Le Challenge - Wilderness

Le Challenge - Wilderness. Churchill had his "wilderness years" - so has brown. Time to bring brown out of the wilderness, time to rehabilitate brown, reintroduce brown into society. Time to bring brown out of the closet. You get the picture.


This is helped along by the fact that I have rather a large brown stash. My guilty fabric secret. I have a lotta lotta brown.


Its not that I am a traditional patchworker as opposed to a modern quilter, its just I used to quilt long ago when everybody was a traditional patchworker. And, lets face it, thereIt was a lot of brown. And I bought a lot of fabric. Thimbleberries was very popular just before the millennium, and the last project fabric bought before I stopped sewing was a load of brown Thimbleberries fabric. It was from a lqs called The Silver Thimble. This was in the days when your local quilt shop was your local quilt shop and not your lqs.

And so all this fabric has lain dormant in my roofspace. This is a separate stash to the stash of brown I have been using over the last 20 years for my falling maples quilt, now renamed modern maples quilt. "Wilderness" seemed the perfect opportunity to reacquaint myself to this fabric.

My dad likes to sit in in his summer house and listen to the sound of bat on willow, the cricket on his radio on a balmy summers day (?). A lap quilt seems perfect for him. He also spent his entire professional career working with figures, so "coin" seemed the perfect square for him. I used wof strips 5" deep. Sewed the four strips together, chain pieced and then cut them into 10 1/2" blocks. I pieced together rows of 5 blocks and then used a wof of ecru kona. I kept going for 5 sections, or until one of my fabrics run out. (no great maths here, sorry Dad).


It measures roughly 58" by 98", big enough for a Dad sized lap quilt. Maybe finished by Christmas in time for next summer's cricket.

Helen x
ps do you know how many shades of brown there are?

My mil loved brown, there's

chestnut brown,
nut brown, (not to confused with the above)
autumnal brown,
ecru,
camel,
taupe,
dark champagne,
oat,
biscuit.
And, I just got an email from my friend Sandra, Musingsofamenopausalmelon who reminded me of chocolate brown. How could I forget chocolate brown.

All shades of brown, and in my role as supportive daughter in law, I had to distinguish between them all. Never did I think I would miss brown so much!!

Linking up with Le Challenge

Comments

  1. I happen to like brown, though at times it's gone through a weird Little House on the Prairie stage. Browns are just a nice neutral and make me think of fall and being in the woods. So my question is at what point does brown dip into tan...or is tan a brown?

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  2. Wow, you really zipped this quilt top together and it is so large! It sounds like a great lap quilt.

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  3. Oh, I'm with you! I like browns :) Well done Helen!

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  4. Yes I remember the silver thimble. ...nice shop.....you may be slowly converting me to liking brown! Funny but it reminds me of my mother in law as well.

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  5. Yes I remember the silver thimble. ...nice shop.....you may be slowly converting me to liking brown! Funny but it reminds me of my mother in law as well.

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  6. Yes I remember the silver thimble. ...nice shop.....you may be slowly converting me to liking brown! Funny but it reminds me of my mother in law as well.

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  7. I love brown! I love all the browns you listed! I fully agree it is due a comeback ;) A great quilt for your Dad and I'm sure he can use it in the winter too. Well done on finishing and thanks for linking up to le challenge!

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  8. I have a bit of brown in my stash. It may be time for it to come out and play

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  9. Lovely quilt for your dad. This made me smile, remembering our trips to M&S. But you forgot mushroom! Xx

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  10. I love brown! all shades, love this quilt. thanks for sharing on le challenge!

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  11. Very nice. Chestnuts brown is very nice. You should check Japanese taupe quilts. All nice brown there

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  12. Chocolate brown, just gotta say, is my favourite. Ha, "in the days when your local quilt shop was your local quilt shop and not your lqs"... We did have WOF though, and RST, lol! Maybe not lol though. However, it is good to have the young ones on this crazy train, right? I love chocolate too, as I know you do! Ah Thimbleberries... I like your non-maths method you used to make this great lap quilt for your dad! And those browns just sing together in this quilt. :-)

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