Ebony's Quilt---Cyber Fyber here I come

Well where does this story begin?

Back in April I posted a story about Ebony receiving a parcel from Paula for her birthday which included a pile of patchwork squares for her to use when she was making ATC's.

But Ebony decided that she wanted to make a small quilt- so we set upon a journey which was interesting to say the least.

Ebony is a strong willed person who knows what she wants especially when she is being creative and I can offer her all the advice in the world but if she has her mind set on what she wants to do then there is no stopping her.

First I allowed her to arrange the blocks on the floor in the order that she wanted them and I explaind to her about light and dark fabrics etc and finally she had them the way she wanted them.

I pinned them together and she sewed them on my sewing machine in rows of five by five--(they were reduced to four by four at a later stage)

When this was done I allowed her to choose from my stash the other colours that she wanted to use.

She wanted the lime green for the sashings and the border around the blocks so I cut them out and pinned them onto the blocks and off she went stitching again.

We had a few terse moments when I unpicked some seams because they were a bit wonky but we survived it.

Next she chose the black fabric with hearts all over it in bright colours--by this time she was getting a bit excited about the outcome of the whole project.

I decided that it would be too hard for her to quilt it so we decided to choose buttons to tie it all together.

The selection process was hilarious with the conversation going something like this---" what do you think of this button Ebony?"----"no I don't like that one Nanny it doesn't suit the ambience of the quilt" -----"you can't put that one there Ebony"----"Why not it's my quilt"----"Why have you got this one here Ebony"---"because of the texture"----by this time I am just about falling off the chair laughing.

I asked her where she had gotten all her ideas from and she said "oh I have seen the people on the How to Channel on Foxtel do this type of stuff".

Anyway the buttons were selected and the position as to where they would go was decided (this took her an hour ) and I took a close up photo so we would remember the exact position of each one.

I had to hold the button in place so she could sew the thread through the holes and tie them off.

Next came the binding--a lovely raspberry colour.

She sewed the bindings on but again the hand stitching was a problem so I vliesofixed them down and when she gets a bit more comfortable at the hand stitching she can do them.

She did stitch the corners by hand --which was funny because the first two corners had a few donkey stitches but by the third one it was perfect.

I kept wanting to take over and do some but I had to hold back because after all it was her quilt.

She does look quite pleased with the finished quilt doesn't she---and I am very proud of what she has achieved in doing this project--it has taken her 7 months to complete but hey I have several quilts that have been waiting 8 years to be finished.
I know to the purists it is not a perfect quilt but it is her first quilt and it has been her own decisions all along as to how and where things were done and she also paid me a wonderful compliment----I told her that I thought it was the most beautiful quilt I had seen and she replied--"I am lucky because I learnt from the best" (sniff sniff)


Now for the Cyber Fyber bit----
Susan had asked me to enter something in her exhibition and I was honoured to be invited to do so---and when she saw that Ebony was making a quilt out of fabrics sent to her by a cyber friend she asked my permission for Ebony to enter her quilt also.
Ebony was happy about this once I confirmed that it would come back to her after the exhibition.
Susan had wanted the two of us to enter because--
1--it would show the handing down of stitching from grandmother to grand daughter and--
2--how the internet plays a big part in our lives these days what with swapping things be it ATC's -postcards or fabrics and threads.
We are indeed a small world of Cyber friends united in our one love of textiles.
Below are photos of the blocks laid out on the floor for selection-------





Ebony sewing the blocks------

The buttons on the quilt-------------

Congratulations Ebony on a wonderful quilt.