Saturday, September 24, 2011

Bern Challenge #6 Out of Africa

Here finally is the quilt top for my Out of Africa Challenge quilt, The blocks are mostly from a swap I did about ten years ago with my online Southern Cross Quilters group (Scquilters for short). I sent out feature fabric that I had bought in bundles from the Unique Spool quilt shop in the US. These are what I call African tribal fabrics, made in Africa with African themes and bright colours.

My own block that I sent out with the African tribal fabrics is the yellow sunburst block, which is the third block from the left in the second row from the bottom of the quilt. I just love making the sunburst blocks and they are dead easy using paper piecing.


interspersed the pieced blocks with the African tribal prints and some suitable batiks and I am quite happy with how the quilt has turned out. I will say that I got lots of exercise running around the bed in the guest bedroom, constantly swapping the blocks over to make the colour balance work.

I am going to name the quilt " I know a place in Africa: in memory of Karen Blixen (author of the book Out of Africa)" since I loved the book and the film and more importantly Karen's spirit. The book was written in Karen's pseudonym of Isak Dinesen but I preferred to use her real name in the title of the quilt.

Here too is the back of my quilt. I learned from a wonderful fellow Australian quilter, Adina Sullivan, years ago, to try to match the backs of my quilts to the subject/colour of the quilt top. Quilt blocks that did not quite "gel" with the ones in the front were included as well as two prints, one of African women, that I had collected years ago, were used in the back. My friend Dolly is going to quilt the quilt for me on her Happy Jack quilting frame. I don't mind quilting small quilts but this is a queen size bed quilt! Leave such tings to the experts I say!