TGIFF - Black n White and Red all over

Yes, I have a finish. 

What more appropriate for the start of November than a finished quilt featuring a poppy? 

11/11/11 is Remembrance Day. 

John McCrae wrote in 1919:

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row".

Hence the poppy has become the symbol for Remembrance Day.

I'd like to say the poppy was deliberate, but my readers know I found a hole in the fabric after I'd pieced and started quilting, so I followed Lynne, Teje and Maggie's helpful suggestion and drew and appliqued the poppy.

Still, I love poppies, and it reminds me of one of my favourite songs by one of my all time favourite artists. If you like your music a little bit folksy, give your ears a treat and listen to Mark Knopfler's Remembrance Day as you read the rest of this.


The man's a poet. That's all I can say. Lyrics here.

Now as I've been too serious, I have to make you laugh. So I'll tell you, the first time - oh alright, the first fifty times - I listened to this song, I wondered vaguely about one line in particular.
I wondered what the heck he was talking about with all the "puppies on Remembrance Day".
I pictured oodles of little golden labrador puppies rolling about on the village green...
Go ahead and laugh. It took me AGES to realise it was "poppies", not puppies, on Remembrance Day. Worst lyric misinterpretation. Silly me.

Back to the quilt. There were a number of firsts in this quilt.

It's my first finished quilt with curved piecing and my first tutorial (here). 

My first time using wool batting (not keen to keep going with it and the idea of washing it freaked me out). Cille said to quilt it densely so I did.

I used perle cotton to quilt for the first time. Love the effect. Don't love how hard it is to thread the needle.

Despite what my awful developing FMQ skills might suggest, I did do a little bit of marking so had to throw it in the wash. Breath held. Wool. Eeek. It washed ok. PHEW!

You can't see it terribly well, but I used a tendril design for the quilting which mimics some of the fabrics. It's deliberate that it's hidden, I still need a lot of practice!

So now for some more gratuitous photos. :)

 

Northern hemisphere people, please note the colour of that sky. November day Down Under.

Thanks for all the advice, suggestions and encouragement. Thanks for reading this far. And thank goodness it's finished!




Join up with your link to a finish below, or hop along and visit some of the others who are celebrating TGIFF. If you link up, please use our button or put a link in.     And as it's change of season, whichever hemisphere you're in, Spring or Autumn, black symbolises death and white new life in Western cultures, which is what our seasons are all about.  And the splash of colour helps mute those extremes, so I'll Celebrate Colour too.

Link up now!
:)