Fair Isla Quilt
I'm sure Winter was warmer making this quilt.
I drew a sketch of a Fair Isle design in my grid book last year and then put it aside. It was a simple design, in just orange and white (the orange marker probably the only one that worked at the time!), and I wanted to mull over it for a bit, think about how to bring colour to it, how to use print, or whether to stick with solids. When I saw a reveal of Anna Maria Horner's Loominous, and it's almost solid, woven lines, I knew immediately it was the perfect fit to help me create that knitted fair isle sock look. I would have movement without the distraction of prints. I would have texture rather than flat cotton. For the first time since I started quilting, I emailed people, asking if they'd consider sending me a bundle to make the quilt, and I was so honoured when Free Spirit agreed!
I decided to make the most of my new EQ7 purchase, and transfer the design to my laptop. I enjoyed this process, but I often wondered if it was taking much longer. I took less risks than I was used to. I didn't dive in. I made sure it worked on the screen first. I kept swapping rows around. I doubted for a long time if I was going to pull it off, and I put it aside to start on Nana McIntyre for a while, so I didn't rush through to finish and regret it. I'm sure it made a difference, knowing that I'd been given the fabric. I made more rows than I needed to, and didn't use all of them. And in the end, I swapped out more for plain rows, because it seemed to make it warmer, and give it breathing room.
I used Essex Linen for the brown row of stars. I intended to use it more, with log cabins and also some applique flowers, but in the end, the log cabins distracted from it, and applique was a whole different head space, and I had enough to finish the quilt.
I loved the variety of making this quilt. It's like a sampler quilt, but I got to spend a little longer with each design. And by far, my favourite part was the hand-quilting. I had only planned sparse quilting, but the more I did, the more I loved, and the more space I wanted to fill with the thick crinkly texture of perle cotton.
