Patchwork Breeze: #oldquiltbookbloghop

How many quilting books do you have?

What is the oldest publication in your book collection?

Bea, from Beaquilter.com is hosting the Dust Off a Quilt Book blog hop. Her idea was to find an old (to participants) quilt book or magazine on our shelves and make something from it. It could just be that we are inspired by it or that we make just a block from it and turn it into a small quilt or bag or mug rug. It was really up to us!

I've been quilting since 1976 and I knew I had old books among all my books. (The photo shows about 1/3 of the books I have!)

The book I chose was published in 1977. The cover quilt had interested me when I chose it from the freebie table at a guild meeting a few years ago. For the blog hop, I chose to make something smaller from the "Contemporary Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt" pattern on the cover. The original pattern makes a large twin size quilt.

I have the Rose of Sharon #2 by Sharon Pederson die by Accuquilt which made cutting lots of flower so easier!

I decided I would make a few placemats for the summer. I chose scraps of Island Batik fabrics I still had from my time as an Island Batik Ambassador 2 years ago.

Making the Placemats:

I am sure you can see the basic concept of the pattern from the book. I devised my own method to make the placemats.

I gathered green fabric for the background for the flowers. Not much of the green would show, so it didn't have to be fancy fabric. The book pattern uses muslin. I cut the pieces 12-1/2" x 16-1/2".

I sewed batting scraps together with zig zag stitches and this would go under the green background foundation.

I used my GO! cutter to cut the batik scraps into the largest flowers. I arranged 11 larger flowers on the green background and batting (see finished placemat above). I sewed around the petals 3 times with my free motion foot. It gave a good outline and wonky was fine.

I got a tip from Lea Day, when I stopped at the longarm booth at the AQS Houston Quilt Show in November. She said when free motion quilting, if you go slightly off your path, just sew around 2 or 3 times and it looks like you meant to quilt that design.

I added the 12-1/2" x 16-1/2" backing piece. This was some extra green I had in my stash. BUT, I wanted to give the flowers more dimension and fun personalities than the book pattern showed. I layered a smaller cutout and a center circle on one of the larger flowers that I just appliqued down. I tacked them in place with a wash-away glue stick. I sewed around the flower centers two times and on the 3rd time around, I stitched a straight line out toward the V in the smaller petals to help hold them down just a bit.

Some of the loose petals had to be pinned back so they did not get sewn into another one. I also pinned them back away from the edges when I squared the sides to 12" x 16" and when I sewed on the binding.

This was a fun project and I will be ready for summer dining!

Here is the list of bloggers you will want to visit.

Monday Feb 18^th

Turid at densyendehimmel

Pamela at Pamelaquilts

Joan at Moosestashquilting

Anne at seems like a plan

Susan at Desertsky Quilting

Selina at Selinaquilts

Kathleen at Kathleenmcmusing

Tuesday Feb 19^th

Cindy Stitchin at home