Ever since a photo of Mister Leo Dog snuggling one of my new quilts made an appearance in my blog header and on the front page of my website, I have been snowed with emails about whether or not this is the Gathering Flowers Quilt pattern, which fabrics exactly went into making it, did I hand quilt it and if so with what, oh and is there a kit. So Leo and I thought we would answer those of you who asked and the rest of you can just look at the pictures of the dog which in my opinion are worthy of collapsing from cuteness. But who am I to say, really?
Actually I'll do all the responding. Leo will edit.
From over there.
Yes this is my Gathering Flowers Quilt pattern. Isn't it exciting how different one pattern can look if you completely switch up the fabrics? I love the original version that is on the pattern cover, but those swirly flowers were begging me to be scrapped together with a little of everything. I chose to use all one block style for this quilt (the pattern offers two), which is just flat piecing as opposed to the gathered rosette style block. It definitely saves time, and allows for more fabric variety in the flower. And this variety of fabrics includes all my Innocent Crush cottons, all of the Pastry Line stripes and the Square Dance panels (now printed on smooth cotton voile). My color plan of attack mostly just had me keeping the flower centers (pie shapes) as lighter tones, the flower petals as medium tones, and the background shapes as deeper tones. I just cut up everything, made each block sort of without thought, then arranged the blocks together with a pretty careful eye for color balance. In the end I sort of wished I had switched the lighter tones to the petals and the medium tones to the flower centers. But that's why I keep making quilts. Amen.
And yes I hand quilted just the outer edges of the petals and I think I'll do the criss-cross lines of the flower centers too somehow.... still thinking. Its a different look than the more intense quilting on the solid background of the first version....but I like it. Lots. I used Anchor's perle cotton in a creamy white, size 8, and whatever embroidery needle was nearby at the time. (I go on and on and on about hand quilting here and here.)
And a kit that I'm calling the Gathering (Wild)flowers Quilt. This is really as wild as I get these days.
Leo says good.
Good dog.
Happy patching and napping. xo, Anna