Quilting is my Cup of Tea

On the 1st of June I'll be celebrating the tenth anniversary of CakeStand Quilts and, appropriately enough, I'll be with my British Sew-a-row pals, Jo, Lou and Sonia, on a sewing weekend at Jo's. But I wanted to mark the occasion here by sharing a celebratory block pattern with you.

When I first started building this website in the spring of 2015 I chose a photo I'd taken of soft pink roses picked from the garden and arranged in my favourite duck-egg blue jug as my 'coming soon' page. I've never tired of that combination of colour and pattern and I've adapted that initial inspiration to create a pieced posy of roses, this time in a teacup, because this entire enterprise is fuelled by copious cups of tea!

Using the Summer colour story from my last post I adapted the Posy blocks from our current block of the month sampler pattern, Spring Cottage (which will be published in August if you get a taste for piecing teacups) replacing the spring flowers with roses.

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To make a 14” square finished block you will need...

​1 4½” x 21” strip of blue paint dot cup print

2 2½” x 4½” pieces of various green leaf prints plus 2 matching 2½” green squares

2 2” x 3½” pieces of various pale pink rose prints

2 2” squares of various mid pink rose prints

2 2” squares of various dark pink rose prints

¼ yd of background fabric

Please read through the pattern before you begin, assuming a ¼” seam allowance and a fabric width (WOF) of 42”

CUTTING:

1.       From the blue fabric cut 1 4½” x 6½” piece, 1 2" square, 1 1½” x 4½” piece and 3 1” x 2 ½” pieces.

2.         From the background fabric cut as follows: -

MAKING THE LEAVES: 

3.         Mark a diagonal line on the back of a 2½” background squares and pin one, right sides together, to the end of a 2½” x 4½” green piece. Stitch on the line, flip ‘open’ and press – to snowball the corner - trimming away the back pieces. Snowball the opposite corner with a 1½” background square. MAKE 2 in various green prints.

PIECING THE ROSES:

4.        Join a 2” dark pink square to a 2” mid pink square, pressing as directed (>). Next join a 2” x 3½” pale pink piece to the side, pressing away from the centre.

Then snowball each corner with a 1½” background square. MAKE 2

5.       To assemble the posy of roses, first choose one of the roses and join a 1½” x 2½” background piece to the left and a 2½” x 3½” background piece to the top, pressing towards the background.

Next, join a 1½” x 2½” background piece to the top of a leaf unit, taking care with the direction of the leaf and again pressing towards the background.

Then join a 1½” x 2½” background piece to the right of the second rose and the remaining leaf unit to the bottom, pressing towards the leaf, or open if preferred.

Finally assemble these three units, pressing towards the central leaf.

PIECING THE TEACUP: 

6.       To make the body of the cup, snowball both bottom corners of a 4½” x 6½” blue piece with 1½” background squares and the top left corner with a 2½” green square.

Next, to make the base, join a 1½” background square to each side of a 1½” x 4½” blue piece, pressing towards the blue, before joining it to the body, pressing away from the base.

7.        To make the partial leaf, snowball the top left corner of the second 2½” green square with a 1½” background square, then join a 2½” x 3½” background piece to the bottom.  

8.        To make the handle, join a 1” x 2½” blue print piece to the left of a 2” x 2½” background piece, pressing towards the blue, before adding the remaining 2 1” x 2½” blue print pieces to the top and bottom, again pressing towards the blue.

Next snowball the bottom right corner with a 2” blue print square. Then snowball that corner again with a 1½” background square. Finally, join a 2½” background square to the bottom, pressing away from the handle.

Join the partial leaf to the left of the teacup and the handle to right, pressing towards the teacup. 

ASSEMBLING THE BLOCK:

9.         To assemble the block join the posy to the top of the teacup, pressing towards the teacup, or open if preferred. At this point your block should measure 10½” square.

 10.      Finally, add a 2½” x 10½” background piece to each side and 2½” x 14½” pieces to the top and bottom pressing away from the teacup.                                      

Your block should measure 14½” square

You can turn your block into a cushion by following the Festival Cushion tutorial here and download a PDF version of this block tutorial below.

QUILTING IS MY CUP OF TEA.pdf

Download PDF • 951KB

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I chose a classic, creamy Swiss dot by Riley Blake for my block background. This was a remnant from my first block of the month quilt, Midsummer Sampler, and a lovely reminder of making that quilt. And I just had to use a blue dot for my cup. I'm not sure if this is the polka dot version of double denim, but it works for me!

To make my Festival Cushion I framed my block with my all-time favourite Liberty lawn print, Betsy, before hand-quilting my cushion front with a simple cross hatch - you can find my favourite tips here - which always looks wonderfully classy.

Quilting is my Cup of Tea has joined the seasonal rotation on the window seat and will bring me joy every time I put my feet up with a cuppa. I'm living the (quilty) dream!

with love from the window seat,