New Pink Allendale

Having traced the patterns from the old quilt, I decided that it would be fun to recreate the quilt and make a new one. It is always hard to find suitable, high quality fabrics for wholecloth quilts, but I had a top in pink polished cotton from Strawberry Fayre left over from my week with Lilian Hedley at Sedbergh.

I had devised a light table from four wrapped bricks and a large sheet of perspex with a fluorescent light below. Turning the polythene over so that none of the Sharpie ink could transfer to the fabric, and securing the fabric with pins, I was able to trace the markings on to the fabric with a mechanical pencil. Of course, I had to use a very light hand. A problem was that the old quilt had shrunk and did not fit my exact rectangle on the new top- so some cutting out and rearranging of the border elements was required. Another problem was the 3/4 inch grid - I tried and failed, twice, to hand draft a pattern - the errors quickly magnified. Eventually I printed out a 3/4"grid from the computer and taped many A4 sheets together until I had a large enough piece - I then reoriented it to be diamonds - trimmed - and used this to trace the infill. Although the paper pattern wasn't as sturdy, this worked really well and the diamonds all joined up perfectly at the four quarters. It took me a whole Bank Holiday weekend (three days) to transfer the markings onto the top - so I am filled with admiration for the professional quilt stampers who were said to be able to mark one or two tops per day with their helpers.

I used wool wadding which gives a better appearance with hand quilting but of course the original quilt had a cotton wadding. Here I am at the quilting frame - it is a Q-Snap which I find good to work at. I am already on number 2 - they don't last forever, the outer clamps eventually crack as the whole is made of plastic.

The centre of the quilt with its central rose, pierced ferns and pomegranate type motif.

Corner of the quilt where you can see the fleur de lys, swags and curlicue infill. The edge is the traditional knife edge where the edges are turned in - NO binding on British quilts!!

Another photo of the centre and corner designs of the quilt.

This is the stall at the 2010 Festival of Quilts where I was able to display the old and new quilts. I really enjoyed this.

I have more old quilts in this style to show you.