Midsummer Sampler Block of the Month
Welcome! Andrea - from the Willow Cottage Quilt Company - and I are delighted that you can join us this winter - or summer for our lovely Australian friends - as we make our Midsummer Sampler quilts together.
We will be making a feature block and two filler blocks each month for the next eight months, then creating a beautiful border and assembling our quilts in month nine. Your parcels will be posted on the second Monday of each month.
I like to think of this page as our group journal and I will be sharing my top tips here every month as well as the inspiration for each of the blocks. Andrea and I both encourage you to share your progress on Instagram with the #midsummerbom hashtag so that we can cheer you on. We can't wait to sew with you!
Just scroll down to access the pages of our journal:
Month 1: October, Cakestand
Month 2: November, Dovecote
Month 3: December, Orchard Cottage
Month 4: January, Shepherd's Hut
Month 5: February, Strawberry Bowl
Month 6: March, Teapot
Month 7: April, Meadow Cottage
Month 8: May, Jug of Roses
Month 9: June, Finishing Tutorial
Midsummer Sampler: month 1
Welcome to month one of the Midsummer Sampler, the Cakestand block.
My inspiration for this block was that most English of pastimes, the afternoon tea. It was invented by one of Queen Victoria’s Ladies in Waiting, Anna, Duchess of Bedford, when the fashion for ever later dinners left her feeling rather peckish at 4 o’clock. It soon became terribly fashionable, not least with the Queen herself, who had a famously sweet tooth.
The royal children often prepared afternoon tea for their parents – by all accounts they were accomplished bakers – and it’s likely they would have included a nursery favourite, the sponge cake. The invention of baking powder by Alfred Bird in 1843 resulted in an even lighter texture and a change of name: the Victoria Sponge. This regal cake was served with a flourish on a footed cakestand – another Victorian creation - making it the centrepiece of the afternoon tea table.
The techniques used in this, our first block, are very straightforward. But take care when you sew the stand: those pieces are small. Make sure you’re sewing with an accurate ¼” seam, reduce your stitch length very slightly and take your time. In fact, when I’m stitching tiny pieces, I turn down the speed of my machine so that I really can pay attention to accuracy.
The Folk Flower pattern is included in this month's kit as we will also be making a couple of Folk Flower filler blocks each month. There will be an extra 10" square or two of fabric in each of your monthly parcels to mix with the scraps from the main block. You may prefer to chain piece all of your filler blocks at the end of the programme, next June, and if so be sure to keep those additional fabric squares together. Any scraps not used in the Folk Flower blocks will be used in the border, so don't throw anything away :-)
And when you’ve finished your blocks, do reward yourself with a nice slice of cake…
This month's techniques...
Snowballing the corner of a piece of fabric - by adding a 45º triangle of another fabric - gives the illusion of a rounded corner.
Start by marking a diagonal line on the back of a square of fabric.
Pin it, right sides together, to a corner of the base fabric.
Stitch on the line, flip the square ‘open’ and press, trimming away the back layers.
Midsummer Sampler: month 2
Welcome to month two of the Midsummer Sampler, the Dovecote block.
A dovecote strikes an impossibly romantic note in a garden, so it's difficult to remember that they were originally glorified farm buildings. Pigeons - and their glamorous cousins, the doves - were introduced into England by the Normans in the eleventh century as a food crop. As keeping doves was a privilege for the gentry, they built ostentatiously extravagant homes for them. But in the following centuries, as arable farming became more profitable, pigeons fell out of favour and their beautiful houses into disrepair.
By the turn of the twentieth century, the artists and architects of the Arts & Crafts movement looked back wistfully to the imagined rural idyll of England's medieval past. Decorative garden buildings became newly fashionable and dovecotes were championed by the doyenne of romantic garden design, Miss Jekyll, in her 1918 book Garden Ornament, along with sundials, summer houses and trellised arbours.
Building on the techniques we used in last month's block, I have introduced some scrummy ric-rac trim to represent decorative wooden bargeboards on our dovecote. I took the photographs, right, when I was piecing my own block so that you can see how the ric-rac is positioned before the background triangles are added (click on them to zoom in).
