Skiing and the 'Red and White' quilt ta-dah!

The quilt I have been making for my friends is finished and travelled with me to France so I could give it to them when we went back to Praz de Lys on a little ski holiday just before Christmas.

This quilt has been 'in the making' since I went on holiday with them in the summer. I blogged about the summer holiday here and here. I wanted to make something for them as a thank you - and the ideas were swimming around in my head for a while before I finally decided how it should be, and only started making it in November!

I was influenced and inspired by several things. The area of France where they have their apartment is in the Haute Savoie and the colours of the coat of arms for that area are red and white, and there are lots of red and white flags around the area - so that got me thinking about a red and white quilt. Then, when I was researching red and white quilts I come across a beautiful quilt made by Nova of 'a cuppa and a catch up'. Her red work quilt was made as a correspondence quilt with her mum, you can read all about it on her blog. She had embroidered the perfect walking boot, and that was the inspiration for my quilt! I wanted my quilt to reflect aspects of our summer holiday and our 'to be' winter holiday.

The walking boot was perfect, so I contacted Nova to ask if I could use her boot as the inspiration for my quilt, and she replied, thanking me for asking her and said she would be delighted! Thank you Nova.

So here is my ta-dah moment!!  ……  the red and white quilt in the snow. We had a great snow fall over night towards the end of the week and Richard very kindly went outside and held the quilt so I could take a photo.

It was really difficult to decided on just twelve ideas for my red work patches, but the ones I came up with had particular memories from the summer and from previous ski holidays, so I used one in the centre of each 9 patch block.

They absolutely loved the quilt - so much that they have bought it back and are using it in their guest room at home. They had just re decorated the room and are now using the red as an accent colour - so it is perfect! However, I think it may travel back and forth as it will be great to snuggle under in the evenings out in France!

I loved making this quilt - it is the most challenging I've made, and I picked up so many new skills. The  fabric all came together in the end after all my worries over the reds clashing - the Moda 'Winter Lane' fabrics worked well with the others I had - so all is good!

We had such a good ski holiday too - a big thank you again Catherine and Richard for such a great time!

Quilt and Knitting update

I've been busy as a bee, and have now finished all the blocks for the red and white quilt. I did take a while to decide which fabrics to use and in the end came down with this mix, each block has mostly the same eight red fabrics, but in different positions - and just to mix it up a little I've just swapped a couple of different red fabrics in. All will be revealed when the top is complete!

 

I've never added sashing and cornerstones into a quilt before, so I've been on a bit of a learning curve. I found a really good tutorial here and it seems to have worked well for me.

 I've also taken time to do a little more knitting for my Chevy the Chevron cushion, which is slowly growing - hopefully it will be ready for Xmas!

New project on my table

Just started a new project, but I have to keep it quiet as it is a present for my friends who took me on holiday in the summer with them. It won't be a complete surprise as I said I would make them a quilt for their alpine home, so having thought for a long long time how I would make the quilt, I came up with the idea of a red work quilt with the embroidery reflecting aspects of our holiday and the area.

I think I will use the embroidered pieces as a centre to a square block, and then add white sashing to join them together.

I've got a few more to sew, but am now looking for red material to make the other patches. I'm finding it  quite difficult to find a selection of red material that will tone together and not clash! It is difficult to see the true colours on web pages. Any thoughts would be welcome!!

Just finishing the walking boots now, reminding me of our walk to the 'Pic de Marcelly' and hearing the cow bells drifting up from the valley below - ahhh brings back lovely memories of warm summer days!

Hmm, think I'd better tidy up my needle case - maybe I'll make a new one.