*[projects half done…]
Quilt size ca. 190 x 190 cm / 75x75 inch
The original pattern for my Shirttail Quilt is from Wendy Williams, published in the Australian Patchwork & Quilting Magazine Vol. 15 No. 9. An old back issue even then when I started the quilt in April 2009.
I am a magazine (any magazine) junkie and browsing/buying old quilt magazine at quilt festivals and markets is just too much fun - and I always find an interesting article or pattern.
What was neat about this quilt pattern in the AP&Q magazine was a black & white graphic of the entire quilt. That helped me to “see” this quilt in my favorite color combination red & white.
Photo Source.: Mega Store / Express media Group http://shop.magstore.com.au/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CP0324
The original pattern was made of blue recycled shirt fabric and a red accent fabric. I kept the entire block construction just the way Wendy Williams designed it only replacing all blue pieces by white fabric.
I cut and sewed the entire quilt top in just one very long night and a few early morning hours – back in 2009…
2 more hours later it was finished…
It is made of Kona cotton red (not sure which one, I would assume it was the China Red which I really prefer, however, I also had and still have lots of Kona Rich Red, Red and Cardinal. It could have been one of those shades of red too – I whished I kept a quilt journal). The white fabric, top and back, is from vintage bed sheets, tightly woven cotton with a high thread count. That makes the quilt quite heavy. The batting is a thin all cotton batting.
My original idea was to finish it with free motion machine quilting it on my good old Pfaff Hobby 317 . That just did not work out. I am not a machine (yet…). It looked so awful that I had to take all those wonky machine quilting stitches out again.
It took me almost another year to finally come up with an alternative quilting idea. In February 2010 started to hand quilt double squares in red quilting thread. I penciled the quilt pattern on 1/3 of the the quilt and stitched 8 of the double squares by now.
Still not finished – PhD for another while…
