Letters Quilt Challenge

This year the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge is "letters". The challenge is due in next month so I thought I'd better get started (and finished the same day!).

The quilt size should be roughly A3 - what a great incentive to make another quilted book cover! This quilt will be displayed opened out at the Craft and Quilt Fair but afterwards I'll use it as a book cover - continuing with the theme, books contain letters don't they!

I collected up all the fabrics I had with letters on them. Some I had made by making rubbings of letter stencils with Shiva sticks. Another had machine embroidery lettering all over it. There were rubbings with Inktense sticks and text painted onto grease-proof paper. I mounted the paper onto cotton using fabric medium. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", the old typing practise sentence, seemed the appropriate thing to write.

Some of the pieces were too small on their own so I pieced them together in my typical inaccurate style.

I used the quilt n flip technique to attach them to the wadding. The backing fabric wasn't put on until I made up the book cover. I decided to attach extra fabrics, ribbon and tassels into the seams.

When I couldn't get a pin in to keep them in pace masking tape did the trick long enough to get it sewn down.

I couldn't stop adding more and more inserted into the seams. It was surprising that my sewing needle actually went through it all without breaking. I made some letters from felt with thick wool stitching done in the bobbin.

I used this fabric with a rubbing for the book cover lining.

A little hand x stitch (letter ex!) held things in place. Here are some pictures of the finished quilt with a book inside.

Come along to the Quilt and Craft Fair and see this and all the other challenge quilts at the Contemporary Quilt Group table. Make sure you vote for your favourite.