I have some rather sad news to share with friends today. A gracious lady that we all knew here in Oakville/Burlington passed away on Saturday.
Rosemary Makhan was my first quilting teacher. Rosemary was a kind lady who taught me so much and inspired me to go further than I ever thought I would with quilting.
Rosemary wrote a number of quilting books over the years but the greatest gift for all of us, was the absolute pleasure of knowing her and being able to enjoy all of her wonderful quilts.
She will be missed.
RIP Rosemary.
If you are going to review a product you may as well make it worthwhile.
I decided to make a quilt with huge flowers with the product! What background fabric would I use???? Frugal gal decided to dig into her 2 1/2" stash and see what she had.
I found strips of pinks, creams, turquoises, lime green and they all worked together very well. I cut the strips 19 1/2" long and started sewing them together.
When all the sewing was done, I pressed the seam allowances open. I don't want "lines"/"ridges" through the middle of the flowers and I will get that if the seam allowances are pressed to one side.
I wasn't very choosey on which ones went together -- I picked them up and sewed -- as long as there weren't two the same I was fine.
When I was finished the pressing, I took all of the strips back to the cutting table and cut them 6 1/2" x 6 1/2".
I was able to get two blocks and then I cut sets of 2 1/2" x 6 1/2". I'm thinking I may use these for the border. I haven't planned it out yet......but the wheels are spinning.
I randomly selected four blocks from one of the color ways. I decided to keep the pinks separate from the turquoises. (My original thought was to mix them up, but I didn't get as many turquoise as I did pink.)
When you stitch open seams together you occasionally don't quite match your centre corner. Don't worry about it this time. You are going to be placing a flower on top and no one but you will know.
TIP: WHEN SEWING OPEN SEAMS TOGETHER, PIN INTO THE STITCHING FROM EACH SET OF BLOCKS. IT WILL HELP YOU HAVE A PERFECT JOIN
The flower pattern I had on hand from a previous project, wasn't quite big enough for this quilt. I scanned the flower into the computer and then using Word, I made it as large as I possibly could. It is now about 7" x 9".
One block done......a few to go....but I will get them all finished over the next few days.
Well, the next few days, came and went and lo and behold......
the top is done. I raided the stash and found this fabric. It wasn't my first choice, but I didn't have enough of the one I wanted to use.
A different layout. I've never tried this before.
I'm going to cross-hatch the large empty blocks, shadow quilt the flowers and then do flowers in the turquoise blocks. All of it will be with "Linen" Superior Thread.
Now to make a backing and get my BOM's for January done.
One will be with Batiks and one will be with Civil War fabrics.
Now which block will be the Batik and which will be the Civil War??????
This column accidentally appeared around the first part of January. It wasn't scheduled for then, but someone (who shall remain nameless) hit the wrong tab at the top of the page and out it popped.