I’d collected fabrics for a Gustave Klimt style quilt for one of the gîte bedrooms when we lived in Caupenne, but hadn’t got round to actually making it, so decided to use the fabrics for my spare room instead.
About a year ago, the time felt right; I got out all the fabrics and spread them out on the bed, to see how they all went together and to weed out anything that didn’t go. However, there seemed to be fewer of the dark colours than I remembered; I searched high and low, could even envisage specific pieces of fabric, but couldn’t find them anywhere. Eventually I gave up and went to my local fabric shop; I was in luck – they had, in the patchwork department, a selection of Klimt cottons – I spent rather more than I should have, but they were irresistible!
I added the new fabrics to the old, spread out on the white duvet in the spare room, when my eye was drawn to the cushions at the head of the bed; three cushions, each with two, dark, Klimt style fabrics pinned around it. I remembered then; the room had looked too stark, too white, when Alex and her family came at Christmas, so I’d wrapped the cushions in quilting cottons, pinned in place as I’d no time to do more than that.
I’d have more fabric than I needed, but I can make cushions and maybe a coat……. After all, you can never have too much fabric!
I drew up a design and even followed it for the middle section, but then changed my mind and made the rest up as I went; I’m not good at following patterns, even my own.
It’s the biggest quilt I’ve ever made and I knew that quilting it by machine would be challenging and I’m far too impatient to quilt by hand, so I made it in three separate pieces, which I quilted to within a couple of inches of the joining edges, then stitched them together, leaving me only narrow strips to quilt once it was all assembled.
Once the top was finished, I’d have to quilt it. Most of the quilting is “stitched in the ditch”, a technique where you stitch in the seam between two pieces of fabric; it has to be virtually invisible, so is very precise and time consuming. Other bits, though, like the larger pieces of swirly fabric, I decided to do in free motion embroidery, following the swirly pattern on one of the fabrics; I couldn’t believe how much thread this used as I went back to Mondial Tissus again and again for more gold thread. In all I used about 400 metres, just of the gold.
Finally, it’s finished. The patchwork club wants it for our summer exhibition, so I’ve added hanging sleeves to the back. I’m pleased with it; it looks lovely on the bed and brings the whole room together. Cushions? I’ll do them sometime, but I’ve so many other projects to get on with in the meantime.
