Sadiya - Our Trip Diary Quilt from Egypt and Turkey

Sadiya

36”x 42”

Our trip is long over, the tastes gone from our mouth, the smells disappeared, the noise in the distance. All we have left are our memories.

Our journey to Egypt and Turkey this summer was beyond memorable. I am so glad that my last minute decision to bring sewing supplies resulted in this special piece. I’ve been sitting with all the memories as I stitched it. Opting for hand quilting/embroidery in all the blocks meant I’ve been sitting with it nearly daily for a few months. Bit sad to be done, really, because that means the trip is truly in the past.

Make sure to check out the post I made right after the trip with block and trip details.

To see details of the stitching on each finished block, I made a reel that you can see here. It was a lot of fun to pick stitches and patterns to both highlight block elements and sometimes reference the original block inspiration. I played around with thread weights, brands, and colours. Not to mention, a collection of stitch options!

While the back of the quilt is not a perfect reflection of the front, I did try hard to be as neat as possible. This meant thinking through my movements as I stitched, burying knots, and a constant aiming for consistency. Oh, and a pick a busy print to give yourself a break!

The binding was a special experiment. Inspired by ancient linen seen in the Grand Egyptian Museum I wanted a fringe element. Knowing that linen frays so nicely I embraced this instead of fighting it. Stay tuned for a tutorial on that.

In our house we have a no quilts on the wall rule. Considering that vast number of quilts here, I think it is a pretty fair rule. But even my husband agreed we could break it for this special quilt. Now to find the perfect spot to hang it so we can all smile at our shared memories. Oh wait, I guess I have to sew a sleeve on it first!

In case you missed it, here is the small quilt I made with the scraps from this one.

Quilters' Playcation Adventure Sewalong Update

The Quilters’ Playcation Adventure Sewalong is back after the summer break. Our map is growing. This is the point where I can really see the blocks coming together as a map. I went out recently and added more beige fabrics to the stash so I could complete the island part of the map. Now I can see that I will have it as an island surrounded by water.

Like most of my quilts, this one started without really knowing where it was going to end up. I just committed to making the components. Really, this is about committing to the process more than anything. Being willing to play, experiment, and relax about knowing the end result. To me, this is the ultimate freedom. I know, however, that to others this is absolutely scary, terrifying even. Many folks want to know exactly what is coming and how the whole thing will come together. That is their comfort zone. Meanwhile, that sounds boring to me. We are each different quilters and that’s okay!

The second version of the quilt is also progressing. This is the more abstract one. Each row definitely references the inspiration, but it is far from a literal interpretation. (Is it really literal when it is an improv quilt block?) I can see that the next few rows need to do some things composition-wise, and I will have to think carefully about the colours I use. These two things will help the overall quilt feel balanced.

If you are new to the Adventure Sewalong, you can find all of this year’s videos on You Tube.

Maple Leaf Quilt Top from Ugly Fabric

Proof that if you start with some ugly fabric you can still make something beautiful.

Back in the spring I was hosting a Quilters’ Playcation Playdate. The focus that day was on finding an ugly fabric in your stash and seeing how we could make it work for something. When you let the fabric be your guide, as opposed to forcing the fabric to be something else, it usually works.

These were some of my initial pulls. It isn’t that each fabric is really ugly. You may love them, in fact. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. But I’d had that leaf fabric forever, I have no idea where it came from as it isn’t something I would generally pick, and it had never been used. So that became my challenge fabric.

The fabric is so very cliche fall fabric. I leaned in to that. If it’s going to scream fall, I will let it be what it wants to be and turn it into a maple leaf block. I paired it with another bold fabric that had a lot of the same colours, save brown, and got to sewing. And what happened? It made a very cool quilt block! In fact, I loved it so much that I kept going and made more blocks to coordinate. I picked all the fabrics from my stash to coordinate in the colour scheme started with that first block.

In the end I made 25 blocks. They are 12.5” square so the quilt ends up as a small lap size. I’m not sure it will be finished for this fall, but that’s okay. I finished the top back in June anyway!

From My Very First Quilt

Over the summer my oldest nephew got married. This is the nephew that got me started on quilting. I’d always wanted to quilt, having grown up sewing. But I was in my early twenties and felt embarrassed to start. When my (eventual) sister in law announced that she was pregnant, though, I took it as an opportunity. Nobody could fault me for making a baby quilt! So I got my Mom’s old machine tuned up, lugged it on public transit to the closest quilt store, and learned how to make a quilt over a weekend. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

(Side bar, I thought I’d posted already about my very first quilt, the one in question, but look for that in the next post.)

So when J announced his wedding date to his lovely C I knew, of course that I would make them a quilt. Now they are young, with a fashion and lifestyle that doesn’t exactly scream quilt lovers. After some consultation with his sister, our niece, it was decided that something with black would be more appreciated. As I was binding said quilt I thought back to my very first quilt for him. It was a yellow and white Irish Chain quilt with a pale grey background. Sweet and simple, perfect for a baby and perfect for a beginner. I thought it would be nice to reference the quilt somehow. Sure enough, after a dig through my grey scraps - the only colour that survived a scrap purge last year - I found one small scrap from his baby quilt. Yes, 25 years later. Cut to width it was only enough for about. 4” piece. Luckily, it fit absolutely perfectly on this one spot on the quilt.

Now I doubt a couple of young lovers care much about a detail like this, but I do appreciate the full circle moment. You probably do too.