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Girt By Sea Quilt progress

By June 16, 2017June 21st, 2017blog

 

 

 

Back in April I bought the pattern and the EPP papers to start on the Girt By Sea quilt sew along that @modernmakersretreat are hosting on Instagram.

 

This is the pattern cover version using Emma Jean Jansen’s Eureka fabric!

Even though I had never done EPP before (the centre star is all EPP), I thought now was the time to give it a try!

It was easier, but more time consuming, than I had thought it would be! My very first seam of EPP. Sadly, not all of them ended up being that good!!

Finally I managed to get the centre of the star complete and I was chuffed! Until I realised how many more seams I still had to go!

Still soooooo many more seams to go. I was struggling to do them after work as I needed good light (my eyesight not quite being what it used to be!), so I would try and get a seam or two done during my lunch break next to a window!

When I got to the last 4 EPP shapes that made up the square I realised that they were just straight seams, and I just sewed them with a 1/4″ seam on my sewing machine! Done in no time!

A couple of borders around the outside and FINALLY (yes there was a squeal and some dancing) the centre of my Girt By Sea medallion was completed!! (and yes, I even did some fussy cutting of the birds!)

And because I had time in the evenings where I could sew on the machine, I had already made up the pinwheels for the first round of the medallion, so they were quickly put on too.

I am loving my fabric choice – it all stemmed from the Alison Glass Insignia F8 bundle I had in my stash…. those vibrant colours just called to me! And then discovering that I have lots of colours in my general stash that went well with them. Not exactly the same but complementary…. and that’s when I realised what my Girt By Sea quilt is all about.

Diversity.

We aren’t all the same; we don’t believe the same things or worship the same (or at all), we aren’t the same colour. Yet we all make up Australia. And we are better for all that diversity (even if it sometimes sets your teeth on edge).

A quote from the movie “The American President” that always resonated with me

“You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”

I sometimes think that people think the meaning of ‘diversity’ is that everyone has to believe the same as you do. Diversity isn’t just about marriage equality or being able to select from more than the default two genders; it is also about accepting that there are people around us who don’t believe the same as we do, and that they are also part of our diversity.

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