Folk Dance Quilt Version 2 and our New Thread House Club BOM!

My second version of our Thread House Club BOM Folk Dance Quilt is now finished!

We launched our first BOM club last summer and have been busy sewing together since October.  With just two more blocks to go and with the launch of next year’s BOM looming I decided to push ahead and finish the version I have been sewing along with everyone, but with a bit of a twist…

…I’ve added a row of Orphan Blocks!

Here’s the original quilt, made with solids, as you can see it is a single bed size. I’d always planned to make this next one more square by doubling up on some of my favourite (and the quickest!) blocks. But as I finished the 12 main blocks I discovered that I had lots of pretty orphan blocks in the same colour palette (well it is all my favourite colours!) so I decided to just make a row of these and sew them to the right hand side.

That leaf block bottom right was made by my TTH partner Karen Lewis. She made it for the Bushfire Appeal and entrusted it to me to hand over to an Australian pal at QuiltCon 2020.  Six months later I found it at the bottom of a pile of blocks – oops!  I was going to send it in the mail but they already had way more blocks than they needed and Karen didn’t want it back.  I love that it’s made it into our quilt.

And my other TTH partner Lynne also gets some piecing into this quilt. The ‘wheel’ type block top left was originally made by Lynne as a test block which she sent to me along with some other orphan blocks (which she never does anything with these herself). I gave it a new centre and background and the stripey spokes fitted in perfectly with my colour scheme!

I love that all of us have a stake in this quilt which we designed together.

Three out of the other orphan blocks are from the class I taught for my A Month in the Country BOM quilt, including the original tulips which ended up as a row in my Bedding Plants Quilt too. Two other blocks were created for quilting friend’s book bloghops.

So lots of happy memories in this quilt! And lots of my favourite fabrics too as I made this straight from my stash using 99% print fabric as a contrast to the ‘all solids’ original.

I quilted this on my Handi Quilter Moxie using one of my favourite all-over FMQ patterns, which I call interlocking rainbows (maybe everyone calls it that?!).  It was quick and easy to do and as always I am delighted with the finish the Moxie enables. It also made a lovely change after all the time I spent doing intricate stuff on the Tiny Improv World quilt.

A couple of weeks ago we launched the 20/21 Thread House Club BOM by revealing our new quilt design, the Free Bird Quilt! We are again making our first versions in all solids and will be selling kits for each of our versions. Mine uses Dashwood Pop Solids, Lynne uses Kona Solids and Karen uses Figo Solids.

We are so excited by our new design. Following on from last year’s super-sized blocks we have zoomed in for some smaller blocks and motifs, offering a wider variety and a few new techniques.

Our trademark folk art vibe is still in evidence, along with our love of nature and the modern ‘off-grid’ aesthetic that makes our quilts so original and enjoyable to stitch. You can read all about the Club and BOM on the info page here.  Memberships and kits will be available to purchase from August 6th.

Right now we are busy making all our blocks and writing the patterns.  I’m enjoying working with this beautiful palette of solids but I am already planning the print version I will be making along with our members!

We have had such a wonderful time sewing along with our 400 plus community of lovely friendly stitchers. We’ve also had the most amazing feedback from members who have loved the whole experience and have learnt so many new techniques and tips. I hope you might consider joining us for the next year!

I’ll be back with more about the Free Bird Quilt soon meanwhile sign up for my newsletter (top of the page) of The Thread House newsletter (bottom of the home page!) to keep up with developments.

Meanwhile let’s take another look at this finished beauty.

I was originally going to give this one away as a gift but I do love it so much that I’m having second thoughts.  Though of course I don’t need any more quilts in this house, I’m very tempted to make this my new bed quilt!