Absolute Magic

Garden Games: 2015  (Started:2014)

Garden Games

In March 2013, some of the RLI Girls were busy working on a pattern called Circles of Fun by Sue Ross.  Fun - sure!  What I really did like about it was that the pattern could handle a variety of colourways (antique, vintage, and classic to modern) and still look great.  Best of all though, was its paper pieced rings of scraps (the classic pattern is called wagon wheels) and the dreaded scrap basket certainly could take a beating with this one. 

After some convincing (almost 12 months) and the gift of an enormous bag of leftover scraps (Did I really need more?), I started work on my very first paper pieced project.  The machine hummed and so did I.  My bin began to fill with teeny fabric bits, and although I rescued a few large enough for applique pieces, I rather enjoyed seeing a diminishing scrap box.  Work on the quilt resumed after a long break and by mid-March 2015, the borders were ready to go on. 

Fitting the borders was the most touch & go part of the whole process – fitting a curving border is especially challenging.  Despite all my concerns, it went together quite well and I had the quilt backed & basted only a few weeks later.
 
Quilting is the bottleneck in my part of the woods, so I didn’t quite get to hand quilting until October of that year.  I wanted to use a few shades of DMC Perle #8 in yellow– perhaps to tone down that “interesting” choice of green that I’d made for the background.  One thing about using Perle #8 is that big stitches makes the task a lot faster and luckily, this effect seems to rather suit the look of this project.  I’d wrapped it all up just before my self-imposed New Year deadline in late Dec 2015… Yahoooooo!!!

Somehow, the dreaded scrap box has appeared to replenish itself.  Is it related to the Cut & Come Again Pie?  (“The Magic Pudding” by Norman Lindsay is one of my all-time favourite Australian children’s stories.)

Anyway, so began my obsession with wagon wheels…..

Just for the Record:
Quilt Finished Size: 158 x 158cm
Block Sizes: 55cm
Cut in: Apr 2014
Pieced & Basted: Apr 2015
Quilted: Hand; Oct 2015
Quilt Type: Modern/ Vintage
Quilt Finished: Dec 2015
Exhibited: No
Collection: Home #058
Pattern Name: Classic Wagon Wheel
Pattern Source: Circles of Fun by Sue Ross
Fabrics Purchased: Scraps from the burgeoning stash…
Fabric Design: All Welcome, especially uglies
Fabric Style: Random selection
Materials Type: Printed Cottons
Wadding Type: Cotton
Backing: Pieced using left-over remnants

Fiona's (top) & Erica's (above) versions of this quilt. 
That stripe outer border fabric is all machine pieced too!