Hurrah for African Circles

My quilt African Circles has now also returned from the Great Northern Quilt Show held in Harrogate at the end of August and like the cushion which came back last week it too was accompanied by a rozette (red this time) as it received a Judges Merit. Hurrah! Above the entire quilt which has proved very difficult to photograph.  This picture was taken when it was first finished.

Today I grabbed my camera again and zoomed in on the details. As you may have guessed from the name the quilt is made entirely with African fabrics which I bought from the African Fabric shop. By chance this same quilt featured in their recent newsletter too. I simply am unable to resist these beautiful materials, mostly still painted and dyed by hand.  As you can see on the details above I also love circles and in this quilt the circles are hand appliqued using a buttonhole stitch (no Bondaweb!). To photograph these big quilts well I need a larger house and better lighting conditions! And perhaps a professional photographer.

Sometimes there is one circle and in other blocks I have added an additional little circle on top of the large one. The quilt is machine quilted in the ditch and then beaded by hand around all the circles. It's one of my largest quilts coming in at 77" square (or almost 2 meters). I keep saying that I won't make them this big any more as it's physically such hard work, but sometimes the quilt simply asks for more blocks and then some more! And I let it have it's way.