At Liberty

Something rather wonderful happened this summer: last year Liberty Fabrics saw my Honeysuckle quilt on the cover of Today’s Quilter (thank you TQ!) and asked me to make it in their beautiful Craft Garden collection for their stand at this year’s Festival of Quilts.

It was quite a moment seeing it in situ on the first day of Festival and it was lovely meeting Chantelle, from Liberty, who co-ordinated the stand, and fabric designer Kate. The collection is based around the classic Honeysuckle print, designed by May Morris in the early 1880s. It was fascinating to hear from Kate how the archive design was re-coloured and new co-ordinating prints - all hand painted - were chosen.

I was originally going to be making this quilt last spring, but sneaked in another quilt for Liberty which I'll be sharing later this year, so I ended up machine-piecing the base quilt and hand-appliquéing the Dresden plate motifs during this summer's heatwave! Pascale at Watson & Thornton quilted it beautifully (to a very tight deadline) with meandering stems and leaves.

As a devoted Liberty fan - a visit to the ‘mothership’ is a highlight of any trip to London - it was a dream come true to make a quilt for them and, even better, you can make one too! The free pattern is now available on the Liberty Fabric website and Craft Garden fabric is adorning the shelves of your favourite Liberty stockist.

Pinch me!

with love from the studio,