How long does it take to create a quilt? Well in this case - 3 years of planning and collecting and then just over 1 week of hard work.
My poor friend Becky - a quilter herself, I promised to make her a quilt for her 30th birthday. As soon as I decided I was doing one I started to collect fabric of things she likes - like Heather Ross' horses & gnomes, anything to do with airplanes (she is an aeronautical engineer), cooking, gardening, music and sewing (wow just realised she has many interests). But I never really had a plan for what I was going to do with the fabrics so I just collected more and more. Fast forward to about a month ago when I was planning a little visit to her in Perth (yep long way from Sydney) and suddenly the inspiration to get it done hit me. So I spent some time looking at patterns and thinking how I could organise this mismatch of fabric. I finally settled on one of Elizabeth Hartman's The Practical Guide to Patchwork patterns called "Rain or Shine". I also teamed it with some Kona Solids. So I pretty much started cutting on the Sunday, flew out to Perth the next Saturday with just the hand binding and about half the little rosettes to do (which I finished over there). So happy I finished it and she loved it!
The back
Closeups
At the little bakery in Margaret River where I sat all morning to finish the binding
