18. Memory Journal Quilt



It seems amazing that I've already reached week 18 with my 52 Journals project where I'm making one Journal Quilt usually A4 sized for every week of 2012. This week the Journal Quilt will also be used as part of the monthly Journal Quilt project run by the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters' Guild and this year this group has set the following rules: the JQ has to be A4 size, portrait orientated and in Shades of... For every shade we make 4 monthly JQs. I've finished the 4 red ones during the first 4 months of this year and am now starting on the next shade which is Yellow. The JQ should be 75% yellow at least. And as you can see above I believe I've fulfilled that requirement. It's a lucky coincidence that I should also be uploading it on a very sunny day!



The inspiration for this particular JQ (and one I hope to use for all 4 yellow ones) is a detail from one of the gravestones in Borthwick Graveyard where we visited some weeks ago. It's on the pedastal of the obelisk you can see sort of in the centre above and in detail on the picture below.





I started by making the background using large snippets of a variety of yellow fabrics, which I overlayed with a yellow transparent fabric and free machine quilting. I made a pattern of the palmfrond leaves and used Bondaweb to applique the leaves (cut from a yellow/green cotton) onto this yellow background as shown on the picture above. As the JQ had to be portrait orientated I played with the arrangement till I was happy with the position.  Not that long ago I was at a lecture by the American quilter Ricky Tims who has told us about the advantages of using machine double buttonhole stitch. I wanted to try that out so as you can see I used the opportunity to do so when appliqueing on the leaves. That left a large area at the top right which needed something. This dilemma was solved by the 3 inchies (made by appliquing yellow yarn onto Fast2Fuse) to which I added text, reading from top to bottom: Memory, Hope, Joy.  The final addition was the postage stamp (yes, it's a real one!). I finished by beading both the leaf veins and around the binding, which has now more or less become my signature on the JQs.