Some quilts just evolve and my rotating flower blocks quilt is one such.
I love these flower squares - a design by Lynette Anderson. I just couldn't stop making them! I particularly liked the Suffolk Puff centres and the way Lynette had shadow quilted around the flower right to the edge of the square. The piece of plain fabric with the flower applique was cut 4" square, which includes the seam allowance, and each finished flower square with the added 1/2" borders, ends up as 7" x 7" including the seam allowance.
But how to use them in a bed quilt? I made up twice as many simple four patches to compliment the busy flowers. It's easy to make four patches the right size - you just make them a little bit bigger and then trim them to size once sewn.
And also another simple square with a centre square cut at 4" so that I could quilt the flower design on it. I was so pleased to be able to use up some of my favourite saved scraps for the little strips on two sides of this centre square. I made the same number of these as the flower squares.
I sewed 4 of the squares together as below to make my blocks. These are just two of them.
By rotating the blocks as I laid them out an interesting pattern started to emerge - I felt inspired!! ....................... but it was pure luck really!! I've drawn a square around some of the blocks so that you can pick them out more easily.
So this is the finished quilt
and the eagle-eyed will notice I added extra 7" squares all down one side, keeping the pattern going, and that I ran out of fabrics before the quilt was quite big enough, so had to have some different pattern fabrics in the border of plain squares. This made the quilt a perfect fit for my bed.
I've just realised - I could call it my evolving, revolving flower block quilt!!**
Flowerpatch Quilters members made a double bed quilt to raise money for charity, which also had a flower appliqued on a square in one corner. These are just two of the blocks:
The blocks were rotated before being sewn together and two borders added - plain and then strips. This is the finished quilt and I love it.
I have written out some instructions for making this quilt and below is a link to the one page, printer-friendly pdf.
Flowerpatch Daisy Patch Quilt
I think this idea of rotating the blocks would look good with almost any square block with an asymmetrical design and I really must get around to trying it out again ....some day!!
Happy sewing - Anita
In every quilting book there is something that makes you sit up and take notice, and "Quilting Happiness" by Diane Gilleland and Christina Lane is no exception. They wrote of a super, fun idea to find out what your quilting style might be and we decided to do as they suggest at the Flowerpatch April meeting - what an eye-opener for some!
We all brought along old unwanted magazines (not quilting ones - they're far too precious!), paper cutting scissors and a glue stick.
We tore whole pages out of the magazines whenever we came across a picture that we liked, be it because of the colour or shape or whatever.
Then we cut out our chosen pictures from the pages.
The last stage was to make these pictures into a small collage on an A4 sheet of paper, cutting again as necessary.
These are just a few of our results.
Finally we answered these questions about our collage - with a lot of help from our friends.
Which colours are prominent?
Are there shapes or symbols that appear often?
What is the mood of your collage?
Is it simple or intricate?
Have you chosen large or small scale images relative to the page?
Are there mostly straight or curved lines?
Is your collage bold or subtle?
Fascinating to see all the results. Maybe even the fact that some chose landscape and some portrait orientation is meaningful. What about Elizabeth whose collage extended to twice the length of the paper and Ellen who made three collages!!??
Next meeting is on 14th May when Chris Pattison will be showing us "What your sewing machine can do for you!".
Have fun - Anita
Some friends and I had a super day at the Spring Quilt Festival at Westpoint, Exeter recently. I just have to show you a few of the quilts I especially liked.
If the makers have their own websites you can click on their name to see lots more of their work, etc. These pics are just a flavour.
I adored all of Christine Restall's "Natural Expressions" quilts
and Terry Donaldson's "Full Circle" quilts
This is made by Jeanette Orr
this by Karen Milne
and I really liked Eileen Blood's method of applique.
I liked so many more exhibits, but got a little excited and snap happy, and I forgot to make sure I had the maker's names in focus so......
finally my own humble effort which I entered in the A4 Journal Quilt challenge which was called "Picture This". My two are called "Picture in This Frame?" and I was so chuffed to get a runner's up rosette!!
Hope you like my selections - Anita
