It’s three weeks since I lasted posted about my cottage garden quilt, it was a very brief post as I was freshly out of hospital, I’m now thankfully feeling much better so I’ll elaborate a little on the blocks I showed you then…

The wheelbarrow block is about 6″ square, I love the little cat peeping over the edge and the vegetables standing in a row. The butterfly ones are quite clever, they’re only small, the finished size is 2″. The wings are made from three parts, two of them use the wrong side of a fabric. It took a while to find the right bit of fabric as many I’ve used showed very little colour on the wrong side. However I eventually found an area of one with big dark roses on which was a dusky pink on the back. I think it’s a very effective way of making the underneath of a butterfly’s wing. Kathryn (the designer) suggested finding a fabric for the background with a flower on so they could be just about to land on it.

Having completed three embroidered blocks I set about sashing them. I found the butterflies surprising tricky to choose sashings for due to the blue background – all the others are on various cream backgrounds. I liked the darker green with pink flowers, in fact it was the only one that really worked, so I was happy with that as the first sashing. Initially for the outer sashing I used a mid green, but having looked at it on my design wall for a few days I really wasn’t happy with it, it made the whole block too dark. Eventually I unpicked one block and started to try other fabrics. Eventually I hit on the pale pink ditsy flowers, I think it works. Here’s the two blocks together…

For the wheelbarrow I wanted to use the cream oak leaf fabric for the outer sash and a light to medium fabric for the inside. I realised fairly early on in this quilt that Kathryn keeps her quilt balanced by having four lighter block sashings, this is one of them.

The partner to this block is a lovely square of a watering can and a trug, every cottage garden has it’s watering can. The little kitty makes an appearance again, watching the robin on the watering can handle. In the book examples are made of flowers etc which add to the design, but free rein is encouraged, I enjoyed choosing flowers to embroider.

The centre block of the quilt has a bird box with a kitty looking hopefully up at it, it’s a gorgeous block. I’m particularly pleased with how by chance the fabric markings have worked out on the cat, the brown is actually a leaf from a floral fabric. In case you’re wondering, Kathryn gives clear instructions on how to embroider a bumble bee! Again there’s lots of room for flowers next to the cat.

I’ve made two churn blocks which I’m not 100% on, my thought when I chose the fabrics was that they would link up with the two ‘red’ corner blocks, whereas the other diagonal has the green stars and corner blocks, we shall see! I’m also almost finished with embroidering a length of ivy, then there’s just one more block to embroider and it all joins together with quite a few 2 1/2″ blocks. This shows the rough layout with the top and bottom row…

Hopefully when I next share the cootage garden quilt with you in three weeks time then the middle row will be complete and the three rows stitched together. Then I’ll just have four corner stones to embroider before attaching the outer borders.

I’m really enjoying making this quilt, it’s coming together beautifully. The design is in a book by Kathryn Whittingham, it includes all the templates and well written, clear instructions. Having had a fair bit of interest from abroad she has now opened shipping to USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on her website, Patchwork Katy.

Kathryn has also recently published her next book with a gorgeous seaside design. I’m not usually that into seaside stuff but this quilt brought back so many memories of holidays with my children in Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast. This was hardly surprising as when I read the book seaside holidays in Whitby and the coastline there was the inspiration for the quilt.

Kathryn kindly sent me a copy of the book and I’ve already started collecting fabrics for my seaside quilt!

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen, Daisy, Connie, Monica and Sherrie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links for lots of hand-stitched inspiration.