The Royal standard quilt

From the Queen herself:

One is delighted to find that one's subjects are playing along. One started this quilt with half an hours work last night, reconvened this morning at just after ten, finished it at lunchtime today and then fell asleep on the royal couch for three hours. One has surprised oneself with what one can achieve with the selection given.

The Royal Consort said, "I didn't try to be difficult. I deliberately didn't pick your African fabrics." (Two came from the African shop at Brixton market and one from the Out of Africa stall at a show). "I picked orange because my orange lily came out today..." (More like because he is N. Ireland protestant and grew up surrounded by orange) " ...and thought that green went with it, then I liked the bright colours so I went for red and blue because the go together. Then the black was added because I thought that was something you could use to block off the colours side by side." One then added the plain black, wanting to create a resting place for the eyes

One had no idea what one was going to do with them until one typed up the last post and suddenly saw a crown shape in the blue fabric. One has never thought oneself capable of a self portrait but in 25 minutes it was done and that was that phobia over and done with. Yeah!

It was designed as one went along making strips/ parts and auditioning briefly.




I left the bit in where the machine went doolally with the preset decorative stitch - its all about fun not perfection! One made the following mental notes about the process:

1. For all the advice about using paint in journals as an initial design tool there is much to be said for making little quilts instead as sparking off experiments - for example, one likes the embroidered braids on the right and the crazy log cabins and might play with something else more thought out based on what was an instinctive 'grab fabric and cut' decision in this quilt.

2. All half made quilts on a design board will look horrible at half-ten at night.

3. All flimisies look better quilted.

4. Small pieces of fabric look very different in context to large pieces on the table ( One still has about 6 meters of the blue left!)

5. When your machine is making a strange noise do not think, "I'll just finish this line of sewing and then see what that is all about."

6. One needs to do a sample book of one's decorative stitches, playing with the ability to lengthen/ widen etc.

7. It is a pain in the royal backside writing 'one' all the time.