This month's Folk Flower blocks keep to the same pink and aqua colour palette as the Dovecote block, so that when we eventually assemble our quilt the colours and prints will be evenly distributed.
One final note: you will have received a yard of ric-rac in your package this month and you won't need all of it. But hang on to the remaining 12" as you'll be using it in next month's block. And, no, you don't have to celebrate completing this month's block with pigeon pie...unless you really want to...
This month's techniques...
Adding trims can add a level of detail to a block that would be difficult to achieve with piecing alone.
I used basting glue to hold my ric-rac in place before adding the background.
PS: If you're wondering why there's an extra Layer Cake square in this month's parcel, it's just in case you find you don't have enough scraps to make your Folk Flowers. Obviously as the months go on we will accumulate a nice little pile of fabric, so this little extra will help in these early months of the programme. There will be bunting to make next summer, so don't throw anything away :-)
Midsummer Sampler: month 3
Welcome to month three of the Midsummer Sampler, Orchard Cottage.
The orchard, brimming with blossom in spring, an oasis of cool shade at midsummer and laden with rosy apples in the autumn, is the scene of ancient ritual in the depths of winter: 'wassailing' trees dates back to at least the twelfth century in the cider-making counties of England.
The word 'wassail' comes from the Anglo-Saxon Waes Hael — that is, Good Health – on Twelfth
Night (January 5th), farmers and their families would feast on hot cakes and cider, then go out into the orchard and alternately serenade and browbeat the apple trees to ward off bad spirits and encourage the trees to provide a bountiful crop in the year ahead. The revelry continued with songs, dances and more libations (for the trees and and the revellers).
Whether you intend to serenade your apple trees or just your friends, you can find a wonderful recipe for mulled cider by Karen of the Lavender & Lovage blog, here.
But I hope you’ll be laying off the wassail and keeping a clear head until you’ve tackled this month’s block, as I've introduced a new angle into our quilt: the triangle-in-a-square. This will give Orchard Cottage its steep, old-fashioned roof. You can see my step-by-step photos right: click on them to zoom in. It's a favourite of mine and you can find another tutorial, which explains why this simple technique is so useful, here.
The porch is embellished with the remaining ric-rac trim from last month, which will reinforce the technique we learned making the Dovecote block. And for this month's Folk Flower blocks I chose the red, blue and festive green prints to pair with our cream dot and sky blue block background. But have fun mixing your scraps.
And, finally, as it's nearly Christmas Andrea and I have included a little treat for you this month: an exclusive Orchard Cottage enamel pin.
So let’s raise our glasses of mulled cider to a truly wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
This month's techniques...
To create the steep roof angle, first use the template in your pattern to mark a placement line (cut it out or use a lightbox).
Place your trimmed background piece on that line and stitch 1/4" away
Turn the roof unit over to trim, using the base fabric as your guide...
Midsummer Sampler: month 4
Welcome to month four of the Midsummer Sampler, the Shepherd's Hut.
The humble Shepherd's Hut is recorded for the first time in the 16th Century, but may date back even further. These wheeled shelters were simply fitted out with a wooden cage for sickly lambs, a bunk over the top for the shepherd and a fold-out table where meals could be taken. A tiny stove in one corner kept everyone warm - including the shepherd's dog - and a stable door allowed the shepherd to watch over his flock whilst sheltering from the wind.
The shepherd took his flock from field to field, where they polished off a forage crop and fertilised the ground prior to its ploughing. The introduction of artificial fertilisers a century ago - a byproduct of First World War munitions manufacture - saw the gradual decline of crop rotation and, as a result, of these useful little buildings. Most were left to rot in fields and farmyards until they were rediscovered, repaired and adapted into garden follies.
They have become so sought after that they are now built from scratch to provide romantic holiday accommodation - although I believe shepherding duties are not required - and you can actually hire the Shepherd's Hut in the photos above. And can you imagine having one at the bottom of your garden to use as a secret sewing retreat? Heavenly!
This month your parcel includes a delicious bundle of floss as we are going to use simple embroidery to add some curling smoke from the stove chimney of our Hut. We will also be repeating the technique we used to make the Orchard Cottage roof to create the steps up to the stable door, so do go back to last month's Techniques box to refresh your memory.
