A sprint towards the finish line

Oh my


Can it really be so long since my last post! Suffolk seems to have exploded into a blaze of sunshine and colour in the last week or two. The villages are full of ice-cream coloured houses adorned in wisteria, their twisted boughs heavy with blooms, from palest lilac to deepest purple, perfectly complimenting the pale colours of the cottages. Those wide Suffolk skies, clear and blue above a landscape of bright yellow rape, deep green shoots of wheat and sandy ploughed fields. All of it achingly beautiful.


And there are cherries appearing on the local market stalls, cherries forming on my trees. Oh how I love the cherry season.


All this sunshine and fresh growth fills me with energy and a wish to create so Jane's new book, The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making arrived with perfect timing. When I first discovered the Yarnstorm blog I was already visiting a number of knitting and craft related blogs but Jane's was something different. The other blogs I visited were useful resources, filled with tutorials, pattern and yarn reviews and various finished projects. Jane's blog was more of a celebration of beauty, her zest for enjoyment in the details of everyday domestic life was a revelation. She was not a designer or artist but an enthusiast, she was like me. Her posts ranged from literature, painting, sock yarn and fairy cakes with dozens more in between. It made me realise that this was something I could do too. Jane took the complicated bits out of craft blogging and filled me with "can do".


And now she takes the complicated bits out of quilting. This book is a celebration of fabric, a joyous delight of colour and pattern. Jane's enthusiasm gathers you up, she makes it seem simple, she does not over-complicate the issue with secret quilting terms, talk of colour recipes and mysterious sounding blocks. She does not make you feel that you cannot quilt because have not had any lessons, instead she fills you with a desire to just begin. Buy fabrics you love, work with what you've got, trust your instincts and do it.


My very limited quilt experience has stayed clear of florals and patterns, much as I love to browse through my Kaffe Fassett books I always felt too overwhelmed to actually begin. I did not have the confidence to see how to adapt the patterns I saw in those books into the fabrics I liked, the precise instructions and fabric recipes terrified me.


Jane's simple, confident approach is rather different. She talks of just putting together fabrics and playing, no need to plan too far ahead regarding size, just work with what you have and let the quilt lead you, her step by step methods are very refreshing. Fear removed and feeling inspired I finally cut into fabrics that have been teasing me for several years.



I just recklessly cut out some squares and then began to play with layouts. I didn't draw out designs on graph paper and spend hours being bewildered by maths. I just cut and placed, moved and played, it reminded me of the patterns the children and I used to make with coloured blocks. It was fun, really, not scary, just fun. A few evenings of laying out different patterns and gazing at them through the day soon resulted in more definite decision and I knew the direction I wanted to take. I'm not sure I've thought of the border or the backing but the beauty of Jane's methods are that I don't think it matters. Because I don't have to make all the decisions beforehand, I can just start to piece and see how it grows. I can change my mind and move things around.

I think it goes without saying that this book is a visual feast. The quilts within are differ widely, there are riots of colour, luxurious silks and even quite a masculine quilt of tie silk and suiting. All photographed rather fabulously.

My favourites, in case you were wondering, include the Sample Book quilt,


and this gorgeous candy coloured Beach Hut quilt.