Our Spring Retreat is coming up and this time we are concentrating on Foundation Piecing. The pattern we’re using was designed specifically for the retreat and is based on a beautiful Compass design. I used the astronomical inspired Luna fabric range from Makower UK which is stunning and the larger blocks on the quilt pattern are ideal for showing off larger patterned fabrics. Foundation piecing is the preferred method to use for a Compass as it gives perfect points and it’s a method which has been used for many years. These days we use paper, of various sorts, as the foundation but originally it would have been a light cotton lawn or similar and would have remained in the quilt, adding an extra layer.
The retreat is coming up quickly, at the end of May (if you are interested), and I need to get the quilting finished. As I have Queenie, a sit down long arm, I chose to use a double layer of wadding. The beautifully soft Soya from Vlieseline gives a base layer with body and to pair with it, I’ve added a layer of wool/cotton mix, again from Vlieseline. This gives a lovely fluffy top layer which helps give un-quilted areas extra puff.
Both the waddings have worked really well. The Soya has body and is yet very soft. It is a creamy colour, rather than being white, but as I was using another layer on top, this wasn’t an issue. When quilting, there was no bearding (when the fibres come loose and show up all over the quilt.) I was using a navy backing so this could have been a problem but the scrim, which holds the fibres in place, did it job and protected the quilt.
Moving onto the cotton/wool mix wadding, this was new to me. The Soya has become a favourite of mine, but the wool mix has a slightly different texture. There is a base layer of the cotton and the wool seems to sit on top of this. Pure wool wadding is beautiful to hand quilt through and this wadding has a beautiful soft texture which, as I said before, gives extra fluffiness.
As a side note, I gave a friend of mine, who hand quilts, a piece of Soya to use for a children’s fabric book. Because of the ‘body’ that the wadding has, it worked really well. She also said that it hand quilted really well. Some thicker wadding can be tricky but the Soya was good.
Feathers in the Compass.
Now I really need to get back to finishing the quilting on Luna. I’ve been using the fabric designs for my inspiration so have used stars, the sun and moon and am really looking forward to showing it at the retreat… And if you are interested in some of these waddings, they can be found in all good shops, including my shop/not shop!
Strictly Quilting 