This quilt pattern first attracted me because of the large areas of applique mixed in with some traditional piecing. I was very enthusiastic when I started, and found the instructions for the separate elements of the quilt (including the applique, and the Seminole pieced borders) really very useful. I even managed to make all the required flower units and a large number of leaves.
It wasn’t until I started assembling the applique that I realised that the pattern that I had loved when I saw a small image of it, just really hadn’t worked as well scaled up to full bed size. The final nail in the coffin of this project was the growing awareness that even the quilt designer herself hadn’t actually made up the pattern completely – a fact that became more obvious when later tutorials suggested changing layouts and making a whole load more leaves. That was it. It all got dumped into a plastic bin, and wasn’t touched for another couple of years.
Fast forward to the Quilts for Care Leavers Project (check out other people’s blogs on this topic), and my decision to go through all those UFO’s and see whether I could do anything with them for the project. It was at the Barnsley group Sew Day that I finally had the space to pull out all the pieces and see what I could do with them. The 12 rectangular star blocks, with some of the Seminole border strips rearranged, were easy and came out the perfect size for a quilt, so that one got sewn up very quickly.
A bolt of donated fabric in just the right shade of green, with printed text that had a home and garden feel to it made me think of garden borders and lawns, and so the two long outer borders of the original quilt were slightly altered to fit the new length requirement for Q4CL, and another unfinished border (that had only had the vines done) got a few leaves added and then attached to some more of that green fabric to use as the backing.
That left what I had originally made as the centre of the quilt, plus a few spare bits of Seminole pieced border and some more of the green donated fabric. Out of that another “garden bed” inspired quilt was made. With not quite enough of the green left to do a full backing, some scraps of plain fabrics and a few disappearing 9 patch blocks in greens (that again hadn’t inspired me once I had made them) were pieced together for the back.
Three quilts from one, an unloved project made into something both lovely and functional, a large UFO box emptied, and a nice donation to a great project. What better feeling.
Your quilts were even better in real life Corinne….beautiful!!
Fabulous quilts Corrine- lovely to see them in progress at the Barnsley sew day