jane brocket

prize-winning quilt

You know, life is not all about winning the glittering prizes. Sometimes, you just have to be grateful for any prize. Even if it is the booby prize.

Today, I present my prize-winning quilt. It appeared in Kaffe Fassett's Country Garden Quilts which was published last September which of course was a huge thrill and honour, but it was only when I was trawling through my older photos yesterday that I realised that I hadn't shown it here. However, I can at least now say that is has the distinction of winning a prize. I see on Amazon.com that someone has reviewed the book and, commenting on the quilts therein, says, 'The Allottment [sic] quilt takes the prize for the ugliest.'

How kind. How generous.

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It's the second version of my Allotment Quilt and was made with richly coloured Rowan fabrics. In Kaffe Fassett's book it is photographed in the fantastic garden at Great Dixter, but here it's photographed in our garden. 

star stripes

 

Alice and I went to see Coco Before Chanel at the weekend and thought it all very lovely and good, but with nowhere near enough about the way Coco Chanel developed her ideas, created her designs, and incoroprated her inspirations into her clothes. In short, we would have liked to see a lot more in the atelier and a lot less in the bedroom. 

But the love interest longueurs gave me plenty of time to consider the details that we did glimpse, and I was once again bowled over by the beauty of simple, striking, timeless stripes, seen in the film in the Breton sweaters worn by the fishermen and then on Coco Chanel herself (who wears hers loose and cinched at the waist with a belt, so looks nothing like an old sea-dog). For years I, too, wore stripey Breton sweaters and long-sleeved tops (and no doubt looked more like an old sea-dog than Coco Chanel) after first discovering them on French exchanges to St Nazaire. And I still love blue on white stripes.

When I was making quilts for my book, I was thinking about stripes a great deal, and went looking for more inspiration. I found plenty in the deckchair and hammock fabrics sold by Deckchair Stripes, which has to have the best selection ever. I bought a swatch pack which contained a strip of every fabric they sell, and had a great time sorting them out and playing with stripes - making pictures that resemble the great canvases of Bridget Riley and testing out their infinite variety.

 

And agreeing with Coco Chanel that stripes are complete stars.

i say so myself

It's so British, isn't it, to say something with confidence then qualify it with a self-deprecating 'though I say myself', as if making a little apology for having been so bold. As in, 'my quilt book is going to look really lovely, though I say so myself'.

But really and truly, and without a hint of apology, my quilt book is going to look really lovely. I know this for sure because I have been at the photo-shoots (we had the second one last week in an amazing location and with a very wonderful photographer/stylist duo) and I have seen the photos and I am thrilled.

And I say so quite happily.

(I styled the above when the professionals weren't looking.)

 

provencal summer quilt

 

The wonderful sunshine and warmth of the weekend prompted me to photograph my 'Provencal Summer' quilt, the one I made last summer but which didn't look quite the same in the rain and grey weather of what was very much not a Provencal summer. It was inspired by the columns quilt in Kaffe Fassett's V&A Quilts and is filled wtih the reds and yellows you find in typical Provencal fabrics, but on a very different scale.

There is a column of bathing beauties by Alexander Henry and one of Philip Jacob's 'Tall Hollyhocks', plus lots and lots of flowers that would thrive in the sun. The back is a more authentic  Provencal-style design with small motifs on the ochre-yellow I associate with places like Arles and Nimes.

 

And I am very glad that I have at last seen the quilt in appropriate weather conditions.

the smartie effect

I helped to cater for forty hungry young rowers (as in boats, not arguments) one day last week. So I turned up at the boathouse ready to help cook vast cauldrons of chicken casserole and huge trays of potatoes with my wonderful cake-carriers full of Smartie-decorated vanilla butterfly cakes and chocolate butterfly cakes.

Then, when I was compiling a list of the fabrics used in the quilt I made last week, I saw they were of a similarly pretty, sweet hue with lots of pale colours and just a few brighter highlights. (I have to stress that this is me working deliberately to create a pale quilt and it is in fact the palest I could manage from the fabrics I own; anything paler and I would be yawning all through the sewing.) Of course, it's the little Smartie dots and details of deeper colour that keep the whole effect lively and  interesting.

Just think how pale and uninteresting the cakes would be without the Smarties and that's exactly how I feel about a purely pale quilt. Which leads me to conclude that the quilt that has resulted from these yummy fabrics most definitely benefits from the Smartie Effect (as, indeed, does life).

this weekend's love affair

Garden Party by Philip Jacobs. Gorgeous colours and fantastically huge flowers that swirl all over the fabric. I'm seeing lots of it this weekend as I've used it to back the large silk quilt I am currently hand-quilting. And I can confirm that it goes very well with long-weekend-laziness and chocolate Easter eggs.   

thursday best

I fell hook, line and sinker for this 'Delphinium' print by Philip Jacobs and I love it even more after a few days working with it. It reminds me of cottage garden embroideries and the wild and wonderful wallpapers of the 1930s. Like many fabrics with large repeats, it begs to be used in vertical columns that show off the length of the pattern which can then be enjoyed in all its summer-garden glory. So that is what I have done.

english beauty iv

 

With its noisy, colourful fruit and veg market, long-established Soho businesses and amazing fabric shops, Berwick Street in London is a place of quirky, characterful English beauty, but Broadwick Silks (just off Berwick Street) is a thing of utter beauty. It's filled with shimmering gorgeousness and light dancing on shot silks and richly coloured dupions. I've been in there twice in the last couple of weeks not knowing what to choose but have been helped out by the clever assistants with impressive textile and design qualifications who make  the extra pennies per metre worth paying when they get as excited as you about the project you are planning and know everything there is to know about sewing with silk.

Plus they know how to cut and fold and wrap fabrics so beautifully that when you get home and open your tissue-paper-wrapped parcel, the room is filled a silky glow.

brightening my day

 

Apparently, I'm pretty well known in our local post office. Notorious, even. When I go to collect yet another parcel of fabric from the US that has been held back until I pay extortionate amounts of duty and VAT and handling fees (on top of the cost of the postage and that of the actual contents), I am greeted with knowing looks and comments about single-handedly keeping the Royal Mail in business. Call me naive, but I didn't realise postmen talked about the post all day.

I also have a wonderful postman who delivers to the house (our political discussions provide a welcome distraction from work - this morning it was the third runway at Heathrow that was bothering us) who is, again, surprisingly well informed about the contents of my post ('another one from your publisher...'). But all this and fabulous fabrics like these by Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs from Glorious Colour brighten my day immensely. And if I didn't have this contact with the outside world, I might very well be writing a book called The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Quilter.

my little pumpkin

I rather like idea of using the phrase 'my little pumpkin' as a term of endearment, a sort of Anglo-American version of the French 'mon petit chou' or 'my little cabbage' . I bought this and four more sweet little pumpkins a few weeks ago and they are still sitting happily in a row on a windowsill, making me feel very maternal every time I go past them.

Their fabulous golden colours are also seeping into my quilting consciousness. I see I've made a pile of fabrics with rich yellows and oranges, deep aubergines and pinks. Mmm, maybe a 'my little pumpkin' quilt would work? It would have to be better than a 'my little pony' quilt, but it would certainly be on a par with a 'my little cabbage' quilt using this quintessential Kaffe Fassett design.