Spring Cottage Block of the Month
Spring Cottage: month one
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Crocus Posy block together...
This month’s block sums up the delicious anticipation of spring. The heart-lifting trill of birdsong on a cold morning; the sheer delight of spotting the first snowdrop; watching a new bud break.
Traditionally the strict timetable of the agricultural year began on Plough Monday, the first after Epiphany on the 6th of January. The soil was turned, field hedges maintained and drainage ditches cleared, ready for the new growing season. In the orchards, old trees were blessed to encourage a bountiful crop and new trees planted.
Gardeners have been tinkering with spring’s timetable for centuries. The blossoming of scientific knowledge in the C17th saw experiments to encourage early flowering that coincided with the introduction of glamourous new plants from around the world. We already knew of the autumn-flowering saffron crocus – the precious spice and dyestuff was introduced to Britain by the Romans - but their spring-flowering cousins soon stole our hearts. Along with tulips and hyacinths from the Middle East and amaryllis from Southern Africa, they joined our native daffodils and bluebells to herald spring.
Growing bulbs indoors - to encourage them to flower early - was made très à la mode by Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who filled Versailles with hundreds of hyacinths grown in special glass containers. At Spring Cottage we've planted our crocuses in a teacup.
January's bumper parcel includes the Spring Cottage pattern book, a pretty bundle of Tilda prints to create your posy and our gorgeous - and exclusive - let your creativity blossom tote bag to keep your scraps safe for later blocks. Finally, take a look at the techniques box for my hints on snowballed corners and sign in to our wonderful new Community Forum to watch my filmed tutorial over on the Willow Cottage Quilt Co. website (it should be there by the weekend).
This month's technique...
Snowballing the corner of a piece of fabric - by stitching down a square of another fabric with a diagonal seam - gives the illusion of a rounded corner or, in this case, tiny crocus petals and a dainty teacup handle.
It's a really wonderful technique that avoids sewing with fiddly bias edges and I think I've tried every trick in the book to make my snowballed corners as accurate as possible.
Here are my favourite tips:
a: Use a sharp pencil/fine marker to draw the diagonal line from corner to corner and sew directly on the line. What will really improve your accuracy is using a lovely, fine thread like Aurifil 50 weight.
b: Pin each side of the line. It seems like an unnecessary step, but it's so much quicker than unpicking a wonky seam.
c: Press back first to check that you're completely happy, before trimming away the back layers of fabric. Again, it might seem quicker to trim first then press, but once those back layers are gone, they're gone!
Smooth down your best dress and straighten your bonnet, because Andrea - from the Willow Cottage Quilt Company - and I are delighted to accompany you on a restoring ramble deep into the heart of the English countryside as we search for the first signs of spring.
Over the next eight months we will explore the lyrical beauty and rural traditions of springtime as we create nine original sampler blocks and an exquisite pieced border.Your parcels of goodness will be posted on the second Tuesday of each month and, if you've joined us before, you'll know that there will be some fun extras and bonus projects along the way.
Andrea will also email you a link to our brand new community hub - think of it as a virtual tea shop - were you can watch block tutorial videos, ask us (and each other!) questions and share your blocks. Bonnets optional ;-)
I like to think of this page as our group journal where I'll share my inspiration for each block, along with extra tutorials to help you on your way, so be sure to check in when you've received your parcel and scroll down to view each month's post. Andrea and I both encourage you to share your progress on Instagram and Facebook with the #springcottagebom hashtag, we love seeing your posts!
January: Crocus Posy
February: March Hare
March: Spring Chicken
April: Duck & Ducklings
May: Forget-me-not Posy
June: Mother Goose
July: Dippy Eggs & Nature Study
August: Spring Cottage
Spring Cottage: month two
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the March Hare block together...
With this month's block we're exploring the promise of spring and looking at how our forebears honoured the longed for return of light, growth and new life
The Celts marked the 2nd of February - halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox - as the beginning of spring with the festival of returning light, Imbolc. On the farm it anticipates the hopes for a successful lambing season and traditionally Valentine's Day, on the 14th, is thought to be the day when the birds choose a mate.
