A Legacy from Violet finally grows!

My oldest UFO is an English paper pieced quilt I started back in 2005. I found it in Australian Quilter's Companion magazine and it is called A Legacy from Violet. It was designed by Judy Barlow using her great grandmother Violet's templates.

I fell in love with it the minute I saw it and deliberated for months as to whether I should take up the challenge.

A visit to the Darling Harbour Quilt show helped me make up my mind as I got to see the quilt in all its glory and knew I needed to give it a try. My friend Julie was also keen and so we joined a reproduction fat quarter fabric club to start our collection of fabric and ordered a heap of paper templates required to do the job.

Now.....neither of us had attempted ANY paper piecing projects...ever. But we didn't let that stop us from choosing a quilt that would measure

93"x 96.5"

Yes...that is inches, not centimetres. The quilt has a beautiful centre medallion appliquéd (no we hadn't appliquéd anything either other than with vlisofix and blanket stitch). But let's not let little details (like or lack of skills or experience) get in the way of the enthusiasm you feel when you start a new project.

We have given ourselves a generous time line. When Judy made the quilt, she completed the patchwork in 8 months and hand quilting in 3 months. We decided, given our limited experience we should allow 8 years to patchwork and 3 years to quilt. So, we have until our 50th birthday to complete this project. How old are we now you ask? Well...that would just be a rude question.

 I have spent time making many stars and many more hexagon flowers as well as the medallion. Last Saturday my friend Kylie Country Wishes and our friend Caron came over for a sewing day and I sat and made templates for border number 2 while we escaped the heat in the air-conditioning. A tedious but necessary task to make some progress.

Today it grew!!!

I sewed the first border and here it is!!

I can't believe that It is finally becoming a quilt. I have almost all of the pieces in the next border ready to stitch together. It has been a great project to do while cheering the Australian's on during the tennis. 

I tried SO hard to match the border print but to no avail. Seriously, I was challenged enough just getting the border on working out how to mitre the corners.