Forever Flowers

As we know, flowers do not last forever. However, one can replenish one's supply, one's vases, one's garden, with flowers.  Forever.  Right?  Flowers in fabric, now, do not need replenishing; they definitely are forever.  Well for a few hundred years, I hope.
This is 'Forever Flowers', a quilt I made for my mum for her 80th birthday, which was, ahem, almost one year ago. Her birthday, not the quilt finish.

It is one of my goals on my Q4 List which you fill find on that link.

These are glorious Kaffe Fassett fabrics, fabrics I would never, all by myself, have put together. It's worth mentioning the hand of this fabric; I am mesmerized by Art Gallery Fabrics, silky soft that they are. These, by Rowan Fabrics, Mum and I agreed, are like that: a cotton sateen smooth finish to them that is tactile-pleasing out the yin-yang for me, ha.

Here is block 1 cut and beginning to be assembled, above the not-yet-cut fabrics for block 2. There are 33 pieces in each star block.

This is a Craftsy kit (affiliate link that will take you to two pages of Kaffe Fassett fabric and kits, though this one is no longer available) that I bought late last winter/early spring, planning to have it made for my mum's 80th birthday which was November that year, 2016.  Sadly, I did not get it done in time.

There are 30 blocks in the quilt, 15 of each fabric compilation. This is block 1. The colours are incredibly vibrant!

The pattern wants you to do the stitch and flip method for the flying geese and the corner connector method for the outer star points on the rectangles. I figured out the measurements to do the no-waste geese method for the flying geese.  I then made a template so I could pre-cut the triangles and rectangles at 45 degrees to make the outer star points on the rectangles, which you can see below. This means more leftover fabric! I stitched the flying geese on my Bernina, but my 1947 Featherweight did the rest of the quilt.

With Bella supervising of course!

Then it was time to cut and piece fifteen block 2's.  It's the same pattern, just different fabrics.

Again sewn on my little girl. I actually like piecing on her better than on my Bernina, shh! She sews better over bulky seams, takes 'em in stride, whereas the Bernina tends to choke a bit, the stitches go very tiny, and I have to help pull the fabric on through.

The photo below shows my design uh, ceiling...wait, design air lol, not enough room for a design wall up here, which soon held the flimsy, all 990 pieces of it, (30 blocks of 33 pieces each) assembled in the Book It! method I describe here.

Then it was time to assemble the backing, which I'd also purchased from Craftsy. I wish I'd thought to try to match the flowers better, but it's all good. The horizontal seam is pretty decent, but the vertical join a bit off.

For the batting, I tried Hobbs 80/20 for the first time which I'd bought at Connecting Threads (affiliate link). It's a little lighter in weight than my favourite Warm 'n Natural 100% cotton. I thought it would be easier for my mum to maneuver around on her bed, and launder as well. I loved the way it quilted up, just slightly more loft than Warm 'n Natural, with definitely less weight to the finished quilt.

I'd decided to quilt my favourite all-over motif, this flower, that I first saw in 'American & Patchwork Quilting' in the early 2000s. I now like echoing it, as you see below, adding loops and leaves. Planned to do that over the entire quilt, as the quilt is all about the fabric. Loaded it.  And then, as quilts are wont to do, it talked to me, said, 'You know, there is this lovely diagonal line to this quilt. You've seen it right from the get-go. Why not accentuate it? The quilt pattern is called Lovely Lattice, why not make a lattice-type effect with lines? Go on. You know you want to...'
and so I did.  And so it was.

I did not realize that it would create a cool woven effect in the orange centres.

I used Aurifil 2123, remembering that Angela Walters says her favourite colour to use on multi-colour quilts is a pale yellow. It was perfect.

Love that particular star block centre.

Quilting the lines, half an inch apart with a ruler, sure did make an all-over lattice effect, as well as emphasize the diagonal flow of the layout.

The binding fabric was that orange stripe, just terrific. But not terrific for my mum, who is a green-obsessed, blue-hater (gasp! like how?). So I perused my greens, pulled a few possibilities: "no, that's a yellow-green, no this one's blue-ish, that's too light, this doesn't make a statement... aha!"

A metre or so languishing in my stash? Did I use it in her 70th birthday quilt? Maybe... I did take a  photo of that quilt, the pattern from 'American Patchwork & Quilting' in 2007 when I was at her house:

Couldn't quite get it all in; it sits on top of her double bed, doesn't hang down much.  Nope, didn't use that green.

 I love appliqué on top of a pieced background. I machine-appliquéd the flowers, leaves and stems, and then went back in and stitched the French knots and stamens by hand.

I even found where I'd stitched her name in this one (yep, I did in the newest one too, wait for it!)

This one was quilted on my Bernina, I believe with a 30-weight Sulky Blendables thread. Those who have followed me for a while know that I always quilt the recipient's name in their quilt somewhere, as well as my own initials. Sometimes I quilt other little important words too.

10 years later:

It's Marian. With an 'a'. 😉

My mum does love flowers. Here is the back, another glorious Kaffe floral (ha! with the arch of the bird feeder stand):

There were two choices of backing, and I couldn't decide so I had Dayna pick. I love her choice!

I sewed on a fabric label with the quilt details handwritten on it with gel pen. I also was sure to sew in my label from Ikaprint:

Mum loved the quilt, has decided to have it in the front room, where she thinks, and I agree, that the colours really pop against her deep green couches and pale green walls. I said that I'd thought it would be for her bed since it's a fair bit bigger than her last one I made, but she thinks she can use it to snuggle under while watching TV. As long as she does use it is all I ask, lots! We tossed it in her washing machine on cold, with her Shaklee laundry detergent, and then into the dryer for a 15-minute cycle on low. She spread it out on a sheet to finish drying, and sent me this photo:

It looks a bit pink, which it isn't! It came out nicely, with that crinkle we quilters love.

The day that I left to fly to Alberta, I took the quilt to my beloved Seacliff Beach for a few glamour shots.

Perfect late afternoon light

Against the backdrop of Lake Erie that criss-crossing lattice pattern shows up well:

Rolled up, ready to go into the suitcase:

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  Lovely Lattice by Heidi Pridemore
Size: 60 X 72" (did not measure it after washing)
Fabric:  Kaffe Collective by Rowan Fabrics for quilt top and backing; binding is 'Texture' by Erlanger Group
Batting: Hobbs 80/20 cotton/polyester
Quilted: on Avril, my Avanté
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Aurifil 2123 40 wt.

It wouldn't be a trip to the beach without at least 10-12 minutes of beach glass and lucky stones hunting. No lucky stones turned up but again, a decent haul of beach glass, so pretty!

Linking up
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Crazy Mom Quilts
Busy Hands Quilts
TGIFF at Summer Lee Quilts
Q4 FAL at