Flower Garden quilt.

I have started the quilting now. It will look better when it has all been through the wash and the marking pen doodles are washed out. I quite like how the hexagons take on a different look as you get close enough to see the stitching. All the central rosettes are quilted, so now it is "just" the area outside the central medallion and the borders to do, and then the binding.

I am stitching with my Bernina 200e and variegated Valdani 50 weight cotton thread in needle and bobbin.

U.F.O unearthed!

Way back around 1980 we lived in Shropshire . My neighbour, at the time, was keen on patchwork and introduced me to Laura Ashley fabric offcuts. At that time they were generous sized, odd shaped pieces that were left over from items made in the factory in Wales ie. not the neat co-ordinated squares that became available later.

I armed myself with a copy of "The Perfect Patchwork Primer" and all my used envelopes to cut up into hexagons and proceeded to "make a quilt".Of course it had to be made of hexagons because that was what quilts were like weren't they? (Can you tell I hadn't seen many?)

As you can see I didn't get very far and it got bundled away for more than 25 years. A few years ago I got drawn into quilting again, but this time by machine, and this bundle stayed firmly wrapped up at the back of a drawer. A few months ago I looked at it again and wondered what to do with it. It seemed a shame to leave it unfinished but I couldn't see me ever hand-finishing a full sized quilt so I asked advice on BQL (British Quilt List). I was assured that I could finish it as a traditional quilt by appliqueing this medallion to the centre of a larger piece of fabric and perhaps adding some flowers at the corners and then machine quilting it.

This then is my challenge for next year. Hopefully it will be done before the fabric is 30 years old?

Watch this space as they say!