Ali's Quilt

Let me introduce you to Ali's (unfinished, mental block, lost motivation) quilt.

Ali is my son's girlfriend and she turned 21 last year. I had the bright idea to make her a quilt. Luckily we did buy her a gift and this quilt was to be an extra.

Ali likes all things Japanese and was lucky enough to visit Japan on a school trip. At the time around her birthday we were all enjoying these books by Kitty Pippin and I too was inspired.

I already had a lot of Japanese squares and some indigos and I fell into this project with a vengeance. The idea - waterlilies bordering the water, the indigos patched together to imitate the movement of the water emphasised by the sashiko stitching and the little stepping stones through the water. The border fabric is decorated with dragonflies and I wanted to use this motif in the quilting. I also thought of quilting some goldfish through the water but didn't find a simple design to use.

I dragged out my graph paper and began to measure and plan.

I joined the different indigo fabrics and carefully set in the stepping stones.

Ali liked the rabbits on the fabric so I positioned them as though they were leaping across the stones.

And then I started the sashiko that looked so impressive in the book. I don't know what happened but that sashiko killed my motivation. I put it aside late last year and haven't touched it since. Ali is overseas at the moment and I would love to show her my progress when she gets back.

So, deep breath, I need to get over the sashiko and restart this project.