Tree Quilt

The tree quilt is finally finished, hurray! I stayed up half last night quilting it and then finished the binding this afternoon, so now I can't seem to stop yawning but at least it's done! And, after big worries about how it was going together a couple of days ago,  I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

I'm not sure I've made a quilt with this colour scheme before, and I hadn't expected this one to turn out with such a limited colour palette, but I like it. In fact, although I think it is quite different to any quilt I've made before, it is very much my kind of quilt. It's full of 'pictures' and hopefully it's very individual. And it's almost entirely made from recycled fabric. There are 6 old shirts, a pair of trousers, some pajama bottoms, 2 skirts and an old curtain cut up and used in this quilt. The only 'new' fabrics I used are the 'wood grain' pattern that just felt perfect for the binding, and the bright yellow with the brown acorns that I think works brilliantly framing a couple of the pictures and is dotted around in other places too. Despite the high proportion of recycled fabric I think the quilt looks very fresh and modern. The backing is made from an old cotton 'throw' I found in a charity shop.



Can you spot the 2 new fabrics - a wood grain pattern for the binding, and just a slight glimpse of the acorns on yellow at the bottom? Sometimes I find it quite hard to combine new fabrics with old, but these just seemed to work perfectly.



Here's a closer look at some of the pictures. This one is supposed to represent Autumn.

With a little squirrel...

This tree is supposed to represent Spring. I debated for quite a while how I could best create the blossoms before finally deciding on buttons.

And when it was done I wasn't convinced it looked quite Spring like enough so I added a little birds nest with a bird sitting in it.

Here's 'Winter', I wrote about this one back here.

And I ended up doing another Wintry tree, this one with a little robin and in machine embroidery...

One more season to go - Summer.

This one has individual hexagons for the foliage.

Here's a windy day tree.

And of course, I couldn't do a tree quilt without a Christmassy type tree...

Then there are a few other pictures sprinkled around. A machine embroidery leaf and acorn.

A little squirrel, again machine embroidery, and I think this one might be my favourite. Harry was convinced I'd drawn this one on in pencil rather than sewing it, and since that's just the kind of effect I like from machine embroidery that was good to hear!

And a couple of appliques hiding behind oak leaf 'flaps'...

The squirrel has hidden his stash of acorns!

And here's another squirrel hiding.

Lastly a machine embroidered name.



Excuse the creasing on this picture in particular, and probably a few more above too. I had to rush out and photograph it before all the daylight disappeared and then the quilt went straight in the wash afterwards. It'll get a quick iron first thing tomorrow when, fingers crossed, it'll be dry, then it'll be straight into a waiting 'quilt bag' to be given. Nothing like finishing things in plenty of time!

Back tomorrow, with a photo, Sally.