Wedding Bells Quilt

I have a new quilt to share with you today, and this one made the cover of the latest Today’s Quilter!

This quilt seems extra special due to the fact I have made so few full-sized quilts this year. This is the only magazine commission I have made and it was due to be the ‘show stopper’ in the Festival of Quilts issue and therefore grace the magazine’s stand at the show. Of course FOQ only existed as a virtual show this year but it was still wonderful to receive my copy last week and see it on the cover.  No matter how many times this happens to me it is always a thrill.

Wedding Bells follows a recent trend I’ve been exporing of adding needle-turn applique detail to quilts made using other techniques, such as FPP (here) or EPP (like the Avery Garland which was last year’s FOQ issue cover).

I’d never produced a traditional double wedding ring quilt for a magazine before, despite making them for gifts, and and I thought there would be plenty of scope for adding applique motifs in the spaces created by the rings.

When I began this quilt back in February I had just finished making the Baskets of Blooms cushion for The Quilter’s Guild Pattern Box project.  I was very much in love with the more subdued colour palette and fabrics I had been using and as I had plenty of fabric left over I decided to use it for this quilt, adding a few more colours and prints from the Makower Trinkets range.

I wanted the DWR part of the quilt to look vintage and scrappy and the applique to add some uniformity with my trademark flowers and tendrils.  I really love stitching these multi petal flowers with large circle centres and I think it’s become almost a recognisable style now.  The added heart motif matches the wedding theme with this quilt actually destined for a special couple very soon (but that’s still a secret!).

My Thread House pals Karen and Lynne loved this quilt so much they suggested using the flower and heart motif for the decotation on my Folk Dance BOM hare block and we also used it as part of our ‘house’ Club logo.

I decided the border would look better if it only partially wrapped around the centre, leaving spaces and making the leaves look more tendrilly (and this decision had absolutely nothing to do with the looming deadline…ahem). I definitely think it makes for a more interesting design.

It’s always hard deciding how to use machine quilting on a quilt that’s been (even partially) stitched by hand. I’d love to have hand quilted this one but time didn’t allow.  So I took a leaf (literally!) out of the Avery Garland book and used one of my favourite FMQ patterns to ‘tendril’ all over the border area. This leaf has some adaptations though as I never like repeating myself (check out the banner at the top pf the page to spot the difference).  I used spikes to fill the rings  with another leaf in the centre, and I outlined and echoed the applique flowers.

The backing was from the Elinor range by Dashwood Studios and I used the very neutral ‘dove grey’ (2600) shade of Aurifil 50wt thread for the quilting (and piecing). All the applique was stitched using matching shades of Aurifil 80wt thread which is my top tip for anyone embarking on making this quilt or any needle-turn applique for that matter.

If you’d like to make your own version of this quilt then you need a copy of Today’s Quilter issue 65 which can be purchased as a digital copy of you can’t find a physical one (or don’t want to wait till it reaches your part of the world!).