Going Loco for Deborah House

Fifteen years ago, when apparently I thought I was about to relaunch myself as a master quilter, I subscribed to the mailing list of a specialist patchwork shop.  Every couple of months I received a little packet of tiny fabric samples.  (Karen of Stitching Life please note: I have reorganised them into broad colour categories.  )

Not being the sort of person who can throw anything away, I’ve long imagined that I might be able to use these samples in a little quilt – perhaps a doll’s quilt.  When I heard about the quilting project for Deborah House I decided this would be a good time to make one block to give it a try.  Read more about quilts for Deborah House on my blog or on the dedicated Quilts of Hope blog.

It seemed to me that there are three skills essential to the effective piecing of patchwork blocks:

1. accurate measuring
2. accurate cutting
3. accurate machine stitching

Sadly, it appears I do not possess any of these skills.

I thought that by using the ready-cut samples I would be freeing myself from the tyranny of measuring and cutting, and would be able to concentrate on very careful stitching.

I really did try my best.  But since each of these completed little squares you see in the central panel of the block  below measures fractionally under one inch (a little more than 2 cm) I soon realised this little project was at a a far loftier level than I could ever lay claim to.  You see, if these pieces had been larger, the couple of millimetres out (look at the left side of the central panel) really wouldn’t have showed too much.  But when 2 mm out is almost 10% of the entire piece… it matters!

Undefeated, it was at this point that I set the block aside and started work on my little Valentine’s quilt.  If you missed my post on this, click here for more close-up pictures, but right now I want to show you that it is made entirely from these same little sample pieces (No expense spared for my beloved!), only now in shades of pale pink, cream, white and red.

In the green patch, my method was to stitch the pieces together into strips of five, then join together my five strips, taking care to ensure the original joins met up.  Now I needed to join rows of seven.  So in an attempt to reduce the impact of my wonky machine stitching I decided to work with slightly fewer pieces at a time.  The upper left comprised 4 strips of 3; the upper right is 4 strips of 4, then below are 3 strips of 3 and 3 strips of 4.  I then joined these large patches together.  It didn’t make much difference: those millimetres continued to haunt me.  But I will let you into a little secret: some of my embellishments have been very strategically placed. 

Back to the green block: the original idea was to use the green squares as a backdrop for some embroidered flowers.  As with the Valentine’s quilt, this would also have enabled me to mask my wonky joins – and actually, this is where I see my quilting going, thus providing a backdrop for an intuitive style of hand embroidery.  This hand work is, after all, where my strength lies.  But when I saw this finished green block I decided the colours were too strong for what I had in mind.  I decided instead to mask half of the block (where my piecing is at its worst) by laying a thread along the join, holding it down with tiny cross stitches and then (since this quilt will be used by the girls of Deborah House and is unlikely to receive careful handling) couching with a finer green thread.

And here is the finished block.  Not sure it has really worked, but it was worth a try.

(Note: The colours in the top image are truer – the image below was taken in strong sunlight.)

I now have two (rather ‘homemade’) blocks to contribute to the quilts for Deborah House.  These will go in the post today to Deborah in Northern Ireland, who is coordinating this project.