Wildlife Habitat Stack

The inspiration for a quilt can come from many different places and some of them seem quite unlikely. I was reading a book by Christine and Michael Lavelle called "How to create a Wildlife Garden" (although my garden is quite wild enough already - what it needs is taming!!) when this picture caught my eye.

I loved the idea of making a home for the myriad of insects, mammals, reptiles, etc in one place, even though my garden already has all the things they suggest like dry stone walls, log piles, rock heaps, trees, hedges, shrubs, ponds ........ . But it wasn't just the idea that attracted me to the picture - does it make you think of a row quilt, too?

I set too and built my very own wildlife habitat stack. I've put it in a hole at the bottom of the back wall of our old privy - I leave it to your imagination as to the original purpose of this hole! I've put some leaves in the back in the hope of attracting a hedgehog. It will probably be a luxury home for slugs and snails!!

So I didn't do the row quilt after all, but used my own habitat stack as inspiration for this little quilt, measuring 12" x 9".

The circles are made over circles of card as in the Four Corners post and I've sewn them on using the blind hemming stitch on my machine. I've also quilted by machine, contouring the largest circle.

I really like the very narrow edge of black fabric. This is achieved by cutting the binding strip 1½ “ wide, folding in half along the length and pressing. Sew on to the quilt as usual. Then you take the folded edge and the quilt seam around to the back of the quilt leaving as little of the binding showing on the front as you wish - none of it if you like. You can pin the binding to the back of the quilt and sew it on from the front by machine - I usually do two lines of stitching.

The weather has been very dismal and drizzly so it's been wonderful to be in my sewing room working with all these bright colours.

Sew Happy - Anita