Emily is musical. Like most teenagers she listens to music all the time. But unlike most she actually plays the piano. So it was not a big surprise that Emily took a 'music of the spheres' approach to the
Time and Space challenge. Holst's
Planets was the inspiration for this quilt with a particular focus on the planet Saturn who is considered to be
synonymous with Father Time.
Emily created the planet using a combination of bond-a-web and machine applique. I think her depiction of Saturn is very striking. But my favourite part of the quilt is her free-motion machine quilting. She came up with her own design incorporating stars, loops and a many-ringed Saturn. She used a
variegated thread, #918 from the
King Tut range of Superior Threads. You should be able to see a good close up of this if you click the photo at the top of the post. Emily used this to quilt the area above the planet.
Below the planet, Emily machine quilted a series of Saturn's attributes. Then she quilted a musical phrase from the Symphony in, you guessed it, glow in the dark thread. As you can see, all the kids thought that thread was brilliant. Emily went on to sign and name the quilt again using free-motion quilting and finished off with her unique stars, loops and many-ringed
Saturn design. I think this is a fantastic piece of work for a 14 year old!
Being able to move the sewing machine like a pencil, while the quilt sandwich was held steady by the table top frame made this easier for Emily. For this project, Emily and Ben were using a JUKI sewing machine on a SuperQuilter frame. I was surprised how quickly both Ben and Emily became adept at using the machine quilting frame. Emily and Ben are twins. Double the trouble but twice as nice! So I've posted both their quilts on the same day.
Here little Teresa and Angie are finding their favourite squares. At the birthday lunch yesterday. I was telling Angie and Simon about how I decided on such a simple design. And they both piped up "Yes! We love lots of pretty squares all sewn together, just like the quilts in Brambly Hedge!"
This photo shows my kids nine years ago. Peter, the baby, is just about 4 months old. Ellie with the hat and no hair is nearly 2, Rosie in pink is 4, Emily, holding Peter and her twin Ben are 8 and Katie, the red head in the middle is 10. Thinking back, that was such a busy time. My friend Eileen came over for a visit that summer. Eileen has a gift for helping people to get vision for what they want to do in their lives. Often we get so used to just doing the next thing that we loose sight of what our real dreams and hopes are. Eileen asked me what I would want to do if money and time were not an issue. I said, "Make a quilt for everyone that I love!" But the way life was, I never thought it would happen. A couple years later my mom sent me a machine quilting frame. This didn't change the amount of time I had left over for quilting but it did mean that I could make the most of it. And within a few years I really did finish lots of quilts. Not yet for EVERYONE I love, but at least I've made a good start. 
Emily is musical. Like most teenagers she listens to music all the time. But unlike most she actually plays the piano. So it was not a big surprise that Emily took a 'music of the spheres' approach to the Time and Space challenge. Holst's Planets was the inspiration for this quilt with a particular focus on the planet Saturn who is considered to be synonymous with Father Time.
