Pilgrimage - A Trip Around the World Quilt

Years ago, Tim and I travelled through Russia, Eastern Europe and then along the Camino De Santiago, a 1000 year old Catholic Pilgrimage through the north of Spain. We walked 300km of Camino's total 800, and took 2 weeks to do it. One of the things that surprised me most about that trip was the amount of decision making we needed to do together each day. We'd been friends for years at this point, married for one year, and it shocked us - the level of negotiation required to travel together on a limited budget. Completely out of routine, and with only a bare bones itinerary, we devoted a surprising amount of time to figuring out what we should eat for each meal, what we should do for the day, where we should stay each night, and which city we should see next. It wasn't really tense, we just saw it as part of the adventure, but it was exhausting.

Then we arrived in Spain and started walking. There are pilgrim hostels and towns and bakeries scattered regularly along the route, so it's easy to walk at your own pace, but we had a flight booked for 2 weeks' time, so our goal was around 25km (15 miles) per day. Each morning, we made a loose plan on our map for where we would stop for breaks, and where we would sleep that night, then we found a bakery for coffee and pastry, enjoyed a quick breakfast, and started walking.

It was a magical way to see this part of Spain. Taking 2 weeks to wander through what you could drive in an afternoon, we experienced the countryside with all of our senses, rather than just the view you could see through a car window - the frosty fresh air in the high mountains, the fresh baked bread wafting through the village streets. We picked red poppies in the fields and bought homemade cheese on the side of the road and filled our drink bottles with water from ancient wells. 

Around three days in, we noticed how much we were enjoying the simple clarity of the journey. There were almost no decisions to make! We started making jokes:

"What do you want to do today?"

"I don't know, how about we walk for a while?"

"Sounds like a plan!"

We felt our shoulders relax, despite the weight of our packs, we stopped worrying about the next meal or the next bed, and we focused on the portion of the path that was visible to us.

When I first started EPP, the big quilt on everyone's bucket list was the La Passacaglia. It's a highly intricate quilt based on old Penrose tiling shapes with an irregular block layout. Some of the most amazing versions have been made with spectacular fussy cutting which adds a whole extra level of kaleidoscope to the design. The La Pass, as it came to be known, became the poster child for the benefits of English Paper Piecing - easy to do tiny piecing, easy to stitch y-seams, easy to create patterns you just can't achieve with machine piecing, and easy to fussy cut. When I first started selling paper pieces, these were the benefits I pushed. 

But I soon discovered, with my own attempt at the La Pass, that making a quilt like this was a little like backpacking around Europe with a loose plan and a limited budget. It's a whole lot of fun for the first few weeks, but then the decision fatigue, and the lack of clarity about how it's going to turn out in the end start to take over. It took me a while to figure out that I like my quilts like I like my overseas travel - slow and certain and simple. I like making one decision at the beginning, and then just stitching my way through to the finish. I like taking in the little details along the way, enjoying how the colours look together as it grows, and maybe even tweaking it a little, but all with the underlying certainty that I'm creating what I have in mind. 

My favourite way to do this is with English Paper Pieced blocks made of random scrappy colours. I baste all the pieces at the beginning, and then sew the shapes together until I have a scrappy collection of blocks. I love how it looks and I love the process of making it. A subset of this scrappy quilt making is scrappy low-volume.

Low Volume Fabrics are prints that have a white base. New fabric collections will often have one or two in each, and I keep an eye out for them to add to my collection. The most useful ones are subtle and can be used for backgrounds, but my favourites are the florals and checks that are a bit busier, and look beautiful together in a low volume quilt like this one. 

This Trip Around the World Quilt, which I've called Pilgrimage after those 2 weeks in Spain, is a different layout to the random, scrappy I often love. I didn't baste all the shapes first, but instead chose them as I went. I made the decision that I wouldn't think on it too hard, I would bring in some pastel colours as I went, and I would mix up florals and geometrics with white on white. This made the fabric choices as I went light and easy.

Even so, you might have noticed between the first photos that I unpicked a row and replaced it. It was starting to feel a bit too lacy, and I wanted it to feel more crisp and fresh. Now that I've finished the quilt top. I don't think that was necessary. The outer rounds change the feel of the quilt so dramatically, that it's easy to steer as you go, bringing in more stripes or spots or low contrast prints depending on what you think it needs. 

Like looking at the map each morning and deciding which village we'd aim for, I found this to be just the right amount of decision making. And because each round takes longer than the last, the decisions were frequent in the beginning but reduced quickly as I made progress. I love making a Trip Around the World Quilt! I found myself stopping often just to hold it out in front of me to admire the addition of the round I was stitching. I loved the way the rows of squares became meandering paths when it was laying relaxed on my lap.

And I really, really loved the English Paper Piecing! If you were to machine piece this quilt, you'd need to lay out the whole thing first, and then sew it together in diagonal rows, making sure all of the squares stayed in the right order and the right direction (I placed all the directional fabrics intentionally in this quilt), lining up points, and getting up and down to the iron. Yes, it would be quicker, but I don't think it would be easier. Not for me, anyway. I found this process clear and easy, and clear and easy is my favourite way to make a quilt!

I just love this finished quilt! I loved the chance to use some of my busier low volume prints that I don't use when I need background fabric. I love the mix of the slightly stronger prints in the mix that helps give the quilt shape and contrast. Most of all, I loved making a quilt that suited me down to the ground. Easy, straightforward, peaceful, and allowing me to take in the progress, the colours, and emerging pattern slowly and joyfully. 

If this kind of quilt would suit you too, grab the pattern, paper pieces, and acrylic template below!