Out in the fields, the breeding season for the mysterious hare has already begun, running from the end of January until August. The hare is nocturnal and spends the day snuggled down in long grass, in fact you could walk right past and never spot it. But as spring approaches you might see a female hare testing her suitors by racing across open ground as the night ends - exceeding speeds of 40 miles an hour - and if he catches her she might still stand on her hind legs and box his ears. So spring is the one time you might, at last, see a hare (or two) and is why we fondly call them Mad March Hares (or Frenzied February Hares, which isn't as catchy). As dawn gets earlier with each passing day, we're less likely to be up and about to see them.
But the hopes - and anxieties - surrounding the birth of a new baby also gave rise to one of the cruellest myths about the hare: the outdated belief that, if a pregnant woman crossed paths with a hare, her child would be born with a cleft lip. The life of the heroine, Prue Sarn, in Mary Webb's most famous novel, Precious Bane, is blighted by her facial disfigurement. It was something Mary understood all too well, as she suffered from Grave's Disease, which affected her appearance. Courageous and loving, Prue's story is ultimately a happy one, reflecting Mary's own joy at creating a beautiful home at Spring Cottage with her husband.
Our February parcel contains the pretty prints and blenders you will need to make the handsome hare and a charming chick. We'll be creating variations on the chick unit in two more blocks, so be sure to pin those two prints together so you can find them quickly. Our parcel also includes the soft grey embroidery floss you can use to embellish your block. Not keen on embroidery? Please don't worry, the block works beautifully without it. But if you're keen to give it a go, I've shared my favourite tips in the techniques box.
This month's technique...
Embroidery is a lovely way of adding extra detail to quilt blocks.
I add mine with a simple backstitch, using a six-stranded embroidery cotton and a chenille needle, which has a larger eye to accommodate thicker thread, but a sharp point suitable for quilting fabric. I prefer the firm delineation from using all six strands, but if you like a more delicate look, you can use fewer.
I mark my guide lines with a water-soluble pen - and actually mark the stitch interval to keep them nice and even - removing them with a cotton wool bud and plain water when I've finished {click on the photo to enlarge}
I noticed a couple of corrections when I was filming the block two tutorial today: the end of step 7 should ask you to join a 1½” x 4½” background to the left of the hare's leg and in step 9 you should join a 2” x 4” pale yellow piece to the right, not the left (the diagram is right).
There is also a wierd glitch in one of the step 9 illustrations, which I address in the video. Pop over to Willow Cottage Creative to watch :-)
Spring Cottage: month three
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Spring Chicken block together...
With this month's block we're marvelling at the very essence of spring: the gentle tilt of the earth towards the sun that triggers the annual miracle of new growth and new life. The spring equinox - falling on the 20th of March this year - marks the mid-point between winter and summer and the miraculous moment when daylight triumphs over darkness.
Those new lives make March the busiest of months on the farm, with the start of the lambing and calving seasons. Out in the fields the warming soil must be ploughed and planted, and in the farmyard the hens will have started laying again, bringing the bounty of fresh eggs.
March this year also sees the beginning of Lent, the forty days of fasting before Easter. In the UK, Mothering Sunday always falls on the middle Sunday of Lent and, for many centuries, live-in servants and apprentices were allowed home - their only day off in the year - to visit their mothers. They would often bring welcome gifts of food and money along with their posies of flowers and in Shropshire they'd have taken her a Simnel Cake, a curious concoction of fruitcake encased in a crust of almond paste and saffron pastry. Emily Steele Elliott shared the following ditty in 1867...
She who would a simnel make,
Flour and saffron first must shake,
Candy, spices, eggs must take,
Chop and pound till arms do ache :
Then must boil, and then must bake
For a crust too hard to break
When at mid-lent thou dost wake,
To thy mother bear thy cake :
She will prize it for thy sake.
Our March parcel contains the extra print you will need to add to last month's to create our mother hen and darling chick. Your parcel also includes the first instalment of our border fabric, which I want you to set aside for now. And this month's treat is the first of two bonus patterns to help you lay the prettiest Easter breakfast table...
This month's treat...
This month we have a bonus pattern for a lovely little something to keep your eggs cosy, whether you prefer them soft-boiled, hard-boiled or chocolate.
