March Journal Quilt

 This is my monthly journal quilt for March. I'm doing these as part of the Journal Quilt challenge on the Contemporary Quilt Group. They determined the size at 8 x 10", portrait orientation and also stipulated that the first 4 months were to have a piece of purple fabric in it, at least 1/2" square.

 I made the decision to use tweeds and tartans for my journal quilts this year with a lot of hand stitching and embellishment. No one, I think, will doubt after all these years that I can make quilts in the traditional way so I have given myself permission to make these in a very untraditional fashion. No piecing but instead a lot of raw edge appliqué all held down with hand stitching.

As several people have pointed out I could have used my embellisher machine to bind all those layers together. However  that sort of misses the point. It was because I am so in love with the quality and feel that hand quilting gives, that I choose to do it my way. Most of the fabrics in this one came from a visit some weeks ago to LochCarron Woollen Mill in Selkirk. I was a bit nervous I wouldn't have enough fabrics for all my JQs this year so at last week's quilt show in Ingliston I was over the moon to find more tweeds. I probably have enough fabric now to make much more than 12!