Earlier work 3: Leather quilt

Years ago (and I mean years ago) I bought a bag of chamois leather off-cuts from a upholstery shop. This bag of off-cuts landed between my fabric stash and stayed there. I kept on thinking I have to do something with it, but I could never come up with a good idea. After about 10 years and 3 house moves I decided I either had to do something with it or throw it away. So I started to cut all the off-cuts into 5cm wide strips. When I had a small mountain of strips I started to add the pieces together into one looong strip. After that I made log cabin blocks with the strips.

Instead of using paper as a base I used squares of flannel. I joined all the strips by just placing them side by side and zigzagged over the edges. The leather was to thick to make seams. I just carried on making blocks until I turned the mountain of strips into a pile of blocks. I then used the same method of zigzag stitching to add the blocks together.

Finding the right fabric for a backing was also a problem. I had to use a heavy weight fabric to go with the heavy leather so in the end I chose an upholstery fabric in a complementary mustardy and brown colour to finish it off.
In the beginning I was worried that the circles on the fabric wouldn't go with the squares but now I thing it takes the hard edge of the squares and gives the quilt a softer look. I hand quilted the squares with a dark brown thread to complement the inner squares of every block.

The quilt is quite heavy but have a very luxurious feel to it. It looks better that the R25 ($2.86) I paid for the bag of off-cuts!