garden party quilt

It's quite a while now since I wrote the post about cutting up old, hand-embroidered tablecloths, the one that caused a certain amount of adverse comment. I looked for the post but couldn't find it which make me think I must have decided I couldn't countenance any further negativity about what seems to me to be a non-starter in the outrage stakes.

Anyway, while sorting out almost every room in the house in the past week or so - you know what it's like, you start off trying to make space for a few more books and suddenly the whole place ends up rearranged in knock-on Rubik's Cube-style solution - I unpacked some large boxes of projects I've made for various books. Out came the crochet and out came the cushions to be put to good use, and out came lots of quilts that I haven't seen for a while.

One them is the Garden Party Quilt. This is what happened to the squares of embroidered cotton I cut out of tablecloths and tray cloths and tea cosy covers. I kept to one size of square, chose all the best bits and my favourite details (a Welsh lady, some crinoline ladies, a Scottie dog, lots of herbaceous borders and richly coloured flowers) and put them all together to make a big garden party.

I used some of the leftover unstitched areas of the clotsh to make a border and put some little stitched squares in the corners. The back was made with three different quilting cottons which are all pretty, flowery, and sweet, and binding used a simple dotty pink fabric.

As there is so much stitching on the top of the quilt I decided against hand-quilting, and I tied it together instead with a pale off-white embroidery thread.

It's been so nice looking at this quilt again and remembering how much I enjoyed putting it together and how I had many favourite areas of stitching and how they still appeal. The quilt and the instructions for making it went into The Gentle Art of Stitching, but now it is out of the box and the garden party can be enjoyed in the full light of day.