This year the European Quilt Association celebrates thirtieth anniversary of activity.
EQA celebrates its anniversary under the slogan “Threads Without Borders”. On this occasion every gild (including the Polish Patchwork Association) made six quilts about this topic.
I am writing about it because I had the opportunity to be one of the authors of such a quilt, I called it “The Link”.
I had about 3 weeks to complete the quilt and it was not easy considering that I had to find the idea for this quilt in my head right away.
To make my quilt I needed a photo of hands arranged in a very specific way. For this purpose, I used my husband’s hands.
Next, I looked for photos of the spool, because in my idea it was crucial. For this project, the spool had to be slightly modified (elongated).
I also found the shapes and flags of all European countries. Each one of these parts was to play a significant role in my quilt. The project was drawn in Corel, and then printed and then glued together.
When everything was ready, I drew individual fragments on two-sided fusible web, then glued them on selected fabrics and cut them out. I did it in batches. First, I created hands.
I then started to prepare the top and the bottom of the spool. My idea was to replace the wooden part of the spool with photos of different people. The pictures were printed out on a special fabric used for printing, with the help of an ordinary inkjet.
Then I start working on the center of the spool. I printed all the countries first. I cut and glued the shapes of the countries onto previously hand dyed fabric, which was to be used as the center of the spool.
When the countries were ready, I start to join them with a Frankenstein stich. I called it like that because I associate Frankenstein with the stich. He was assembled using many different pieces but was made whole thanks to that stitch.
Then I decorated my spool with a basting stich. For this purpose, I used a shaded twist, it came out great. I must tell you that it was a very time-consuming process of the entire quilt.
I really do not like to sew by hand.
After making the spool, I joined all the elements of my project. It came out fine, although the spool starts to narrower near the bottom (I pulled the threads too hard while hand basting) but it is nothing serious. Then the finished project landed on the long arm
Quilted project was cut off along the edges of the shapes, next I added extra filling (stitched with a zigzag), so that the in the final phase the spool gave off the impression that it was curved.
After connecting the spool with the hand, the two pieces were now ready to be stitched onto the background. I prepared the background previously and quilted it on my longarm.
I put the finished spool on the background and quilted it along the edges. That quilt was finished so that any frame or trimming will not be seen.
The finished quilt was hung up alongside two other quilts at the exposition in Birmingham.
I have to show off and tell you that Jenny Doan, the most famous quilter in the world, stopped by the exhibit at EQA and was delighted with my work. She said, and I quote, “awesome”, “beautiful” and she even asked how the images on the spool were made. She even agreed to pose with my work.
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