From my sketchbook: Garland

My love affair with roses goes on with a new Today's Quilter project: one repeated rose block is twirled and whirled around to make an elegant garland, with rosy pink corner posts creating a secondary design of pretty cornflowers and leafy bows.

And I'm thrilled to say that it's this month's cover-quilt...

Issue 143 of Today's Quilter

Believe it or not, the seed of this block - and all of my rose blocks really - is a classic log-cabin. The design is built in the same way, starting with a square and adding strips (or should that be petals?) one by one, with the odd snowballed corner, to create the rose.

The placement of the leaves added some asymmetry to the block which allowed me to have fun with the setting. When you think how many log-cabin variations there, you can start to see the possibilities...

I'm usually drawn to scrappy quilts, but imposed the discipline of using the same fabric in each block - mainly so the materials list wasn't dispiritingly long - to emphasise the placement of the blocks. But you could definitely dip into your scraps to make it, although I'd always keep the outer leaves in the same fabric to create the bows.

I chose a Lella Boutique collection called Wild Honey to create my garland, picking out the pinks, blues and greens, but there are soft gold prints in the collection if you prefer yellow roses. I considered using a creamy background, but went with dramatic indigo instead - Makower's Linen Texture in Bluestone, a fabric I've been obsessed with since I made Kelmscott - which somehow makes the blue of my cornflowers stand out even more.

Pascale at Watson & Thornton, quilted it with a meadow-full of cornflowers and I found the perfect backing fabric in my stash: a print from Tilda's Chic Escape collection that echoes both the colours and the theme.

Now you could very easily adapt the pattern to make a smaller project for a quick, summery make: four blocks, along with the decorative sashing and corner-posts, would make a lovely table topper for lunch in the garden. An everlasting bunch of roses that won't need dead-heading.

The TQ team will be taking Garland to the Festival of Quilts with them next week, so pop along to stand G28 and say hello to them all!

with love from the studio,