What Are You Stitching?

Not every embroiderer quilts, and not every quilter embroiders, but when the two do come together they can make magic. Inspired by the book, Fairytale Blankets to Crochet, we’re continuing our theme of quilts and blankets with a showcase of some of the fabulous, quilted creations from the Inspirations community:

‘Some years back I made a memory quilt for my husband on his 50th birthday. I made a block for each of the 50 years, getting photographs printed onto cloth wherever possible.’

‘For the early years for which I could find no photos, I embroidered the relevant details, like the postcard announcing his birth or what I imagined his first school looked like. Each block celebrates the most important event of the year, our marriage, the birth of our children, his career highlights, the marriage of his sisters etc.’

‘Every so often at night, I catch him looking intently at one or the other blocks and I know he sleeps warmed by happy memories!’

What an incredible gift, Anuradha. We couldn’t think of a better way of preserving memories and celebrating milestones. This really is a family heirloom. Well done!

‘I have taken crazy-quilt courses through Kathy at shawkl.com and I have attached two examples. The bunny pattern is from Kim at string-or-nothing.com.’

‘I am now working on the final embellishments before turning my project into a wall hanging. I made up the grapevine following advice from Kathy about creating wisteria and using what little knowledge I have of stumpwork practices.’

There’s such creativity in crazy quilting, isn’t there. It is the perfect way of bringing together so many different skills. We look forward to seeing the completed wall hanging.

‘I discovered Trish Burr and long and short stitch when I embroidered the blue bird from an Inspirations magazine. I loved doing it so bought Trish’s book of needlepainting and worked my way through all the projects learning more as I went.’

‘I wondered what do with all the pieces so I made a knee quilt which is actually called a ‘quillo’ as it folds up into a cushion. I am quite pleased with the result especially as it was all constructed by hand.’

This is a really creative way of displaying your work, Serena. Your quillo reminds us of the first time we ever heard of such a thing back in Inspirations issue #17 – a very clever idea!

‘I’ve been working on a crazy quilt using thirteen silkies that were designed by Maureen Christie. I embroidered and highlighted the bird silkies using long and short stitch with a single strand of DMC floss.’

‘I chose fabrics for each block that complemented the silkies and then did all the crazy quilting. There are 13 bird blocks in total. I made Russian leaves for butterfly wings and floral leaves.’

The colours are brilliant and the finished quilt is breathtaking, Kathleen. It must have been a lot of fun to be able to use so many different materials and techniques.

‘I love embroidery, whether it is my work or the work of someone else. When a piece gets damaged or dirtied, but the embroidery is intact, I look for ways to recreate the piece.’

‘An antique dealer friend knew of my passion and would supply me with damaged pieces she had acquired. So, over the years I managed to collect enough pieces to finally create this quilt. It contains embroidery pieces that are sentimental to me, and others where I just admired the unknown embroiderer’s design, colours or technique.’

‘I am so happy to be able to cherish the embroidery of so many in a new way. This quilt not only keeps me warm but provides me with constant embroidery inspiration.’

It gives us such joy to see embroiderers preserving the work of their forbears, whether known or anonymous. This is really a wonderful quilt, Marla. Thank you for sharing it with us.

If you are both an embroiderer and a quilter, an embroiderer who loves to quilt, vice versa, or even if you just refuse to see any difference between the techniques, we’d love to see your work. Send your photos with a brief story about your project and your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com