Not a very good picture but this is the Right Lower Corner - purples and reds - which has now been stiched into place but the camaera phone will not cope with the whole quilt so a photo will have to wait

The Purple End

This bit goes at the bottom end to square it off. Still no digital camera so having to make do with the mobile! Next I will be moving on to the bottom right hand corner which is the purple-red one, blending into pinkish at the top. I have found it easier to join ieach section separately, then join it to the main quilt as it is getting quite big now

Progress again

I've not done much over the summer; I got sidetracked reading Harry Potter from begining to end and seemed to find other things to do in the evening. And it was slightly tedious doing nothing but black diamonds! I still need to do more but I have just started stitching some coloured stars together. I have started with the purple ones which will go at the bottom of the quilt. And I have no digital camera atm so will have to make do with the camera phone. The photo shows all 250-odd black diamonds I have done

Continuation

Finally managed to get some black silk which is similar to the material I have already used. John Lewis in Peterborough had some but (as expected) it was not cheap -£14 per metre. I got one metre but will need about 2 more I think so I am still scouring the charity shops for blouses. No new pictures as I am just doing loads of black diamonds

The basics

Following my big spend in Stamford I had over 20 ties to cut up, wash and iron. A few days at the coast at my mother's caravan gave me a bit of spare time to do this. It takes me about 10 minutes to cut up a tie. This morning I gently washed them and have just finished ironing them. Here they are drying - a new meaning to the phrase 'Tie-Rack!'

And here is the finished Norwich City Scarf. Very soft and fluffy. I will have to wait until next season before I can wear it to a match though. Perhaps next season they may hit some consistent form!

More ties!

A trip to Stamford on Good Friday proved very productive: Lots of Charity shops and because of the Market they were open. In the first few shops ties were quite expensive - £2.50 was the cheapest for a silk tie, but I did buy a couple as they were colours I really needed. In the last shop however I was allowed to rummage through a box by the shops manager - and they were all £1! I ended up with 17 - more than I think I need but they will come in for the next one. ANd here they are, ready to be cut up, washed and ironed which will keep me busy for a while.

And this is what I have been doing when I ran short of ties. As a Norwich City supporter the colours are very significant - it was quite difficult to find this sort of wool in the right colour - usually they are only available in pastel shade, so thanks to my mother for finding this - and the wool was very cheap too! It's not very easy to knit with though -not for novices- but I am coping ok. It's not quite finished yet - I need to do another few stripes but it grows very quickly so it shouldn't take long. Unfortunately i don't think I am going to be able to wear it at a Norwich match this season - they aonly have a few home matches left and none of the dates are convenient. Next season!

Temporary halt.........

After the final round and Radials was completed I laid it all out on the kitchen floor to square it off and to see if I had enough stars. After I had decided the size and juggled a few stars - deciding which colour some of the multcoloured one were was tricky I worked out that I needed 11 more stars. So that was 11 more ties to buy, not counting the 8 I had bought that morning! Actually I had bought 9 but discovered one was not pure silk - it was labelled Myung Ju silk but it melted when burnt, as did another one which I am sure did say was silk. That meant I needed 12 more. Plus a lot more black diamonds - nearly 400! I shall probably have to buy some new silk. So the stitching has come to a halt while I complete the remaining stars, then I shall do the black ones before finally deciding which star goes where for the remaining corners, and sides

Round 4

4th round finished - another round of patterned stars, containing some yellow with other colours introduced, and plain stars forming 'spokes'

Round 3

Round 3 added - darker shades of yellows with additional colours in the patterned stars

Distractions

One reason this quilt has taken so long is that I kept getting distracted by other projects. 2 are shown on the photos here. They both use mainly upholstery fabrics. The big one is a totally 'random' one using various fabrics from upholstery sample books and curtain samples. The smaller one is from one sample book so all the pieces are the same size and similar shades of brown, tan and cream so I kept them together as one rather than use them for the Random patchwork as originally intended. I made myself finish them a few moths ago before carrying on with the silk quilt. I don't really know what I am going to do with either - sell them on Ebay

perhaps?

Round 2

Completed by the middle of last week. Alternate Pattern and plain in various yellows

First Round

This was completed at the end of last week but I have only just got round to uploading it. he star in the middle is white with vaorious shades of cream around it

First Photos

Not stitched - just laid out on the floor upstairs. It just about fills the room, only leaving room to walk along the passage to Bethan's Room. I shall have to think of a w ay of picking up the pieces in order but as the room isn't used I will not be in any hury! I think I may be short of some green patterns and I definately need some more black silk for the diamonds in between the stars

What's it all about?

Probably not what you are expecting!
When I was a teenager, my mother started a patchwork quilt, using cotton from old material she had left over, old clothes of ours and things she bought from jumble sales or charity shops. We used to joke that she would never finish it, but eventually, after about 10 years, she did, and she still uses it on her bed. I decided that I would like to make my own, sometime. I read about someone using silk ties to make one and thought this sounded a good idea, despite the fact that silk is not normally recommended for a first attempt! Eventually, quite a few years ago, I decided that I should make a start and began to collect ties and other silk material. I scoured charity shops' tie racks for silk ones and amassed a fair number. I think the first one I bought had balloons on! I was fairly selective: I only bought patterns I liked and did not pay more than £1 or so. I soon learnt which shops to avoid! At last I thought I had enough ties to start cutting and stitching. My mother had done hers using a hexagonal template but I wanted to do something different. Looking through various patchwork books I decided I liked the look of the 'tumbling blocks' design, made from diamonds and stitched in groups of 3 to form a block. A 3-D effect is created by using a dark, medium and light diamond. So I started...............
Progress was fairly slow - I had other things to do, especially in the summer, but eventually I had cut up about 50 ties. I did 6 of each pattern to starts with, and included some plain diamonds from old blouses of mine and ones I had bought, again from charity shops. After a while I decided to lay them out on the floor to see how they looked, and this is when I changed my mind as to the design! Instead, I arranged the 6 diamonds to form a star, and decided to use black silk in between each one. The pile of diamonds grew, so I started to sew them together into stars. The pile of sewn-together stars grew, so I thought I would work out how many I needed. Quite a lot more, I found, so I continued buying, cutting and stitching. Eventually, a month or so ago, I decided I nearly had enough and could decide on a design. This was quite difficult. I needed quite a large area as it was to be a double quilt and the only area large enough was the 'spare room' upstairs which was totally empty as a couple of walls need replastering and there is no carpet! Eventually I decided on a sort of rainbow design - white and yellow in the middle, merging into red, blue, green and purple towards the edges. See the photos! I left it for a week or so to make sure I liked it or could not think of anything better. I decided I couldn't, so towards the end of last week I started stitching the stars together. At this point my daughter (aged 12) asked how long she thought it was going to take. I said that I thought most would be done by Easter! But I didn't specify the year! Anyway I have got to the second round of stars so am making good progress, and decided to photograph as I went along to record progress so will upload the first photographs later. And if any other patchworkers out there see this please feel free to contact me