Today's Quilter Issue 97

Hello, and greetings for the new year ahead! 2023 is upon us and here’s to a wonderful twelve months filled with joy, hope and plenty of sewing time. To start you off, we’ve filled this issue with lots of inspiring projects. There’s a classic Tree of Life block (in soothing shades of blue), 6in machine-pieced hexagons, plus a sampler frame quilt by Eileen Shone, a designer who is new to the magazine. After spending time with family and friends indoors over the festive period, and enduring a cold winter, we think Jo Colwill’s gorgeous appliqué design, Home is Where the Heart is, is just the make to freshen up your décor and herald the warmer spring days to come. Jane Rae takes a look at how quilting – and any…

Karen Lewis, although she considers herself a modern quilter, has always been fascinated with old quilts. In this exclusive supplement, she takes a look at some quilting styles that were popular in the past, and how many are still being used today. As she says, “If you ignore the fabrics used, what amazes me about these quilts is how they could easily have been designed and made today. It is this connection to our past that excites me the most.” Many quilt designs from the past can easily be seen as a design we could see today and, with the inclusion of contemporary fabrics, would feel completely fresh, modern and up to date. Karen takes us on a journey to look at popular styles of patchwork historically, and look at…

THE BOOK SIMPLE DOUBLE-DIPPED QUILTS Double dipping is how quilt designer Kim Diehl describes taking a tried-and-true quilt block and adding a unique twist. With 10 stunning patterns ranging from bed-size to mini, each project features a Double-Take Tip with bonus alternate settings, patchwork tweaks and colour schemes. Simple Double-Dipped Quilts: Scrappy Quilts Built from Blocks with a Unique Twist by Kim Diehl is available to buy (RRP $29.99) from www.shopmartingale.com THE PATTERN STRAWBERRY THIEF Inspired by fabrics from the Kelmscott collection for FreeSpirit Fabrics featuring the famous design by William Morris, we think this quilt would look just as good using scraps from your fabric collection. Created from two blocks made in various colours, and with Pinwheels borders, you can show off your favourite feature print…

London Parks In an ode to the capital’s quintessentially British parks, Liberty’s latest collection is a collaboration of colour and pattern to capture the essence of this magnificent city and its variety of natural beauty spots and green spaces. From woodlands to wetlands, parks to gardens, and landmarks to heaths... this stunning collection of prints has it all. “Designers drew inspiration from all over the city, from the formal ornamental planting of the Royal Parks to the wild climbing plants of Highgate and the lush carpets of blooms found at Kew. The collection takes us on a captivating day trip through the most timeless of park activities – flying kites, enjoying an al fresco picnic among the flowers and making new canine friends,” say Liberty. Simply divine! www.eqsuk.com All boxed…

WRITE TO US Today’s Quilter, Our Media, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST EMAIL: todaysquilter@immediate.co.uk Quilting for a cause! You very kindly advertised our Pilgrim Quilters Exhibition of charity quilts (held at Banstead Library in Surrey during November) in your Diary Dates pages. We thought you might like to see how they looked hanging from the library gallery! These five quilts were constructed from 12in block challenges made by our members on different themes and are being donated to the Quilts for Care Leavers charity. A total of 32 quilts were displayed throughout the library, with the smaller ones donated to Project Linus. We received many compliments, and the librarians were delighted and have invited us back again next year! Wendy, via email Such a brilliant endeavour, Wendy! Congratulations to you…

BEHIND THE QUILT FOREST CANOPY “The Tree of Life is one of my favourite traditional quilt blocks. It’s often combined, as I did here, with alternating blocks so that the whole design can be turned on point. This means that the trees then sit vertically on the quilt top. “There’s quite a lot of work in this quilt because it uses so many HSTs but, as I always do with my quilt designs, I have provided templates which enable you to make them in batches of twelve on paper. This massively reduces the amount of time they take to make because the painfully time-consuming trimming stage is eliminated altogether.” – Lynne Goldsworthy You will need ■ Dark-blue prints – Seven (7) fat quarters ■ Light-blue prints – Six (6) fat…