Doll Quilt - A Bristol Terrace

This is the quilt that I sent to my October partner, Terry, for the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.  The theme for the month was to show where you live, so I decided to base the quilt on the coloured houses seen in Bristol - we live just seven miles outside.

I shall cheerfully own up that I had a few tussles with this quilt, with the surprise pleat on the back and the skipped stitches on corners.

I was in a bit of a quandary over the free motion quilting, thinking the meander design on the front of the houses might look like cracked rendering.  In the end it doesn't look too bad, and I varied it with a pebbly design for the ground.

Also there was great frustration with right angles.  I chose the materials for the colours rather the weight.  They were a touch too lightweight, and I just don't do starch, so I had to live with the shifting angles.

But in real life many of these houses have slipped here and there.  Doors can be slightly out of line...

... or well and truly crooked...

...and as for chimneys, they can be all over the place.

My husband and I had a brief discussion about the windows.  He said I had put Georgian windows on Victorian houses.  I said they were early Victorian, so there is hardly any difference.

All told, I was pleased with how it turned out. Someone might look at the bright colours and off angles and think it is badly executed Toytown.  My answer to that would be that this quilt is the nearest I have got to photorealism.  People here who have seen the quilt instantly start debating which part of Bristol it is and which street it shows.  The photos on this Flickr group show the scenes we see every day...

http://www.flickr.com/groups/colouredhousesofbristol/pool/with/9035260579/#photo_9035260579

The house my husband was born in - and still lived in when we met - is in this picture...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/261049/8234408515/in/pool-colouredhousesofbristol/

... fourth house on the right in the long terrace that goes right the way across the picture, and here is a picture actually taken on the street a few doors down from the house...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crabchick/9324205864/in/pool-colouredhousesofbristol

Up until about twenty years ago most of these houses were grey or very pale colours.  It is only recently that all these bold colours have appeared.  They took some getting used to, but now I rather like them.

Linking up again today with Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday.