Garden of Earthly Delights

It was the plan to write this blog post on Sunday but things got in the way and there wasn't enough time to give it my proper attention so today is the day instead.

This quilt started as a fun project on Instagram. I discovered it back at the beginning of August last year on the@GnomeAngel Instagram feed. Her proper name is Angie Wilson and you can find her here.  The idea was to make all the 100 blocks of the 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book; Tula Pink's City Sampler over a period of 100 days using the hashtag #100days100blocks. I first spotted the sampler book and quilts on the Gotham Quilts stand at the Brooklyn Quilters' Guild exhibition during our visit to New York, and had bought the book.

As luck would have it I needed a good excuse to buy a fabric line I had totally fallen in love with. It's called The Garden of Earthly Delights, designed by Studio KM for FreeSpirit Fabrics, and of course inspired by the painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch. I ended up buying the complete range!

When the project was over I had 100 6" square blocks and I decided to surround each block with a round of 1.5" strips so that I would end up with finished blocks that were 8" square and a quilt that measured 84" square (including the border) so that the quilt would go on the wall above our bed.

Because of the riotous colours I knew there would be no point in hand quilting it. The stitching would take forever but would hardly be seen so I decided to ask Kay Bell to longarm machine quilt it for me. Like me she lives in the Scottish Borders and her work is exquisite. It has won her many rewards and prizes. Together we selected an overall pattern (I think it's called Bejewelled) which fitted in with the Garden theme of the quilt.

I have taken some detailed pictures so that hopefully you can see it well. The quilt was exhibited at the Scottish Quilt Championships at Ingliston this past weekend. You can see it hanging there below (not a good picture as the lighting in the hall is not the best) and it was great to discover that Kay had won the prize for Best Computer Guided LongArm Machine Quilting for this quilt. Huge congratulations to her and so well deserved. It turned out that both she and I received a rosette. What a treat. I'm over the moon about how the quilt turned out and after collecting it on Sunday it has now been installed in our newly decorated bedroom.

This was a project that I thoroughly enjoyed doing. In fact I did it all over again (#100days100blocks2017) and those of you who follow me on Instagram @friedaquilter will have seen each block as I posted it finishing in the middle of August this year. I used African fabrics for this year's version (all from my stash) and have now sewn all the blocks together with black sashing. Needless to say I'm going to ask Kay to look after that one for me too.

Dare I mention that @gnomeangel is planning the third round next year, starting in March. All you have to do is follow her on Instagram and follow the instructions that she will post there in due course. There are some great prizes to be won too. The idea is that you  have to post the block on the day set for it, although you can make it earlier. This year I made a start and produced the first 10 blocks or so before the project began, so that I had a head start should life get in the way, and then I simply continued making the blocks in time to stay ahead of the posting. Most of the blocks are simple (not all of them though) and they are only 6" so little fabric is required. It offers a great chance to use up some of your stash! Or buy a whole new range of yummy fabrics!