Click HERE to access the tutorial...
The pattern is adapted from my Jenny Wren mini, which I designed back in 2018 to pay tribute to the tiniest bird in our garden.
Our little chick makes the perfect subject for an update.
Please note that in step 8 of your pattern you should be snowballing he end of the 1½” x 5” background piece with the 1½” square of bright yellow print. Apologies for missing that out :-)
Spring Cottage: month four
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Ducks & Ducklings block together...
This month we're going to celebrate spring, as Easter falls in April this year. 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, 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 is celebrated on Sunday the 20th.
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 novel, The Golden Arrow.
Expeditions aside, Easter can be a busy time, with school holidays and visiting friends and family to juggle, so this month's block is a classic, with repeated corner units that you chain piece *hurray* giving you more time to eat chocolate. It also uses our contrasting soft blue background fabric along with the leafy green solid we'll be using in the border blocks. Using a snippet for the Duck & Ducklings block at the centre of our quilt, links it subtly to those winding flower stems in the border.
And if you do have a little time for crafting this Easter, this month's treat - the second of our bonus patterns - will help you decorate for the season. An old Shropshire adage says that sewing done on Good Friday never comes undone...
This month's treat...
I have another lovely treat for you as we celebrate Easter. Now, you know I'd send you all a chocolate egg if I could, but failing that, here's a lovely alternative: some sweet fabric decorations.
Click HERE to access the tutorial...
Please note that there's a pesky little typo in step 7: ...snowball the right end of a 2½” x 4½” cream piece (not green as stated), the diagram is correct. Apologies if this caught you out and heartfelt thanks to Diane for spotting it :-)
Spring Cottage: month five
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Forget-me-not Posy block together...
This month we're going to delight in the vitality of spring, as the country lanes disappear under a froth of cow parsley, the fields sing with the green of fresh grass and forget-me-nots flower where they please in my garden as we celebrate May Day on the first of the month.
Falling at the halfway point between the spring equinox and midsummer, May Day was the traditional start of summer grazing on the farm. In the hedgerows our native birds - the robins, blackbirds and thrushes - will be fledging and the Hawthorn will finally be blossoming.
Hawthorn is an ancient fertility symbol and has always been synonymous with May Day. It was the ancestor of the Maypole and its leaves and flowers were twined into May Day garlands. The country name for Hawthorn is May and the old saying ‘Cast ne’er a clout ere May be out’ almost certainly refers to its late blossom rather than the end of the month. Another curious fact about Hawthorn is that the young leaves and blossom buds are edible and made a nutritious snack for hungry country children, who called it 'bread & cheese' (alas, it doesn't taste of bread and cheese, but imagination is a powerful thing).
Our May parcel contains a dainty blue print for your forget-me-not petals along with a pretty green print and the second instalment of blue dot for the border blocks - which I'd like you to set aside for now - plus a sweet keepsake of our time sewing together...
This month's treat...
Three treats in a row? I'm really spoiling you. But I love spoiling you and this month you don't even have to lift a finger...
...well, except to put your enamel pin on!
Spring Cottage: month six
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Mother Goose block together...
As spring tips gently into summer, we're going to explore the importance of recording spring.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'.
But 300 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 - no doubt with a goose quill pen - and 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.
You'll observe that your June parcel contains tulip-strewn yellow and ditsy blue prints to set aside for your border, along with the final instalment of blue dot to bind your finished quilt. And this month we're going to be focusing on a new technique that we'll be using for our remaining blocks...
SUPER IMPORTANT CORRECTION : You will need a 5½" square of the blue Harper print for the Goose's wing, not the 5" square listed in the materials. Now if you've been very organised and already cut it, firstly I'm so sorry, and secondly, you can set it aside to use in your border blocks. Also in STEP 5 you should be snowballing the Goose's head with 1½" background squares, not 2½" squares. My thanks to Karen for noticing!
This month's technique...
This month we're going to be using Placement Templates to create a pretty beak for our Goose. As this might be a new technique for you, I've focused on this element in my filmed tutorial and am reinforcing the key points here with a photo tutorial...
