This is my interpretation of what happens when a luscious pear causes quite a stir in a box of apples. If they get together are they Apair (or a Peapple)? while thinking of phrases including ‘fruit’ the French for seafood - ‘fruits de mer’ - popped into my head - literally ‘fruits of the sea’. The background is a silk scarf from a car-boot sale. I like the way it represents the sunlit upper trata and the darker depth beneath. The yarn ‘seaweed’ was also a car-boot find and the bling, representing different kinds of shellfish, came from my own collection I am fascinated by the image of ‘the seed’. The seed contains all the potential of the leaf, the bud, the flower and the fruit - which in turn becomes the seed. Made from various bought and ‘re-cycled’ fabrics stitched on top of a piece of printed birch bark taken from a phograph taken at Westonbirt last year. My first idea for ‘Fruit’ was to use the stained glass technique for an interpretation of Tiffany’s ‘Fruit’ lampshade, but there was too much to cram into a 12”x12”. So, I settled for trying to get their amazing colours through using various materials. I still want to try the stained glass idea, but on something slightly bigger! I am happy that I accepted this challenge. It wasthe first time for me to work on such a small format, but I needed little persuasion because I am interested in working with scraps and leftovers. Eventually I was surprised how small the size of 12x12 really is! Originally I wanted to add a patched rim, but did not. I had reached the final size already! Now I have got so interested in this size that I will definitely realize some of my other fruit ideas. This was made from all the play pieces I had left over from other projects I’ve been doing. The idea came from looking at the fruit bowl in my kitchen. The pineapple was very impressive close to the cherries and the apples. I made a pineapple with the appliqué method. The embroidery is done by hand with the stem stitch, the knots are made with point nodes. The base of the panel is a Japanese fabric while for the pineapple and leaves I used an American tissue I made this 12x12 quilt as some years ago a friend had given me this picture as a birthday card. The card design was taken from a watercolour painting by Mary Stewart. Inside, my friend had written ‘This reminds me that we need a holiday!’ I loved the card and have had it stuck up in my kitchen, so when I saw the material I just had to get it! ‘Fruit of the earth’ sustains our life on earth, i.e. is essential for our survival. I then asked myself how can I put this philosophical relation between fruit and life into sewing? In order to support my brain in thinking hard I ate some practical nuts, and realized that Seven pears: no deep meaning to them, just playing with shape and colour. I changed my mind about using some computer designs I have. Maybe we can imagine their delicious taste. . . and I did Google pears and they do come in green and yellow and red, so it's ended up being in my colours after all. I actually like it very much, quite got into the subject. I’m allergic to bananas! And now off on holiday - to Ecuador, home to more than 20 varieties. Husband has to taste food for me as they come in all sorts of guises. Hallo Mijnheer. My first thought when 'challenged' was a slice of kiwi fruit, because of the colour - I had some hand-dyed fabric in mind for it. Then I was inspired by the shape of the starfruit. As it’s one of my favourite desserts, Fruit Salad sprang to mind as soon as I heard the challenge theme - and Inchies seemed like a fun way to arrange the ingredients for my salad. I like grapes, vinyards and sunny picnics so this seemed the right subject for me. Commercial, hand dyed and painted fabrics, painted Bondaweb, layered organza, free machine appliqué and quilting. The fruit of the vine. The idea for this quilt came whilst watching a 10th anniversary programme on the ‘9/11’ attacks in New York. The ‘fruit’ of the Spirit is described in Galatians 5 as ‘love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The emergency services exemplified these qualities in their self-less determination to save lives. Since New York is known as ‘The Big Apple’ and apples, by coincidence, are in profile similar to ‘hearts’ it seemed fitting to make a tribute to the sheer ‘big-heartedness’ of all those brave people that day. Oranges, strawberries, cherries and bananas. That’s four but as the quilting block is called Pineapple it’s five. It’s offered for sale for CLIC if anybody wants it (but that probably means I’ll be taking it home again). Huh! This is me playing, messing about. The pear shapes were made with food wire which was placed under the material and then rubbed with paint sticks. The only problem was waiting for the oil to dry - then you start to lose enthusiasm When the challenge was first announced I went first to the dictionary. I always find this is a good place to start. After the definition there were further suggestions of the word fruit, and among them was fruit machine. My machine is a computer picture with hand embroidery. The theme had me thinking about the vast range there is and all the glorious colours they come in. Where to start? What to use for my piece? I chose the kiwi as it reminds me of happy days exploring New Zealand many years ago and the richness of it’s Maori culture. Wadding, hand felted marino wool, backing Scottish wool tweed, hand sewn, beading and Photoshop printed fabric. Whilst holidaying with family who live in Ontario we got into discussion about the different ways we celebrate Halloween. A few days later I came across the backing fabric which made me think of quilting a pumpkin with the Canadian maple leaf. At first I thought it would be easy - but the ideas didn’t come. Then the idea of ‘unzip a banana’ came to mind. After playing around with this idea, ‘bananas in pyjamas’ was born. The stairs were the hardest bit to get realistic This represents a big bite being taken on a hot summer's day. Taste the juice! If only . . . If potatoes were fruit then five-a-day would be no problem in our household. My husband would sign up for five a day everyday. Six-aday? No problem. Seven-a-day . . . Do lift the flap up and look inside. This is based on the stories I started to tell my daughter when she bit into an apple and found half a maggot. She was never going to eat an apple again, that is until I made up the stories about the magical hidden garden. She’s 27 now and still remembers the stories. My grandson wanted this quilt but I said it was for Chris (at MQ). Next time he saw his cousin Chris he hit him. Do lift the flap up and look inside. This is based on the stories I started to tell my daughter when she bit into an apple and found half a maggot. She was never going to eat an apple again, that is until I made up the stories about the magical hidden garden. She’s 27 now and still remembers the stories. My grandson wanted this quilt but I said it was for Chris (at MQ). Next time he saw his cousin Chris he hit him. I chose to make this because in this day and age of trying to eat healthily I thought how wonderful it would be to get your ‘five a day’ and extra in one go! I quilted around the fruit like the rays of the sun making the fruit grow in the summer sunshine. When I read the title ‘Fruit’ I immediately thought of paying homage to Andy Warhol’s famous painting, and to the spirit of that age. So I had a real good time assembling the main phases of the ‘life’ of this exotic but very common fruit in a single shape. After several attempts this seemed to be the most meaningful result. It’s hand pieced and quilted. Puriton, where I live, is mentioned in the Domesday Book as being famed for growing pears. It is thought that the village name itself is derived from the original name of Peritone (farm for growing pears) in 1066. My interpretation may hopefully inspire people to unzip the goodness in a Somerset pear! I have taken a direct approach to the title Fruit. My inspiration was a botanical drawing by Otto Wilhelm Thomé from 1885. Initially I was going to do a Baltimore style appliqué but the re-discovery of a shoebox full of bits of dyed, felted wool, and an internet video about the work of Sue Spargo changed my direction. The piece was fun to make! I found this design in a quiltmaker block magazine and thought it would be fun to do. Chris, being Chris, said he thought that it looked like a drugged-up tortoise. [Still do. CH] Well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Weird and exotic, the name ‘star fruit’ is combined with the traditional sawtooth star block. If you’ve never seen a star fruit before make sure to have a look next time you are in the supermarket or greengrocer’s shop Wool and silk machine needle felting on woollen cloth to make the hollow form which has been stuffed. Cotton border. Free form machine quilting. The problem of what to do for this challenge was solved in a light bulb moment at Janice Gunner’s Textile Transformation workshop at FoQ. I was inspired by a selection of wool tops bursting with fruity, apple colours asking to be felted, but could I make the hemisphere I wanted? Yes it worked! Fruit pud, fresh fruit salad, lemon cheese cake, banana split, poached peas . . . (Look closely at the quilting. CH) I really enjoyed making this - so different from the things I usually do. I’d been reading The Painted Quilt by Linda and Laura Kemshall and thought I’d have a go. This is the result. My report card reads: “Needs more practise” I was inspired by the Twelve by Twelve show and