Moon Trees Quilt and Thread Collection

A new quilt and a new direction...

My Moon Tree Quilt is finished! I've been working on this since November last year when I started stitching these moon tree appliqué panels. I didn't start out with the idea of making a quilt but I was enjoying sewing these so much that I knew I had to find a use for all the panels.

I first wrote about them in this post and since then I have kept stitching away mindfully until I thought I had enough for a large quilt (it's ended up 60" square).

A few weeks ago I started to work out how to sew them together. As the panels are all different sizes they would need some filler strips to join them together and as I had always planned to make these from scraps I had been keeping a bag full and adding to it while making the panels.

The sections got pieced together into 5 large panels, a top and bottom strip and 3 along the middle. Before sewing these together I added lots of fun hand stitching including cross and plus stitch and a sort of star that mixes them both together. There's lots of running stitches and the odd colonial knot too. This was really to balance out all the running stitches I had used on the moon trees themselves. I used Aurifil 8wt for all this extra hand stitching and the moon tree outlines.

I even added a little extra message for my dear hubby, Jonathan on one of the big trees. This was a suggestion by my friend Dolores who always has such great ideas. It’s quite subtly stitched so you really need to look hard to find it. I do like adding little surprises like this to my quilts that reward close inspection.

I also added some extra appliqué and embroidered moons dotted here and there on some of the scrappy gaps (see if you can spot some in the images below).

I then needed to actually quilt it. Originally I thought I would echo hand quilt around each tree using Aurifil 12wt wool but when it came to it I knew I couldn't face that much hand quilting and I also thought it might just be a hand stitched outline overload.

It might seem strange that I added all that hand stitching already but baulked at hand quilting but the latter is so much harder on my hands and also just more awkward and annoying to do. It's easy to add embroidery embellishment to small panels but it's another thing to handle a large quilt and stitch through all those layers or wadding and backing. Especially when you have a long arm quilting machine!!

So I turned to my Handi Quilter MoxieXL and used FMQ to create these rows of 'ghost trees'. I had thought this idea just came to me while I was wondering how to quilt it but when I went to look at the original moon trees posts just now I noticed a comment from my friend Linda Hungerford suggesting I quilt 'ghost trees' so it must have been subconsciously percolating in my brain ever since! Thank you Linda!

I really enjoyed quilting these, taking exactly the same approach as I did when I was cutting out the moon trees with scissors, but in this case drawing all the branches with my machine needle.

I realise that this is quite an odd approach and a bit experimental as it involves adding machine stitches on top of the hand stitches, but I think it has worked quite well! I purposely used a lightweight thread for the machine stitching, Aurifil 50wt in 2600, so that it has quite a subtle ‘ghostly’ effect.

Included amongst all the appliqué moon trees are two couched moon trees made at our Thread House Retreats when Karen was teaching her couching class (one is above on a blue background and you can just see the corner of one on a pink background bottom right) and one Carnival Crow (below).

I stitched a pair of these earlier in the year in an attempt to depict crows while still using some colours. I love crows (well all corvids) but it’s hard to recreate something that is so black! So Carnival Crows was my way to get around this and they have actually inspired my next quilt...

One of the carnival crows just happened to be the exact colours I was using for the moon trees quilt so in he went, flying through the forest on his way somewhere important as all crows are.

I then traditionally bound it with a scrappy binding using more of the same linen, linen/cotton mix and 'woven' cotton (I'm aware that all cotton fabric is woven but it's a way to describe this particular texture!). Previously I used a lot of Manchester cotton by Robert Kaufman but as they has discontinued this I am switching to Fableism 'Sprout' as an alternative (that’s the fabric with the crosses on).

For that last couple of years I have been making my 'art quilts' mainly with solid cotton fabric but a lot of my other sewing (Dream Birds and Flowers and all of my Keepsake Fabric Books) has been made using this mix of linens and wovens. With Moon Trees I have finally found a way to use the linen/wovens in an art quilt! This feels like a satisfying transition and points the way to a new direction for my quilts. In fact I am already working on a second quilt using this fabric mix (hinted at above…) and both the Moon Trees and the new quilt will be exhibited at my Textile Gallery at Festival of Quilts this year.

And finally I have news of some Moon Trees merch! My next Aurifil thread collection is inspired by the Moon Trees!

Moon Trees is a new mixed weight box that will be available in July. And I am very excited to tell you that along with my usual favourites, 80wt and 12wt wool, this box includes the new 8wt cotton spools! This is the first mixed collection to include them as they are only now becoming available as single spools (previously they were only available in 20 spool collections).

The box includes two 80wt cotton, four 12wt wool and four 8wt cotton each thoughtfully chosen in rich, earthy tones. Here is some lovely text from Aurifil:

"Inspired by the quiet magic of trees and the moon, Jo brings together the perfect blend of texture and colour to elevate your handwork. Whether you're adding bold definition with 8wt, achieving flawless appliqué with the fine 80wt, or embracing the soft, matte elegance of 12wt wool for hand quilting, Moon Trees offers everything needed to bring your stitching to life with depth and soul."

The collection has just gone on pre-sale to stores and won't be shipped until July. I am planning a pre-order offer which will include a special bonus extra.

It will also get tied in with something else I will be announcing soon. I have big news coming in a few weeks and at that time I will launch the Moon Trees pre-order and post about it here.