Liberty Star!

Meet Liberty Star!

This quilt was always going to be for Nancy. A dear friend for many years, I knew that one day I wanted to make a quilt for her. So when I came upon this pattern (click) by Jeni Baker, I saw straight away: this was going to be Nancy’s quilt.

Nancy, a gifted jewelry designer and goldsmith, makes and showcases her own and other jewelry designers’ items at her workshop and gallery in Schoonhoven (click).  Her designs have a classic basis but are executed in clear, clean lines and materials. A bit of the old, a bit of the new. The same holds true for her house, a beautiful old building furnished with classical but modernist furniture. A bit of the old, a bit of the new.

So her quilt had to show that too: a bit of the old, a bit of the new and clear lines.

Quilt patterns don’t come more traditional than a star, but this pattern (click) looks modern because the star is so huge and the only shape in the quilt.

Fabric wise, I always wanted to work with Liberty fabrics but somehow never got around to it and with Liberty fabrics being the classics that they are this was the perfect opportunity.

Unfortunately…. Liberty fabrics are hard to find in The Netherlands so over the past three years, whenever I was in London, I bought one or two pieces of fabric for this quilt.

Lucky for me my Liberty fabrics collection for this quilt was completed during our last visit to London, because early this summer Nancy announced a big party at the end of August for a special birthday, so for me the race was on this summer to make and finish this quilt by then!

 

My local quilt shop (click) did not let me down when it came to finding the perfect background. A classic gray, a bit modernised by a white polka dot pattern. The fabric was the perfect contrast to those Liberty classics.

 

 

I handquilted Liberty Star in a very basic way, the big stitch quilting technique, no hoop, with the perle 8 thread I love working with when I use this technique. The bigger stitches with the bigger thread nicely contrast the very fine (patterns of the) Liberty fabrics.

 

Again when it came to finding the fabric for the binding (not easy with these Liberty fabrics) Evy had the perfect fabric (from Laundry Basket Quilts) in her shop.

 

So, this is Liberty Star, a quilt I loved making and I am really happy with the way it turned out. The quilt lives with Nancy now and I hope that it will keep her warm this winter and many more winters to come.

 



Statistics:

 
Size: 173 cm x 173 cm / 68”x 68”
Quilting: handquilted with DMC Perle 8
Batting: Hobbs 80/20
Fabrics: 100% cotton, mostly Liberty Tana Lawn

Phyllis

P.S. This quilt is also the reason it was a bit quiet on my blog (especially with regards to quilty things) the last few months. As Nancy reads my blog,  I could not show any of this, so this was one of the two secret projects I was working on this summer. There will be a later blogpost about the  technical challenges of this quilt and of working with Liberty fabrics.
Now it is back to qulting my second Feathergirl quilts, which was sorely neglected this summer!