very keen to make a small quilt of my own as soon as I heard about the Fruit Challenge, but then took several months trying to think what to do. With the deadline approaching - always such a good motivation - I saw a picture of a pumpkin and knew what to do. Then I realised that I'd made it ten by ten, so added the leaves to bring it up to size. Stargazing Bunny is raisin his head, Staring at the moon with his pear of eyes. The fields were ripe, The colour of oranges and lemons with a dash of strawberries, too. “Isn’t this grape,” the bunny said, berried in thought. “The moon looks so juicy tonight it could be made of melon.” I took my inspiration for this quilt from a poster on the internet called ‘Carmen Miranda - Bananas is my Business' although there's not one banana in sight? My husband's comments were “She's no beauty is she - she looks as if she's had too much botox“. Perhaps I haven't done her justice but, hey, this isn't an oil painted masterpiece, it's wibbly wobbly fabric. A pear that I made using a pattern in Maruscha Gaasenbeek’s super little book Iris Quilting. Winter fruit is so prominent at the moment, and the colours so mellow, that I wanted to create a piece that reflected my favourite season. . . . say the bells of St Clement’s. Background with an image of St Clement’s Church and rail fence block in sky blue. The fruit was wadded then sewn together. Coloured and hand-appliquéd. Notes from the bells are appliquéd Verdi in Parma. Good music, good wine: the fruit of my and Verdi’s beloved town. I tried to translate all this into a small hand and machine applique’ project. Seen in a shop window in Bristol on a Saturday, being watched by passers-by. In September I visited Sissinghurst, a garden I had long wished to see, and wasn't disappointed. The flower gardens were glorious and still full of colour and the trees laden with apples, ripe and ready for picking. There was so much fruit that some was just glimpsed through the foliage. I have used this idea and layers of different media so that you have to look hard to find some of the apples in ‘Ripe for Picking’. My design is based on the quilt block Electric Fan. Looking at the fan pattern I saw that the fan blades reminded me of the segments of citrus fruit. I used the colours of orange, lime, lemon and pink grapefruit and chose fabrics that represented the texture of the fruits. Figs are my all-time favourite fruit, and when I found this fig fabric it sealed the fate of my ‘Fruit’ block for the Midsomer Quilting Challenge. I was associated with CLIC from the very beginning as I worked for Professor Neville Butler, in the University of Bristol’s Department of Child Health in the late 1970s, so this is a charity very close to my heart. When I think of fruit I think of bold colours and shapes, so that was my inspiration. Although I am new to quilting (this is my first piece) I have done a lot of art work in different media. I enjoy Zooming in a bit closer on objects and thought I would have a go at doing the same type of thing, but this time with fabric. Four log cabin/pineapple blocks, made with fabric printed with apples, and bordered with pine trees, gives this play on words. Machine-pieced, and machine quilted with a real pineapple design, this is a fruity contribution to the twelve-by-twelve challenge. I started with Andy Warhol’s painting of Marilyn Monroe. I drew a stylised twig of red currant and then I decided what colour combinations I would do. I used Bondaweb to stick the berries and the leaf and then fixed them with a free motion stitch. After sewing the blocks together I free motioned an echo quilting. The title is meant to reflect Warhol’s Pop Art. I hope the informality of the quilted leaves, and the colours I have chosen, represent my love and memory of orchards and the more formal squares the slatted wooden storage boxes for apples. My Welsh mother-in-law always advocated ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ - and she lived to be 95. Several ideas popped into my head - and then out again. A basket of fruit was the only one that remained and, as I like bright colours, summer fruit seemed to be the answer I remember my puzzlement, when I was a kid, at learning that tomatoes are considered fruit. Around here we eat cherry tomatoes all summer long - so that led me to picture them for this challenge. I’ve realized I really like working this way - gosh, I should do it more! Midsomer Quilting were the first to offer to exhibit our International Twelve by Twelve group’s work, so when Chris invited me to submit something, I gladly agreed I was reading a detective novel and something came up about cocnuts (a light bulb moment) and that led to this! I am not a native speaker of English but I love the playful character of your language. The