Quilt Beginnings - Quote Quilt and all the supplies

Inspiration.

It’s a pretty amazing feeling. I don’t always have it, but when I do it almost feels like my mind is soaring.

Ideas. Feelings. Excitement.

There is usually a beginning.

From about this past November – January, I was reading The Lord of the Rings books. I know, I know. I used to hate when those movies would come on TV and my husband would watch them and I get annoyed, but I really just missed ‘it’. I didn’t get it. Until I did.

I’m not sure what possessed me to start reading the books, but it was probably the fact that I enjoyed The Hobbit, both book and movie and wanted to continue on with the story.

I can now carry on very in depth conversations with my brother about the topic (even though he always knows more than me on the subject).

I am an avid reader. Probably the only thing I do as much as quilt besides daily household chores. And I don’t discriminate on genre. I like everything.

And I liked The Lord of the Rings. Yes, it was long, some of it was drawn out. But there was these little pockets of moments throughout the whole series that kept me to finishing.

Pockets of splendid moments.

I finished the series in January and was so inspired to make a quilt about one line in the book and movie that made me feel incredibly moved and just a rush.

Do you know what line I’m referring to? If you are a woman, you might agree if you saw it. See a clip of the movie here.

If you don’t want to watch the clip or you still don’t get it, let me set this scene up for you.

There is the woman of a fierce tribe of people called The Rohan. Her name is Eowyn.

They are going to war with this powerful other worldly beings and all looks bleak.

She wants to come with and help, but has been told my several men that her place is with the women and children.

She is kind, lovely, female, and greatly undervalued.

She disguises herself as a man, gets on a horse and rides with her uncle’s army towards war.

She watches as her uncle is killed by this beast and the Witch King of Angmar. She moves to avenge him.

And when the witch king has her by the throat and begins to squeeze to kill her, he says to her, “No man can kill me.”

That’s what we had been told throughout the series.

Then, there is a little confusion for her to be free, she removes her helmet, and her long hair comes tumbling down and she says to the witch king quite smugly, “I am no man.”

It was glorious.

One line.

And if you don’t like magical fantasy books/movies, just look at this as a feminist quilt.

I’ve had this on my mind since January, and it’s been bugging me. And I’ve wanted to make it, but there were supplies to gather for it and a class to take to learn how to do those letters.

BUT it’s finally out of my head. And that is another great kind of feeling. It’s no longer bugging me to make it.

Sarah Fielke’s Word Play Class on Craftsy

I’ve discussed this class before.

With this class, I learned how to needle turn applique, improv block letters, and the thing I’m talking about today which is making letters with bias tape.

All great skills to have. Might be the best money I’ve ever spent on a class because I’m using all those skills lately.

Gathering Supplies

I also had to gather supplies for this quilt.

I used 21 different low volume fabrics which took me some time to gather the perfect ones for Eowyn’s quilt. I’ve had a nice little running stack for some time now. I’d come across a low volume fabric and say, “Oh, this one is for Eowyn’s quilt.”

You might noticed the Ephereal Fusion fabrics I talked about a few weeks ago. There is also some fussy cut prints (the horses), that I’ve had in my stash forever. I’ve been saving it for the perfect quilt. It’s by Bari J, from Art Gallery fabrics and it’s one of my all time favorite prints ever. I have literally used it in a dozen quilts. I bought a half yard and have fussy cut a few pieces here and there for this quilt or another.

There is also some Heather Bailey fabrics, a few odd Hobby Lobby finds and then just random fabrics from my low volume club.

I also bought clover quick bias tape.

The writing is my free form handwriting. I didn’t trace or anything like that. I took an air soluble marker drew my letters on and then used the Quick Bias over them.

This is something that Sarah goes into great detail in the class.

The Quick Bias is iron on. And when you start using the iron, this whole thing starts coming together. Once I had my quilt top pieced adding the letters might have taken 30 minutes to iron on and then another 30 minutes to zig zag stitch down securely.

I am going to meander quilt it, but then add some hand quilting as well. I’m very excited about this quilt. And the thought at adding some hand quilting stitches. They will be in the black Pearl cotton.