I used a scrap of green from last month's block for the door of my Hut, but feel free to choose your favourite colour. And...just for fun...the Shepherd's Hut goes delightfully well with my Dala Horse block...
This month's techniques...
Embroidery is a lovely way of adding extra detail to quilt blocks. I nearly always use simple backstitch...
...I mark my guide lines with a water soluble pen and the photograph above shows the front of my work...
...and the back of my work shows how the stitches overlap one another.
Midsummer Sampler: month 5
Welcome to month five of the Midsummer Sampler, the Strawberry Bowl.
Believe it or not we are now halfway through making our blocks, so we've definitely earned a little treat. Strawberries and cream anyone? Of course we are used to enjoying strawberries all year round, but they were traditionally only available for a short - but scrumptious - six week season over midsummer.
Tiny wild strawberries native to northern Europe were crossed with North American and Chilean strawberries by French gardeners in the eighteenth century to give us the luscious garden strawberry that we are familiar with today. And serving strawberries with cream was first recorded on the Tudor banqueting tables at Hampton Court two centuries earlier. No English banqueting - or tea - table would be complete without a bowl of strawberries and cream.
This month we are making good use of the embroidery floss included in your January parcel to embroider a pretty strawberry flower on our china bowl. Again we are using simple backstitch - see last month's Techniques box - to create a simple blossom motif inspired by a pretty embroidered tray cloth I inherited from my great aunt. But if you love embroidery feel free to add more detail.
Our February treat is a delicious little filler block: the Wild Strawberry. These are the same size as the Folk Flower blocks, finishing at 7". Please note that this month's treat is the pattern only and extra fabric has not been included. I raided my scrap bin to make the cover block. Four Strawberry blocks can be used in any Petit Four project, such as the Festival Cushion or a Storybook Bag. A dozen would make a lovely table runner (the directions are included in the pattern) or next month we will be sharing a couple of ideas for just one.
This month's techniques...
I used one of the strawberry prints as the background print for one of this month's flower blocks...
If you'd like to do the same you will need to change the way you cut up your 10" square, using the revised cutting diagram, above...
My Folk Flower blocks this month...
Midsummer Sampler: month 6
Welcome to month six of the Midsummer Sampler, the Teapot.
This month's theme has not only inspired my block, but fuelled it's creation: tea!
Although tea has been drunk in China for two thousand years or more, it wasn't introduced to Britain until the 17th century. Charles II's Portuguese queen, Catherine of Braganza, was a devoted tea drinker and made it awfully fashionable at court. The British soon became a nation obsessed.
Teapots were originally used as ballast in the ships that brought the precious tea - kept well away from the waterline - across the China Seas, the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and northwards across the Atlantic to the East India Docks in London. Which explains why, rather confusingly, we call our porcelain 'china'.
It took another fifty years for British potters to master the creation of porcelain teapots, many of them based in Stoke-on-Trent, which is still known as the Potteries. Wedgwood, Minton and Spode tea services appeared on tea tables across the world and are still highly collectable. Today we covet Burleigh and Bridgewater teapots...all still made in the Potteries. Both factories offer open days and the Bridgewater factory also has a gorgeous tea room where you can sign up to decorate a collector's piece of your very own..
This month we, like the potters of Stoke-on-Trent, are going to employ all our ingenuity to create the perfect teapot. The diagrams in your pattern show each step of the creation of the spout and handle and, if you can think back to making the Cakestand block, I recommend that you reduce the speed on your sewing machine so that you can be as accurate as possible. As we will be using the majority of our background Fat Quarter this month I made both of my Folk Flower blocks with print backgrounds.
Last month I promised you some ideas for your Wild Strawberry blocks and - since we're on the subject of tea - what better way to continue the theme than with a lovely tea cosy and a matching trivet. It's a simple make to cheer up your kitchen for spring and you can find your exclusive Midsummer Tea Cosy tutorial here.
PS: there are are couple of extra fabrics in this month's package: set these aside for the border.
BEHIND THE SCENES...
I often find myself sewing 'out of season': making Christmas quilts at Eastertime or summery confections as the light fades and winter approaches...
And so I found myself faking a midsummer tea tray on a blustery day in February. Thank heavens for evergreen plants. This is our beautiful Choisya looking as vibrant as a summers day...
