Early in June, my husband and I spent a day visiting Hodnet Hall, a lovely English Country Manor and Garden.  It was just one of those lovely days when the weather was ‘just right’ and we wandered about without a care in the world looking at the estate buildings, the plants, lakes and heron pond.  I took many photographs, with a view to drawing inspiration from one of them for my quilt with the theme of ‘texture’.

The background is fabric designed to put through an inkjet printer and be colourfast once printed, but…. as I started quilting I began to notice the colour fading by the day.  I finished the quilting, by which time there was little colour left, so I coloured it all with markal paint sticks, little by little.  I think I had had the inkjet paper lurking too long in my cupboard!

Although there was no ivy on the wall, I felt my quilt needed a little something else, so I stencilled the ivy design using markal paint sticks and then highlighted bits with fabric paints.  A few beads for good measure completed the piece.

Close up: