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Thursday 18 August 2011

The Landscape Quilt 2 - The Piecing has begun!

"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the East, in Eden; and there He put the man He had formed."  Genesis 2:8

Matthew Henry states: "The place appointed for Adam's residence was a garden; not an ivory house nor a palace overlaid with gold, but a garden, furnished and adorned by nature, not by art. The heaven was the roof of Adam's house, and never was any roof so curiously ceiled and painted. The earth was his floor, and never was any floor so richly inlaid. The shadow of the trees was his retirement; under them were his dining-rooms, his lodging-rooms, and never were any rooms so finely hung as these. The contrivance and furniture of this garden were the immediate work of God's wisdom and power. The Lord God planted this garden. No delights can be agreeable nor satisfying to a soul but those that God Himself has provided and appointed for it; not true paradise, but of God's planting."

The Spring garden is a long awaited delight for those of us living in Canada. Our senses are gladdened by the fresh greens of new growth, the rich darkness of the wet soil and the bounteous array of yellows, purples and reds of the Spring flowers. This is what inspired my Spring garden quilt. The passage above tells us that God planted the first garden and He planted it for man's sustenance and enjoyment. Awesome!

The planning stage of my landscape quilt is done and today I began to piece the materials together with my sewing machine. The freezer paper which I laid over my enlarged drawing and on which I plotted by design will now be cut according to shape and colour. Once a section of freezer paper has been cut, I select a piece of fabric according to the code written on the pattern. The freezer paper is ironed on to the fabric and then I carefully cut out the shape again adding a 1/4 inch seam allowance. When I have repeated that action for all the pieces in the section I begin to sew the pieces together following a numbering system so that I sew them in the correct order. This is where my love of puzzles comes in. I have just taken apart a section and now am sewing it back together again. Not until I have finished sewing and start to take off the freezer paper can I see the result. And then I still don't know if the quilt will work until the very end so I have to be very careful during the planning stages to make sure the colours are balanced. At the sewing stage, I have to trust my pattern and not make changes even if I feel I should because that could throw the whole thing off.


A section of plotted pattern on freezer paper

The same section sewn together.




Same section with the freezer paper removed.
 Often people ask me how long it takes to do one of these quilts and I have to admit that I don't know because I don't log my hours. While I was working on this section (pictured here), I kept track of my time and it took me 3 1/2 hours to complete.

1 comment:

  1. it's so interesting to hear all the steps it takes to produce...awesome!

    ReplyDelete