Click here for my photo tutorial
Spring Cottage: month seven
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to be very busy making two blocks together...
As balmy summer days make us look back wistfully to spring's cool breezes, we're going to meet an artist who was inspired by spring. A contemporary of Mary Webb's, her Nature Notes for 1906 enchanted readers across the world when they were finally published seventy years later. You may know them better as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and her name is Edith Holden.
Edith's handwritten diary recorded her observations of the flora and fauna in the countryside around her Warwickshire home. Notes on the weather, country sayings and poetry were interspersed with her beautifully composed watercolours. I still have my treasured copy of the Country Diary, gifted to me when I was a teenager, and it was a constant source of inspiration as I designed the Spring Cottage blocks.
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Your July parcels contain a pretty print for the daintiest egg cup and a blue version of the fine pink stripe you'll need to create your feathers. We're going to be making good use of the placement template technique we learned last month and trying something new, ribbon applique, to create the shafts of our feathers. You can find my tips in the technique box...
This month's technique...
I love creating fine detail on my blocks with either bias tape or ¼” wide cotton ribbon, glue basting it in position and appliqueing it in place, usually by machine.
My first tip for machine applique is to reduce the tension in the top thread - down to 1 on my Janome - which allows the ribbon to 'sit' on the surface of the fabric and stops it puckering.
My second tip is to line up the edge of the ribbon with the inside edge of your presser foot and - tip number three - turn down the speed on your machine to help keep the stitches neat and even.
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Spring Cottage: month eight
I'm delighted to welcome you to Spring Cottage. Come inside and make yourself at home, because this month we're going to make the Spring Cottage block together...
It's August, the end of summer and of our block of the month programme. On the 1st of the month we celebrated Lammas - literally 'loaf-mass' - with bread made from the first crop of corn. On the farm, spring lambs are weaned and seed carefully collected for next spring. And for our final journal entry, I want to introduce you to Mary Webb, the poet and author who's cottage we've been 'visiting' for the past eight months.
Mary was born in Shropshire in 1881, growing up in Much Wenlock, where her school teacher father inspired her love of literature and the local countryside. Developing a thyroid condition at the age of 20 - which affected her appearance and compromised her health - made an already shy and sensitive girl finely attuned to the suffering of others. When she married her husband, Henry, in 1912, she insisted on inviting the elderly residents of the local alms houses to the wedding, as she thought they'd enjoy the day out.
The success of Mary's first novel, The Golden Arrow, allowed the couple to buy a plot of land on Lyth Hill, just to the south of the county town of Shrewsbury, where they built Spring Cottage. Mary spent her happiest years there and went on to write four more novels, including the acclaimed Precious Bane, and a book of poetry which I have dipped into for our pattern book.
Your final parcel contains the two prints we'll be using to recreate Mary's beloved home, plus some green ribbon to trim the gable. There will be two filmed tutorials this month: one for the cottage and a second to guide you through making and joining the border blocks, which will be out next week.
Which only leaves us to thank you for visiting Spring Cottage to celebrate springtime with us, you've been the loveliest company, Nicola & Andrea xx
This month's technique...
Pieced borders are as nearest we quilters get to dressmaking: they need to fit! I've constructed them in four sections plus the corner blocks, which should help, but here are my favourite tips: -
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Measure, measure, measure. Especially as you're going along: a slightly-off seam allowance will soon multiply (ask me how I know...)
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Use lots of pins when assembling the pieced border. It takes a little extra time, but will stop all those little seams misbehaving.
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if there is any fullness in the seam - either in the pieced border or the inner border - feed it through your machine full-side down: the feed dogs with distribute it evenly so you won't have any puckers or pleats.
My final tip is to take a break if things aren't going to plan. Make yourself a nice cup of tea. Best china please!
I have one pretty major correction to step 13 of piecing the corner blocks, which could win a prize for most confusing paragraph. It should read: -
"To make the crocus, first join a 2" background square to the left of a 2" yellow print square, then add a 2" x 3½" background piece to the top. Next add a 2½" x 3½ yellow print piece to the right and a 2½" x 5½" yellow print piece to the bottom, pressing away from the centre square each time."
The illustrations are correct. Apologies for the utter confusion!