On Commission

Vintage Laura Ashley Pinks!

No - not this gorgeous teddy! This truly beautiful motif was painstakingly appliquéd to a calico bag, with hand embroidery and ribbon, lace and bead embellishments by our other Janet, to be sold (for next to nothing) at the NSPCC Christmas Fair in November.  I hope whoever buys it appreciates the skill and effort she put in to it! It rather puts my own simple contributions to shame - just some printed fabric cut out and machine stitched on - but Christmassy nonetheless.

But YES! Laura Ashley - I finally plucked up the resolve to cut some of it up! That said, I followed my natural compulsion to use the small bits first. Ann Kelner had given me the leftovers of this pink Sycamore print from her 'clover needle case' project that she prepared for us at Connecting Threads a while back. She could tell how much I coveted them - bless her heart!

  


So I started off by trimming these odd shapes, which were mostly on the bias, into usable pieces.

I whittled them down to this neat pile, wasting as little as possible.







So far I have made three different 12 inch blocks. 

This one, featuring the classic 'Kate' fabric, had several flying geese units in it and I salvaged all the little corners to make 30 one and a half inch half square triangles units to use later on. (The quilt design is a work in progress). 

Now I know I preach about the importance of sufficient contrast in blocks so that the patchwork design shows up. But with these fabrics, I just throw the rule book out of the window - it is all about the pastels!!
I have one strip of the Mary Ann fabric; Pink stripes with pink and sky blue flowers on it. I pondered over it for ages to see how I could use it without wasting any. In the end I simply couldn't bring myself to slice it up and decided to use it as a feature block just as it is.

 So what was the commission? 

Well, for the third time, I have gone to the Knitting & Stitching Show and encouraged a companion to buy a Brother machine like mine. Today I phoned 'Bob' from the exhibitors' stand and persuaded him to send me a replacement for a foot I've mislaid, as commission for helping them sell their machines!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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