Jo Avery – the Blog

Harvest Festival Quilt

I have a new quilt to share with you today! This is Harvest Festival which is featured in the new issue of Today’s Quilter (53), out today.

No cover quilt for me this month and rightly so as my quilt couldn’t compete with that stunning log cabin from Lynne Goldsworthy!

Instead you will find my cheery vintage-style basket quilt inside on page 36.

I have always loved a basket block and I designed a couple of different ones for the A Month in the Country BOM for Today’s Quilter a few years back. I had always wanted to make a whole quilt full of baskets and already had one planned when I saw this vintage quilt at QuiltCon earlier this year. It is part of the Childress Collection which had a small exhibition at the event.

I absolutely loved the way the baskets were placed so haphazardly and the clashing dress fabrics the maker had used. So this was the starting inspiration for my quilt.

I pulled all the fabric from my stash for this one, adding only the pale green for sashing. I had a really joyful time making this quilt because I was so in love with all the fabrics!

I was going for a 70’s dress fabric/vintage sheet vibe with each block having a different background print to make it as ‘patchworky’ as possible. I used up even more scraps in the cornerstones, which are all different fabrics.

I went for this big flower power type FMQ design for the quilting, using a pale green 50wt Aurifil thread. This was a fun overall pattern to do!

I used a vintage sheet for the back but unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it (though you can see it in the mag).

I really fell for this happy, sunshiny quilt while I was making it and I’m really looking forward to seeing it again soon. I think it could become a good workshop class in the future. It would be a hard one to part with so that’s one way I can justify keeping it.

3 comments

  1. Absolutely delightful quilt. Love the color palette and as soon as I got to the inspiration quilt. It was easy to see the connection. It is the ‘best’ fun quilt that I have seen in a long time. The green choice for the sashing is the perfect touch for this quilt. It was lots of fun seeing this fantastic quilt evolve from the old vintage inspirational quilt. You did such an outstanding job interpreting the vintage quilt.

  2. I love this quilt Jo, a traditional block looking so modern. I’ve just finished a scrap quilt with a lovely soft white cotton backing, half a duvet cover.

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