actual title of my piece is ‘Fruit of Life’, but I liked the pun! The felted fruit hanging on this quilt (and on ‘Life is Nuts’- number 9) was made by a lady called Ingrid A. Abenthum. I was unsure that I could do this. Inspiration was lacking, but with fruit trees in the back garden hanging with apples and pears, I looked no further. I sketched, sliced, looked, photographed and cut templates. I picked the leaves. This was a challenge. I stepped outside my comfort zone using appliqué, calico and the backs of fabrics. Leather reflects the hard texture of the pips and stalks. I did not want to take the title of the challenge too literally, so I tried to figure out what could be ‘fruit’ without being a fruit. Among many possibilities and configurations I chose the ‘pineapple’ that has to do with patchwork. I used Sarah Kaufman’s folded log cabin to render the rough feeling of the rind and tried Phillippa Naylor’s tip for binding - not very successfully I’m afraid. It was great fun though. I took inspiration from my favourite fruit - the Cantaloup Melon. I dyed fabrics to create a pallette of orangy pink and green fabrics and dried some melon seeds for beads. I used Suffolk Puffs to represent the shape of a half-cut melon, playing with repetition and scale. There are labels on the back, printed from the stickers you get on the fruit in supermarkets. I had the inspiration for this apple quilt at Gressan Apple Festival in the Aosta Valley. So many lovely red and green apples. I bought a box and when I got them home started drawing them. I cut one open and really liked the look of the half apple. I machined and appliquéd the apples in place and then added a little friend to give it some life. I hope you like it! Visiting my family in Hereford always seems to involve fruit: from their orchard, the strawberry fields, their pumpkin patch and in drinks. Inspired by these bright visits, I experimented with the stitches on my new machine and utilised fruit printed fabrics from the stash to create this Crazy “Quilt“. Raw edge appliqué, machine embroidery, and hand quilted. My home county of Somerset was the inspiration for this quilt. Some of the best fruit in England is grown in Somerset so there was plenty of choice. I settled for the cider apples used in the making of Zummerzet Zider. A lovely drop of scrumpy. Mission Viejo, where I live in Southern California, was once covered with orange groves but is now a city of 100,000 people and my quilting lines replicate the freeways that now beribbon the area. The lables are ‘photos to fabric’, showing artwork that orange distributors once glued to the ends of their boxes. The beads represent the juice of the oranges and lemons that now grow in my back garden. I Wanted to make a fruit basket having woven fabric with Gail Lawther at her Midsomer Quilting workshop, then decided to add foiled apples having foiled a Celtic design with Pat Archibald, hence golden delicious! All trial and error! When Chris announced the title of the challenge, the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever kept buzzing round my head - hence this hanging. I settled on the concept quite early on but with no real idea of how to execute it, though I’m quite pleased with the end result. Hope you like it too. I hoped to capture the colour and buzz which so impressed me when I visited the Barcelona fruit market. There was so much life and vitality, with the constant hustle and bustle of people going about their business and housewives and greengrocers haggling for a bargain. It was so very Mediterranean. In 1971 New York City officially adopted ‘The Big Apple’ as a nickname for the city in an attempt to give it a wholesome image. (‘Big Apple’ was already used as a slang term for the city’s racecourses). This fabric inspired me to create this Big Apple version of the challenge, and the addition of the New York Beauty block in the corner seemed a suitable embellishment. Why did I make this? I was forced to make it by my bully of a sister. Not because she recognises my latent talent or anything, but because: “You’ve got to join in. Everyone else is“. I cursed the thing up-hill and down-dale, (but secretly I’m quite pleased with it. It’s probably better if she doesn’t read this). She thinks I’m clueless . . . The theme immediately brought to mind the words ‘Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness’. I have tried to convey the mistiness and dampness of Autumn by covering the quilt with net and scattering beads underneath and on the top. The quilt is edged with grey/black wool plaited with silver. Machine quilted and appliquéd This is my sample from the book Iris Quilting by Maruscha Gaasenbeek. I picked her book up at a show and just had to have it. I like all the patterns in it and shall be