Boil up the billy and let's have a brew

The Quilt Block Mania themen for November is ‘Camping’ , so of course you need a campfire and an old black billy for the tea. I have made an applique block and have made it up with fusible applique, though it would work with needleturn as well. I did think about piecing it ……. but no. So in the interests of health and safety, we have cleared a space and built up a stone ring so the fire can’t spread, gathered up our dry firewood and cut a couple of forked sticks to make a frame to hang the billy. Then all we need to do is light up the fire, get some water from the creek, hang the billy over the coals, and when the water is bubbling throw in a handful of tea and a couple of gumleaves for flavour. Perfect.

Boil up the billy

In terms of sewing, the pattern is fairly straightforward, though you need to think about what goes on top of what. The upright forked sticks get placed first, then the cross bar is placed so it goes between the two forked sticks. It should just sit in the V of the fork with one arm of each fork on top of the cross bar, and one behind.

the cross bar goes between the forked sticks, the handle goes over the cross bar.

The same applies to the billy handle. It has to go over the cross bar. the top of the handle just touches the top of the cross bar and one side of the handle passes behind the cross bar while the other is to the front.

A few stones and some embers under the billy

The stones, the inside of the billy, and the outside of the billy go next. The stones should really be in between the bottoms of the two posts so it will look like the billy is hanging over the centre of the stones ring. I did put a piece of red on top of the stones, behind the billy in case I had any gaps in the flames and needed some embers to show through, but I didn’t end up using it.

adding a ring of stones and some firewood improves the look

After the embers I added the fire wood, so it looks like it’s sitting inside the stone ring. I then blackened my billy with a bit of soot, and honestly, I think I could have stopped there. The wood made the red look like embers and with a bit of trimming at the sides of the red I think it would have been fine.

The billy needs black sooty sides

However it’s hard to resist a few flames and I cut yellow and orange flames to lick around the billy.

What I could do ddifferently: I don’t think I positioned my stones well. so i might get a little creative with the bottoms of my posts to make the billy line up better. I could have added a bubbly sort of fabric inside the billy to look like water. I could have given the billy a little silver rim. I could have added a packet of tea and some matches. I could have added a few gum leaves on the ground, or hanging down.

Add flames as desired.

Here is the link to all the 12 inch blocks. this month’s block wshould be the last in the list.

Here are the links to the other designers in the bloghop

12 inch blocks, raw edge applique, quiltmania bloghopSusan Griffiths12 inch blocks, quilt block mania, camping, applique block, raw edge applique2 Comments