Stitching Flowers and Leaves

It’s May the Fourth and I’m heading to a wedding reception tonight. It’s the wedding of one of my students, Suzanne and her fiance Scott, who are big Star Wars fans, hence the date they decided to tie the knot!

I’ve become very fond of, and proper lifelong friends with many of my students over the years. This has been one of the most rewarding, joyful things about teaching and something I never would have expected when I started the craft studio 8 years ago.

Suzanne asked me to teach her a class to make a notebook cover so she could make her own guest book. In a rash moment last year I said ‘why don’t I make your guest book?’. I knew that the first two sessions of my Flower Bowl Applique Wall Hanging course were coming up in the New Year and that I would need to do plenty of applique flowers as demo pieces and I though I could maybe combine the two things.

I love a bit of embroidery mixed with applique flowers and leaves and I thought this would be perfect for a wedding guest book. I used the templates from the class (with one extra flower from something new I am making) and chose a very subtle palette of colours (for me!)

I finished it at the beginning of the week and handed it to Suzanne on Tuesday night at our monthly craft club.  I got two hugs and a crochet wolf in return!  And I get to go to a Ceilidh at Edinburgh Castle tonight!! Woohoo!

Meanwhile my applique students did amazingly well with the Flower Bowl pattern!

I had 16 students in all and some are still finishing their’s (though at least one impressive student has finished the whole wall hanging and is working on another already!).  But I thought you might like to see the wonderful variations and beautiful stitching that they achieved in this mosaic.

I am so impressed with and proud of their work!

As far as my attempt to make one along with the class I didn’t get any further than the central panel I’m afraid, despite my best efforts.  I plan to extend the wall hanging to a full-size medallion quilt, adding extra borders and blocks, and then produce a pattern. But that’s going to have to wait until later in the year.  I have been incredibly busy producing quilts and projects for magazines over the last few months, and one quilt in particular has really slowed me down (it’s going to be amazing once it’s done – I keep telling myself!).

But I have managed to take part in a couple of Sampler/BOM projects that were both revealed on May 1st.

The National Quilt Museum of the USA (situated in Paducah) asked me to be the guest designer of their Block of the Month Club for May.

Every month the guest designer is given a different subject for inspiration. May is the ‘New Quilts from an Old Favourite’ competition and exhibition (which just opened) and the theme this year is the Oak Leaf and Reel pattern.

This just happens to be my all time favourite traditional appliqué block so I was very happy to design my own version of it.
I’ve given it a bit of a modern twist while hopefully retaining the essential elements. There’s some curved piecing and of course a few appliqué leaves.

The BOM club is a FREE programme which you can access via National Quilt Museum website or the Facebook group. And this is just month 2 of the current year so you only have one block to catch up with!

The second exciting announcement this week was that I’m part of the Summer Sampler 2019 design team!

Look at all those superstar quilters I get to hang out with in those little boxes!!

I have always admired the stunning modern quilts that the Summer Sampler produces every year and I was delighted to be asked to design one of the blocks for 2019, especially as the theme this year is Piecing Bootcamp.

The Summer Sampler includes 17 Designers and 21 technique based blocks.  Each Monday from May 20-October 14, you will receive one of the unique block patterns. You are also given these two gorgeous layouts to choose from.

Presales run through to May 19. The Sampler price is $29.99 and you can  use my coupon code MYBEARPAW to get $5 off!
For more info or to purchase head to the website here.

Meanwhile did you guess which block was mine?

It’s my modern abstract interpretation of a dandelion clock, made using my Freehand Foundation Piecing technique plus a few improv curves.  It’s going to be such fun to do!

Since I made this block I’ve been dreaming up a full size quilt of whole dandelion clocks. And it’s definitely going to happen! It just needs to get to the back of the queue and patiently wait it’s turn…