Flowers

Are you still there?  You haven't been blown away/drowned by rain/disappeared into 3 foot of snow?  A week of crazy weather here in the UK and elsewhere in the rain.  Some prettiness and fabrics to distract from the rain.  I received month 9 of Amitie Bring Me Flowers BOM recently and despite having at least 3 months worth of packages unmade, I dived straight in to make this block and get the ball rolling again.

This may remind you of the economy block .  A versatile little block that can be rotary cut or foundation pieced. I did the latter and it came together quickly.  I did change a lot of the fabrics.  I have found this block of the month an up and down experience. On the plus side, I receive fabrics that I love that I never see anywhere else and this includes Japanese cottons and Liberty lawn.  I learn techniques that I don't usually go in for and become a better sewer.  The down side is some of the fabric choices leave me a little cold: these are my current rejects, and the hand sewing is hard going at times.

Lisa wrote about this aspect of BOMs recently, although I loved the print that she couldn't bring herself to use: one quilter's trash is another quilter's treasure.  I find a lot of hand sewing brings on a bit of RSI so I can only do it in small bursts which means putting everything away and then not quite knowing where I am when I get it out again.  Each block has the stalks to be sewn on and sometimes there are multiple layers to each flower head and six of them to make (2 blocks worth).  I machine sew when I can but this BOM was designed with hand sewing in mind and machining is not always an option.

 There are twenty five flower blocks in all and each is surrounded by these spacer blocks (above).  These are paced in the BOM so there are 1-3 to finish each month and they are rather tedious.  They come with photos so you can match the fabrics to what has been sent.  I am in round two so sometimes the pics don't match the fabrics and I have made some substitutions which you can see taped to the pic; there was a lot of olive green which is not my favourite and I didn't want it to dominate.  I keep each stage of the BOM in zip locks to help keep tracks.  The preparation for each block does seem to be quite long, especially when I make fabric changes- I am my own worst enemy.

I do like these flowers (month 6) despite the lengthy process that will go into making them.  These are multi-layered so the central diamonds are english paper pieced, then the circle is hand appliquéd to the background (leaving space for the stem) and the diamond then appliquéd on top.  The whole quilt is going to be a labour of love.  I think it might end up as a door curtain but really I am undecided and the finishing it is some time off.  Would I do another Amitie BOM?  I am undecided about that too.  It is expensive.  I could only afford it when I came into some money, but the packages are fun to receive, Jen Kingwell's designs are truly beautiful and unlike anything else so never say never.  I just need to pull my finger out and get more of this done before I think ahead.

Meanwhile colour from my window sill.  I know many folks are looking forward to sun tomorrow in the UK and it is half term too.  A week of sewing, cooking and family activities beckons and that sounds good.