Spring Cottage Sampler: Farmyard Friends
- Nicola
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
With spring on the horizon, I'm delighted to introduce you to my new Petit FOUR pattern, the Spring Cottage Sampler, before its release on the 1st of March.
Last year Andrea - from the Willow Cottage Quilt Company - and I posted parcels of Tilda-filled loveliness to our block of the month participants, with each block taking them on a restoring ramble deep into the heart of the English countryside as we searched for the first signs of spring.
My inspiration for this quilt can be found just along the lane where I live. Spring Cottage was the beloved home of Shropshire poet and novelist Mary Webb. She spent many happy hours tucked under her veranda reflecting on the garden she'd created and the ravishing view over the Shropshire Hills. You can read more about Mary in my first post here, take refreshment at her tea table here and find out more about Mary's novels and poetry on the Mary Webb Society website.
In this post I'm sharing blocks inspired by the farmyard birds who personify spring...
Spring Chicken
Is there anything that sums up spring like a new chick? The Spring Cottage quilt features three: one with the Spring Chicken, one cheeky little escapee perched on the back of the March Hare and the third, a little gosling, with it's Mother Goose.
Images of chicks will be everywhere at the moment, as we'll be celebrating Easter next month. Easter is what's known as a moveable feast (and no, that's not a picnic), which means it has no fixed date but falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox - are you still with me? - so Astronomy is at the very heart of setting its date. Easter can vary between the 22nd of March and the 25th of April and this year we'll be celebrating on Sunday the 5th.
A curious old Easter tradition in rural Shropshire was the Palm Sunday expedition to search for the mysterious golden arrow on Pontesford Hill. Supposedly lost during the heat of battle by a Saxon warrior, the lucky finder would garner good luck and great fortune. Until the middle of C19th the search was accompanied by picnics and merrymaking and Mary Webb - living on neighbouring Lyth Hill - made it central to the plot of her first novel, The Golden Arrow.
Mother Goose
The Mother Goose block represents the importance of recording spring, whether in poetry, novels, paintings or, indeed, a quilt. But recording the seasons also has played an important role in rural life: old country sayings have distilled centuries of experience of living through every season and every weather. You might know a few: 'April showers bring May flowers': 'red sky at night, shepherd's delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning'; and 'If March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb'.
Some three hundred years ago amateur naturalist Robert Marsham started recording 27 Indications of Spring on his Norfolk estate. He continued carefully noting his observations for sixty years, most likely with a quill pen made with a humble goose feather. His work was continued by successive generations of the Marsham family, well into the twentieth century. He's considered to be the father of phenology - the formal study of biological life cycles - which has been key to our awareness of climate change.
Ducks & Ducklings
I wanted to include a classic block at the centre of my quilt and, of course, it needed to be associated with spring. Classic quilt blocks have some wild and wonderful names, sometimes several at the same time, and are often called after the things that those early quilters would have seen every day. The Duck & Ducklings block, with its four large triangles - the mother ducks - each with a little triangle 'following' behind, is variously known as the Hen & Chicks, Corn & Beans and the Wild Goose Chase.
It's quartet of triangles inspired the baskets of flowers I placed at each corner of my border and and I'll be sharing more about the border in my next post.
The Spring Cottage blocks will be released on the 1st of March, both individually and collected together with their leafy setting in a PDF Pattern Book. If you prefer printed Pattern Books, they'll be available on Amazon - for delivery wherever you are - or you can pre-order them here.
As well as my border inspiration, I'll have a sweet bonus project to share with you in my next post to help you decorate for spring. It's nearly here...
with love from the studio,
