Late last year a group of five stitchers from the Bloggarati on UKQU, the lovely group who provide us with the Blogs on the website, got together to devise another free Sew a Row quilt. We did a pair of quilts a few years ago, Fire and Ice, which were fun to make and joined quilters from across the globe. I was on the Ice team and seeing them on display at the Festival of Quilts that year was very special. You can find these here…and I’d encourage you to read the stories behind the rows in the associated blogs.
This time we decided to go with a garden theme. Well, life gets in the way as always and we had a few hold ups, but finally we have finished the quilt with the free patterns for you to enjoy.
A Sew a Row project is great fun for a quilting group, where everyone makes a row and passes it on to the next person. We had the theme ‘Gardens’ but you can do a different theme for each row as we did when I took part in one for a quilt group I was in at the time – The Wye Knots. We held a Christmas Challenge every year and had decided on Sew a Row set of quilts. Each row had its own theme and, if you wanted, you could send fabrics with the quilt for others to use to help keep continuity in the quilt. The first person made the centre row of their choice and each person following added to it. Row themes included Diamond in a Square, French Braid, Flying Geese and Diamonds. I entered this quilt into Quilts UK at Malvern, in the groups category, for which we were awarded a Judges Merit rosette.
For the final row of the Garden Sew a Row I chose to do a picket fence using piecing for the background and Bonded Raw Edge Appliqué for the fence. This is a simple block which can be added too. Perhaps put some flowers along the bottom or a bird on the fence. However you choose to complete this block, it will add a lovely finish to your quilt.
The instructions for the rows can be found across the makers shops on this website. Mine can be found here.
As I had the pleasure of adding the final row I was also the one to quilt it. A special thanks needs to go out to Vlieseline for a sample of their P120 Volume Fleece. This was a treat to use having recently become a proud owner of a sit-down long arm and so have been practicing my Free Motion Quilting skills. This is actually a flame retardant fleece which is also ideal for clothing as well as cushions, bags and our lovely wall hanging. It is very soft and made from 80% recycled synthetic fibres and worked really well for Free Motion Quilting. I was able to ‘knock back’ areas with heavy quilting, whilst those that had a lighter touch remained puffy and raised. This really worked well on the pumpkin and strawberry blocks. It is normal to use two layers when Free Motion Quilting and the P120 Volume Fleece makes an excellent option for the synthetic layer. As a note, I only used one layer of the P120 for this quilt and it worked really well.
Quilting always sets off a quilt, adding texture and details to enhance the piecing. I approached each row differently but kept it simple. For those starting out with FMQ, it can be intimidating. The first row, Lyn Butler’s Birdhouse, was delightfully embroidered with a Running Stitch of loops and hearts. I simply repeated this design across the sky with loops and hearts, echoing the birds to help them stand out.
The second row, designed by Jude Charlesworth, was a block for each season. A flower for Spring, a strawberry for Summer, a pumpkin for Autumn and a pine tree for Winter. Each of these deserved their own treatment. The background was given a loose meander across the full row. The flower had gently straight lines on the petals, leaves and stem. The strawberry had a tighter loop the loop to represent the tiny seeds and the leaf had a spiky lines to represent the leaves. I was quite pleased with this one as it looked so like a strawberry and the clever use of different tones of red looked great. The pumpkin had simple lines to show the sections and finally, the pine tree had gently lines across the snow covered branches with a spiky pine effect for the darker green sections. The grey background also had a loop the loop filler to simulate snowflakes.
The third row, by Kerry Keeble, was so cute – snails (although I don’t actually like them in my garden!) Again, gently meanders with the odd flower thrown in, surrounded the snails with a spiral on their shells. I didn’t quilt the body and heads but, due to the heavier quilting of the background, this made them stand out nicely.
Sharon Reid gave us the fourth row with the Honey Bee block. This is really cute and it just had to have a floral meander across the background with each of the petals echo quilted. Last, but not least, was my own picket fence block. This didn’t really need much quilting as the fence takes up a lot of space so a loop meander was used here too.
Finally, the quilt needed a binding. I love using up scraps so I hit my binding scraps to see what I could find. Voila, a selections of greens and an orange which matched various fabrics throughout the quilt and so a scrappy binding was added. (A traditional double fold, mitred continuous binding.) If you’ve not done this before, it is a case of using different fabrics, different lengths, rather than the usual single fabric strips. Mixing your fabrics up and a great way to use up the extra pieces and jelly roll strips which I save for this purpose.
This project was really fun to be involved with and it always amazes me that a Sew a Row quilt made by so many different people, with different fabrics and styles can look so good.
Other Vlieseline fleeces are available in various weights and a range of natural or synthetic fibres. To find out more about Vlieseline fleeces and other products in the range, please visit; www.vlieseline.com
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