Sampler quilt #2

A couple more panels, I finished off one and completed the other last week, working quite fast because I had days to myself.

7. Carolina Lily

The flowers are hand pieced and then appliqued to the red background. The stalks are made out of the bias binding and the leaves are put onto freezer paper templates, ironed around the edges onto the freezer paper and sewn down. I kept my three flowers the same and am happy with the way the centre panel has come out. I had trouble with the inner borders and am not sure I'm happy with the yellow green trianges surrounding the central flower, but was pleased with how easy I found the sashing and relieved that the seams of the corners matched well. Lynne Edwards is so kind, she tells you to blame the fabric but... So we're increasing in complexity, here combining making bias binding from Celtic Knot with hand piecing from Tangled Star and using freezer paper templates from Inner City, but I wouldn't have been confident doing all three without having completed the earlier panels.

8. Quick Bow Tie

Bow Tie is a design that is usually made using templates, but Edwards uses clever folding to mean that these bow ties were made out of simple squares of fabric with no difficult sewing around oblique angles. I did keep catching bits of fabric in the knots because I used quite small ones and had to do a bit of unstitiching but I like the effect. Edwards gives instruction for 9 and 16 and I chose to do 16. I could have made them into a pattern but quite like the simplicity of my arrangement. I went back to basics on the colours after the experimentation of Delectable Mountains and Carolina Lily and used the three Indian weaves that inspired the whole quilt for me: the lovely warm golden yellow, the soft red and the orange stripe.