From my sketchbook: Cutting Patch

With spring just around the corner I'll be looking out for sleepy bees waking from their winter slumbers. Even though the weather's still dreary, thoughts - if not deeds - will turn to clearing flowerbeds and planting seeds in the hope of summer blooms in the cutting patch. Which has inspired my new project in the new issue of Today's Quilter...

You may recognise the classic Irish Chain setting from my To Skye quilt. I scaled it down slightly and have loved being able to use it again to create the flower beds that frame my floral blocks. A little trio of busy bees - who first appeared in my Kitchen Garden sampler - add movement to the composition as your eyes travel around the quilt to find them. You could add more (or less) to make the quilt your own.

I picked out a Moda collection called Catalina by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree - sister collection Rosie is in the shops now - setting the fresh, floral prints against the blue-sky background of Makower's Linen Texture in Delft.

I love the drama that a dark background adds to a quilt, but a rich colour can look heavy and overwhelm the prints. Somehow the subtle note of texture in a blender adds a lightness that allows the prints to shine.

Joanna’s collections always include a lovely selection of cream prints, so I combined these with a few fat quarters of light, low-volume prints from my stash to create the scrappy Irish chain blocks and the outer petals of my flowers. Together they give the whole quilt that dreamy, 'lucky-find-at-a-vintage-fair' effect that I'm always striving for.

I made the majority of my blocks in pairs, exchanging the prints in each pair before choosing the petal print.

The backing is a print from Tilda's Jubilee collection that tied the spring colour palette together beautifully and Pascale at Watson & Thornton used my favourite leafy meander pantograph to add lots of delicious quilted texture. I chose a classic blue and white ticking for the binding, also by Tilda, which picked up the denim blue background.

So, having finished the quilt, that gardening to-do list is calling my name...

with love from the studio (and the garden),