Northern Quilting

One of my birthday presents was a quilting course at the Patchwork Chicks in Barrowford, Lancs. My birthday was back in April so I have been anticipating the course for a while and yesterday went to the first day along with Evie (who was the very generous birthday present buyer), her mum and her neice. Our tutor was called Jean and is a very well informed and talented quilter. She had brought two beautiful cot quilts in Northern or Durham quilting . The day began with us ironing and cutting our fabric (guess who cut hers the wrong size!), we then marked and tacked registration lines at the centres and diagonals. The next task was to choose and begin marking out our chosen patterns onto the fabric beginning with a central motif , adding smaller motifs around it and drawing a border of swags or shells before beginning the crosshatching or square diamonds. The traditional patterns include floral centres, shells, feathers and wheels.  Our homework is to finish marking up our quilt tops by the next lesson in a fortnight’s time. I am going to begin again with a correctly cut piece of cloth and a slight change in design, while we were looking at traditional patterns I had a sudden thought that I wanted to recreate a design that reminds me of my Grandfather as my centrepiece. My grandfather was the Minister of Anstruther Wester Church in Anstruther , Fife and in his house there was a lamp base with the Anstruther Wester seal design of three fishes. I began drawing and cutting out little fish while we were in the quilting class and soon had the shape I wanted. It won’t be a traditional Durham Quilt but will be a Northern Quilt. I came home with a head full of ideas, tired but very pleasantly so.