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