Monday 16 September 2013

A Friendship Quilt Around the World

I’ve been toying with an idea for a long time, after seeing the many beautiful patchwork quilts, made by sewing bee groups, on Flickr. I’ve wanted to have a go, but all the participants seem to be experienced and the blocks they contribute are often quite intricate designs, as specified by each member of the group.

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All a bit scary for a novice. They must have started somewhere though so I came up with a plan for a virtual sewing bee of my own. I sent out a few emails to blog friends just to see if there would be any interest in such a project. I didn’t want to blog all about it and then find nobody wanted to take part. To my surprise almost everyone said, “Yes!” and we now have a group of twelve ready to begin this year long venture.

Abi ~ Creating paper Dreams

Alexa ~ Trimming the Sails

Alison ~ Life in the Slow Lane

Amy ~ Over at Our Place

Beverly ~ BE Glorious

Deb ~ Paper Turtle

Deb ~ Debs World

Fiona (me!) ~ Staring at the Sea

Jacky ~ Scrappy Jacky

Jo ~ Buckingham’s Palace

Jo ~ Sugar and Scrap

Sian ~ From High in the Sky

The idea is that everyone in the group will be assigned a month and will choose their preferred colour scheme. During that month everyone else will make a block for that person to their own design. Allowing for the fact that we all have different levels of sewing experience. Many of us have never made patchwork before. I didn’t want anyone to feel put off by that. We all have to start somewhere, right?

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You don’t need any fancy equipment. A pair of decent scissors, pins and some neutral coloured thread should suffice. I imagine most people will sew their blocks on a machine, but they could be sewn by hand if that suits you better. The blocks can be anything from the simplest four patch to something a bit more challenging. Whatever you feel comfortable with. I want it to be fun, not stressful.

For now all I need you to do is decide on a colour scheme. This could be fairly specific eg blue and yellow or shades of blue, more general eg Autumnal or Summery colours, or you could just embrace the hotch potch nature of patchwork and go for the ‘pot luck’ option. Your choice entirely.

I also need an address from everyone so that I can make up a master list to send out to all the participants. If everyone could contact me by the end of the week with posting/mailing details (including surname) and a preferred colour scheme, that would be great. I can’t wait to get started.

I’ll be back soon with more info, useful links and some tutorials that may be of help.

PS If anyone reading this post is interested in the idea of a virtual quilting bee, I’d be happy to organise another group.

16 comments:

Sian said...

Helpful tutorials, yes please :) I'm a beginner at quilting, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. I just need to de-gunk my sewing machine..sewing through alphabets has its consequences! Thanks for organising this. It should be very enjoyable

KraftyKaren said...

It looks really good fun and a great idea to do a beginners one. I look forward to seeing your blog updates on it - might spur me on to finish the half made quilt (the top is done, I just have no idea how to put it all together and as soon as people start describing how to make bias binding and attach it, my brain shuts down LOL)that has resided in the back of my wardrobe for nearly 8 years now!!!!

debs14 said...

Looking forward to it starting. Just need to decide on a colour scheme now - decisions, decisions!

Lou said...

This sounds interesting i'll be keeping an eye out to see how you all get on x

Ladkyis said...

Oh you'll have such fun! perhaps I'll blog about my quilts one day. I have given most of them away now and I rarely sew at all

scrappyjacky said...

I'm looking forward to it....though I need to work out how to use my new sewing machine first!!Thanks for organising.

alexa said...

Oh yes, some tutorials would be good! Mmm, colours ... off to think!

Abi said...

Hooray I can't wait! Gosh a colour scheme! I'm going to have to think hard!

Amy said...

My biggest concern is cutting the pieces straight ... I have been known to be a little wonky with the fabric cutting!

Sandra said...

I can't wait to see how everyone gets on, it's such a great idea

Deb @ PaperTurtle said...

Hooray! Thanks so much for putting this together, Fiona. I'm so excited to get started! Headed off to send you an email now...

Jo said...

I'm looking forward to this project x

Lisa-Jane said...

I look forward to seeing how this progresses!

Susan said...

What a great idea, especially that people new to quilting can participate. I took part in block swaps years ago when I quilted and it was always a lot of fun. I'm sure you will all create beautiful quilts in the end which will hold a special meaning for you.

Denise said...

I'm a beginner and would be interested in joining in please :-)

Rhona said...

What a great idea, I'm looking forward to seeing the results. I would be interested in joining in if you do another one.