having a go at all of them. I was pondering what I could do to represent the ‘Fruit’ challenge whilst sipping at a glass of wine . . ! I was also keen to use a variety of processes in the piece and (hopefully) to give it an amusing twist. The only one on the plant. This plant had promised so much but was not watered during April’s drought. This is the strawberry that was studied, drawn and eaten in June. The taste was delicious - special for being the only one, reminding me of the proverb ‘less is more’. One Blood Red Strawberry was made on 9th November, 2011, two days before Armistice, and before and after giving blood. I just thought it’d be fun to chop up strawberries and limes and make them into a smoothie. So I did it! And if someone is prepared to spend money to benefit CLIC then fine . . . Apple, Pear, Cherry was inspired by what fabrics I had in the stash. Out came the fabrics. Also, looking through old magazines for inspiration, I came across the appliqué patterns in a McCalls quilting from years back. I’m very pleased with the result as I am just starting to appliqué and machine quilt. I chose lemons because they remind me of the heat and energy of the sun. On a woven base I put three lemons that discretly recieve a rainfall of little golden drops, symbol of the beneficial sunbeams. What I’m trying to depict is the fact that food - and therefore fruit - usually travels many miles from its place of origin in order to reach our greengrocers or supermarkets. Postcards seemed an appropriate way in which to show this. Tamarillo is my favourite fruit after kiwi. And now that you have my mini-quilt safely in your hands I’m off home to New Zealand to watch the Rugby World cup. (Remind me. Has there been a Rugby World Cup? Were we in it?) This certainly was a challenge but it is great to have to think outside the box - or in this case the fruit bowl. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come up with an entry but an idea came to me and I’ve spent the weekend working on it while watching the Rugby World Cup (which, I have to add, New Zealand won over France). I so enjoyed working on this. As much as I’d like to return to UK to collect my quilt, I don't think it’ll be for a couple of years. I decided on Golden Delicious apples as my entry for the challenge. I found some gold fabric and strip pieced them together. Then I just quilted an apple and embellished it. When I was a young girl I spent most summers with my grandparents, where I picked luscious strawberries for a local nurseryman. Nowadays I use them as an ingredient for my favourite cake! Saskatoon Berries are native to the Canadian Prairie Provinces. My Canadian brother, who lived in Saskatoon, had a bush growing in his garden. The berries are sweet and can be eaten raw, however, they are more often cooked in pies, muffins and jams - all of which are delicious. (It’s hand appliquéd and quilted.) The two symbols represent Kuda and Mono which is Japanese for fruit (authenticated by a Japanese gentleman). Akai-kudamono means red fruit, hence the background fabric. The Sashiko is from a Japanese crest for Plum Blossom I had a few ideas for the challenge and then I came across this material! I thought that as the exhibition is in November it may bring back memories of Summer Holidays on the beach with all size and shaped ‘bums’ having a good time. Here’s the end result A celebration of fruit, eh? Well here’s to fruit and a successful celebration of imaginative quilting! Mine’s an orange juice, please. Actually time flies! When Chris asked me to join the Challenge November 2011 seemed a long way away. I said yes. Now it is November 2011 and I’m being haunted by FRUIT! Appliquéd Drunkard’s Path using my Invisible Machine Appliqué technique and I found four blocks could easily become birds! A rummage in my stash produced small enough fruit to fit the 12” limit.The things we do to keep Chris happy! This quilt was made because I know how much Chris loves Sunbonnet Sue (not!) . It just had to be done! No fruit challenge in Somerset could possibly be complete without a cider apple so I have chosen the bittersweet Somerset Red. Yes, that is real dried fruit on there, albeit I varnished it to detract nibblers of either the human or insect kind! My plan was to create a 3D exhibit. First I constructed a 3D basket. This I made with wadded fruit fabric strips that were woven and stitched together, with a plastic inner to support the structure. And as I live in Somerset, and cider making is one of our largest comercial enterprises, the fruit had to be apples. So, I made 12 green and 12 red apples, to represent the 12 x 12 challenge IF YOU HAVE ENJOYED THE QUILTS AND WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A DONATION TO CLIC SARGENT PLEASE CLICK ON THE LOGO ABOVE