Midsummer Sampler: month 7
Welcome to month seven of the Midsummer Sampler, Meadow Cottage.
The penultimate destination on our midsummer stroll is Meadow Cottage. Thatched and timber-framed, buildings like Meadow Cottage have been immortalised in a thousand romantic watercolour sketches. From the 13th to the end 17th century oak timbers and reed thatch were common building materials, readily available and relatively easy to transport.
Gradually replaced by brick and tile, timber-framing was snubbed through out the eighteenth century until the Victorians rediscovered its decorative potential and began to restore Britain's lovely old cottages. They often picked out the ancient beams in black and painted the lime-plastered panels in bright white, and we have evermore thought of them as 'black & white' buildings.
Recent restorations have, in turn, stripped away the thick black paint and added soft, natural pigments to the lime wash that's more in keeping with their medieval appearance. Our own Meadow Cottage is freshly restored, with bright new thatching and silvery-brown oak.
Carpentry skills are not required as we will be using a bias-tape maker to create our timbers.
Most of the piecing this month will call on the techniques we used for our December block, Orchard Cottage, so look back at the technique box for Month 3 to refresh your memory. PLEASE NOTE that there is a typo in step 18 of your pattern and you should be making 10 bias strips, not 15, as listed in the pattern. I'm so sorry for the error.
My Folk Flower blocks for this month are shown along with the blocks I've made in previous months. Just one more block to go - and it's a personal one for me - and we'll be ready to assemble our quilts. So exciting.
PS: just like last month we have included extra fabrics in this month's package to set aside for the border.
This Month's Techniques...
You might find it helpful to starch the fabric very lightly before you cut the strips for the bias tape as it will help the edges stay crisp. Adding the strips to your cottage in the order listed in the pattern will keep any raw edges hidden...
I'd also recommend glue-basting the bias strips into place as I think it makes it easier to stitch them into place. Concentrate on lining up the edge of the strip with the inside of your machine foot to get a consistent line (click on the image to enlarge it).
But relax, this is one place where a little imperfection is a good thing: old timber frames are pretty wobbly in real life...
Midsummer Sampler: month 8
Welcome to month eight of the Midsummer Sampler, the Jug of Roses.
The inspiration for this month's block is very dear to my heart. I live in Shropshire and a mere half an hour away is a little slice of paradise on earth: the David Austin Rose Nursery {and please click on that link, it will raise your spirits no end}.
First grown for their medicinal value - the hips are a wonderful source of vitamin C - roses were prized by in the classical world and in ancient Persia and China. Their beauty and heady fragrance were enhanced over hundreds of years of cultivation in the earliest gardens. Of course those early roses flowered only once and we have the rose breeders of revolutionary France to thank for, um...revolutionising rose growing. Crossing species of European and Asian varieties, they gave us the first reliably repeat-flowering roses to fill or gardens with beguiling beauty all summer long.
Ideally I would have loved to send you all a bouquet of roses (or better still a rose bush), but I hope a custom spool of Folk Flower washi tape to help you create your own fabric roses is the next best thing. We will be making our roses slightly over-sized and the washi tape will help you to mark your rulers when trimming them to size. With rotary cutters please, not secateurs ;-)
As this is our last block we will be using many of the techniques practised in preceding months: the angled sides from the Orchard Cottage roof; the embroidery from the Strawberry Bowl; the handle from the Teapot; and snowball technique from our very first block, the Cakestand.
PS: again, there are are couple of extra fabrics in this month's package: set these aside for the border and start to organise your block trimmings for next month.
Next month we will be making just one more Folk Flower block - we need 17 in total - before we make our bunting border and assemble our blocks, but by all means get ahead by make an extra one this month.
This Month's Techniques...
Oversizing blocks a little and trimming them down is a really useful way of improving your accuracy, especially with more complicated units...
Place your washi tape just shy of the line of the line on your ruler that you are highlighting, in this case the 3½” line.
PS: Just a quick heads up, the mid and dark pink prints for this block were in last month's package (you used a snippet of the dark pink for the door). We had to change the order of these last two blocks - due to some international postage delays - and I got in a muddle. hope it hasn't caused too much confusion. Apologies friends N xx