Spring Cottage Sampler: the borders

Nicola
Feb 26
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, meet the birds who personify spring here and find out more about Mary's novels and poetry on the Mary Webb Society website.

In the last of my introductory posts, I'm sharing my inspiration for the distinctive pieced border that frame my nine spring-themed sampler blocks.

Befitting its subject, I wanted the Spring Cottage setting to be deliciously pretty and to echo the floral motifs in the blocks.

My initial inspiration was a piece of delightfully eccentric C18th needlepoint, with its beautiful border of spring flowers, from my Pinterest inspiration board. I was also constantly dipping into my treasured copy of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady as I designed the blocks. Many of Edith Holden's hand written diary entries are framed by delicate watercolour sketches of twining flowers and leaves.

I struggled to make my flower-strewn vines turn each corner gracefully, until I thought of echoing the motifs in the Ducks & Ducklings block with pots of tulips (and, note to self, four of those potted tulips on their own would make a very pretty table-topper).

I'm really looking forward to giving Spring Cottage pride of place when I decorate for Easter this year. I'll also be cutting budding branches of blossom to force indoors, it's something I love to do every year and it always amazes me to see those tiny buds unfurling close up. Last year I made some sweet decorations to adorn them with and if you'd like to do the same you can find the tutorial here.

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.

It feels like spring is just around the corner here in Shropshire as we've been treated to some sunshine at last, after weeks of rain. But if spring hasn't reached you yet, here are some hopeful words from Mary...

Against the gaunt, brown-purple hill

The bright brown oak is wide and bare;

A pale-brown flock is feeding there -

Contented, still.

No bracken lights the bleak hill-side;

No leaves are on the branches wide;

No lambs across the fields have cried;-

Not yet.

But whorl by whorl the green fronds climb;

The ewes are patient till their time;

The warm buds swell beneath the rime -

For life does not forget.