorset.
Here’s a couple of pics of my sampler quilt using Dashwood fabrics
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Anyway so after finishing this quilt, I wanted to get started on another one to keep those skills fresh in my mind…and with Pip’s birthday approaching I set about planning a quilt for her. She is a little bookworm and we often find her in the morning curled up in bed with a pile of books she’s been reading after waking up too early. She’s got a real passion for it and despite just turning 4 this week she’s now at the stage where she can read children’s books to herself. We also listen to audio books in the car (we’ve had some long journeys back and forth to Dorset in the last year and the CDs have been a god send!) Through these she’s discovered the magic of Roald Dahl – I think we’ve actually read/listened to all of them now and she adores them – particularly Matilda who seems to have become a bit of a hero to her (well they’re the same age and both love books!) So when I discovered Ashley Wilde’s Fantabulous Roald Dahl range that was my mind up – they’ve captured all the classic stories we grew up with into a gorgeous range of fabrics – go take a peek! There are various stockists in the UK but I found most were only selling it by the metre, and as I only wanted to do one block per story it would have proved pricey…however I found sellers on eBay who while mainly selling it by the metre, also sold A4 size samples – perfect! Now it is a bit risky as you don’t know what part of the fabric you’ll get, but I only had to reorder one extra sample to get the centre piece I wanted.
Each story has a main fabric and a corresponding fabric e.g. James and the Giant Peach has a main fabric featuring James and the various insects and then a corresponding fabric of peaches. I wanted to use both so opted to use Churn Dash blocks for my quilt. I used a transparent 4.5″ square to fussy cut the centre piece for each block which made it really easy to line up and frame the picture. The stories I picked were
- James and the Giant Peach
- The BFG
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Esio Trot
- Matilda
- The Enormous Crocodile
- Fantastic Mr Fox
- George’s Marvellous Medicine
- The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me
There’s also The Witches, The Twits and Dirty Beasts in the range but I only needed 9 for my 3×3 quilt (and they weren’t quite as pretty as the other fabrics). I added in pastel fabric to frame the churn dash blocks – pale yellow, lilac and pale green. And then for the sashing I chose Lewis & Irene Vintage Circus stars (I love the circus range and am now very tempted to make a circus quilt next!)
For the backing fabric Pip chose a gorgeous tropical floral print after visiting Butterfly Bright’s shop. Coincidentally also from Lewis and Irene, but from their Tropicana range.
For the quilting I outlined the centre of each block and the churn dash frame with a zigzag stitch in pale blue thread, before using Dashwood Studio’s Twist fabric in Honey yellow for the binding.
Despite moving house in the middle of all this I’m thrilled I got this finished in time for her birthday (with 5 hours to spare!) – her little face lit up when she opened it on Thursday and it makes the late nights of sewing all worthwhile. I see many years of it being used to curl up in with a good book…and I can’t think of anything better.
Anyway thanks for reading and look out for another post coming soon where I’ll be reviewing a brand new crochet book, and they’ve also given me an extra copy to give away – watch this space!
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hollypips 