The Cathedral Window

I wanted to make a Cathedral window quilt as they always look so pretty. I have seen many Cathedral window quilts where the inner parts of the petals were left plain, but after seeing many Cathedrals in Europe, I wanted to emulate the way the glass looked when sunlight poured through them.  A bright example of this quilt is what I was after. I thought a wall hanging would be an excellent vehicle for this design. 

I had collected a large amount of Japanese fabrics and 

thought this would be an original way of using them. I thought the vibrant colours peeking out would be original and add some fun to the wall hanging.

I started by making little squares out of cream fabric. This was partly due to knowing where the piece was going and knowing that cream would meld better with the wall than stark white. I created all of the blocks needed by wrapping each piece of cream fabric around a square of paper. This was quite laborious as each point had to come together and meet in the middle.

All of the blocks needed to be identical. I used the paper to achieve the accuracy needed. I then sewed all of the cream blocks in the format that I had decided on. 

Once I had all of the pieces together, I removed the papers and the whole project took on quite a punkish look. 

At this point I covered bits of batting with all of the bright colours I was going use. Each inter-section was going to have a block inside. This wall hanging is actually quite heavy from all the layers of fabric and multiple layers of batting. I tacked all of the colourful blocks in place. 

Next was to get all of the greys that I had decided to use as the top layer. I needed to visit a few fabric shops to achieve this collection. Each piece of grey fabric is stitched around a small square of batting. 

I used my favorite thing in the world and that is these little red clips from clover. They do everything that you wanted to get done without knowing that you wanted it done. Once they were clipped, they were tacked and then put in a pile. 

The next problem was how to arrange the grey fabrics. Once again a spread-sheet came to my design rescue. This actually took quite a while as there is actually a difference. I see now that it is finished it really does not make that much of a difference. 

Once all of these blocks were done, they were stitched to the quilt.  I then quilted the bottom layer to keep the inner coloured blocks in place. I added little buttons to each intersection to make it shine a bit.

The quilt does indeed have the brightness of sunlight flowing through beautiful coloured glass. The border is a rich gold which   finishes off the wall hanging quite nicely. I made a sleeve at the top of the wall hanging and then all that was left to do was to hang it up.

Please vote for this wall hanging, for although it is made as all quilts are made it will never have kittens snuggle within its’ depth.

Thanks to Amy for holding this awesome festival.

Have an amazing day!