Blogger's Quilt Festival

If you're a quilting fan then you may have heard about the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. There are 11 different categories and bloggers can enter up to 2 different quilts in any of these categories. Here's the schedule for the festival:

Schedule of events :

May 16-23 – Linky’s Open & Nominate for Viewer’s Choice

May 24-29 – Vote for favorites in each of the categories (links to each category below)

May 30/31 – Winners announced

I've never entered before (or any quilt festival for that matter), but I thought this time around I'd join in. I've had a bit of a browse through some of the entries which are in already and there are lots of incredible quilts, well worth a look for lots of inspiration. I can safely say I have no expectation of winning anything! But, as I'm sure I'd say to my little ones, it's the taking part and doing my own thing that counts, rather than just trying (and failing!) to compete with everyone else. 

I decided I'd enter my 'Tree Quilt' into the small quilts category. My original post about this quilt is here.

This is one of my favourite quilts that I've made, and it has lots of different elements that I love - applique, machine embroidery, some paper piecing, using some child friendly 'flaps' and very much piecing it together on the hoof. I also really like the fact that it's a very unique boy's quilt, when I made it I think I'd had a run of doing lots of girly quilts so it was refreshing to create something a bit different.

Another thing I love about it is that 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. The backing is made from an old, cotton 'throw' I found in a charity shop.

The wood grain binding and the yellow with brown acorns are the only 2 'new' fabrics.

The quilt was for a 5 year old boy who'd just started school. I didn't have a lot to go on when coming up with an idea, but I knew his Dad was a tree surgeon and I knew the little boy was in a 'Squirrels' class at school. I decided I'd do a tree block for each season, with some squirrels, and it all sort of grew from that.

Here's the Autumn tree:




With a little squirrel in there:

This one is Spring.

I really wasn't sure how best to try and represent blossoms, and when I'd done it I didn't feel it was quite Spring like enough so I added a little bird in a nest with some machine embroidery.

Winter was lots of fun to do, but very time consuming!

I used bleach to create the 'snowflakes' in the background (see here for more details on that) and then machine embroidery on the birch trees.

And then another Winter tree with a little robin, just in machine embroidery:

My Summer tree was paper pieced hexagons:

I added a windy tree:

I decided I couldn't have a Tree Quilt without a Christmassy tree:

And a few other tree related pictures:

Oak leaf and acorn in machine mbroidery

A machine embroidery squirrel

An oak leaf flap...

With acorns hidden behind it - the squirrel must have stashed them there!

And another squirrel hiding

 My last 'block' was a machine embroidered name:

And, as in my original post, I should apologise for the terrible creasing in this photo and several others too! One reason why this quilt wasn't the best to choose to enter, but nevermind. I finished this quilt at the very last minute (something that does tend to happen quite often with me!) and had to rush out to photograph it in daylight before washing, drying and ironing it, then handing it straight over, literally just in time.

When you have a moment, do head over to see all the amazing entries.

Sally.