Pleated Tulips

I’ve updated the final section of this post now that the quilt is fully complete, after a final push to baste, quilt and bind it this weekend.

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project this time using the block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…

And as I said in my recent Quilty Update I’ve realised that this stretch project is dominating my sewing, so I need to work out how to change that so I stand a chance of achieving more of the quilts and other projects on my list. Small steps and all that, but as you’ll have seen I’ve finally made myself a dress, so there’s some hope!

I’m trying not to beat myself up too much for not finishing another quilt, even though I gave myself a bit longer to do this one since we returned from our trip. I’m looking at the positives, which are that given I started this one less than a week ago, it’s already at this stage with only the final steps to complete. And if you say the final steps of baste, quilt and bind quickly, then it really isn’t very much at all!

My seventh charity quilt

Last month I intended to include much more yellow in my Friendly Bee quilt, but when I pulled the materials from my stash it didn’t work out that way, so this month I was more determined. And more successful!

The materials I’ve used in this quilt are parts of four different fat quarters, along with some plain yellow strips from an old netball skirt for the flowers, and some white/gold material as the background and first border which was left over from the backing of last month’s quilt. The pleated yellow border is also from an old netball skirt, which also explains the name. The aztec patterned material is an old duvet cover, and the grey which I’ll explain later was also from an old duvet cover, which I used to back my first charity quilt with Flying Geese. Nothing goes to waste here!

Once I’d drawn lines and pinned the HSTs (half square triangles) in place, it started to make more sense - well perhaps to me at this stage anyway.

Quite quickly four flowers emerged.

I was mildly irritated with myself as I hadn’t managed to match very many of my seams - but as we know, these are test blocks for my Mystery Block of the Month quilt, so at least I knew where I should focus my attention when it came to making that.

I added borders merrily, enjoying getting back to using my machine. This time I used the same material for all of the borders, mostly because I was that intent on having a cheery yellow quilt I wanted nothing to set me off track.

It was only when I laid the blocks out that I saw the nearly matching of the zig zags, which wasn’t my intention. It was close enough that it would look like I’d tried to pattern match, and failed - and I knew it would be distracting to my eye at least. But I also knew I wasn’t going to unpick them and try to get them to match.

So my plan was to add plain sashing to help distract my eyes - and I think it works. Phew.

So there it is, my seventh finished charity quilt top waiting to be finished off which I’m hoping will be relatively soon. My plan is to use the grey, white and yellow aztec print on the back of the quilt and to use that as the binding too, but there’s a couple of steps before I get to the binding.

Finishing the quilt: Update

It is done, and I’m happy with how it turned out. Once again I’ve quilted using horizontal lines, and this is quickly becoming my favourite style. It’s something I saw and liked at the Newark Quilt Show, so I’m pleased it’s working out well for me too.

Unusually I decided against adding a scrappy border, as I’ve done with each of my charity quilts until now. For me this one needed more of the yellow and grey Aztec print, and that’s what it got.

The binding wasn’t without issue though. I opted to use a yellow thread, which my machine only liked in short lengths - thankfully I hadn’t thought to quilt the whole thing in yellow - although I can tell you if I had I’d have adopted a new plan pretty quickly! But lesson learned, and that thread is put away for predominantly non-sewing use (don’t ask, as I’m not sure myself what that is!)

You can see my other quilts which I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.

The 'New' Build Garden

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

Knowing where to start with my individual garden appreciation posts from this year’s show was quite the challenge. I shared my highlights from around the show, and I expect you thought I’d start by sharing either the ‘Best in Show’ Where there’s water, there’s life garden or Nick Bailey’s Plant-based garden, but in fact I’ve chosen neither of of those (though they are on my list to share).

I have as you can see from the title of this post chosen to start with The ‘New’ Build garden, as it was more than you’d expect it to be, and in fact we’ve been lucky with our new build garden being more than we expected it to be too.

This garden was designed by brother and sister designers, Henry and Lucie Ponsford at Mimosa Design. Their garden transforms new build home gardens into lush, sustainable retreats by blending repurposed waste materials with ancient crafts, and offering luxury without compromise.

Knowing this I was still quite surprised to see an hot tub, albeit an eco one, in the garden alongside the handcrafted hut, but as the blurb on the board said it’s purpose is to ‘show that style and sustainability can coexist.’

I’m all for that.

They have aimed to reduce landfill impact by using intelligent and creative solutions, such as fast-install permeable paving and soil-relocating gabions - you’ll recall I was rather taken with these.

But it wasn’t just the angular gabions that I liked in this garden - though filling them with old paving slabs stacked on an angle was a great idea and a great way to bring even more texture into the space. There was another use for old paving slabs, that might not have been immediately apparent.

The triangular sections in the paths were also old paving slabs cut into narrower strips then inserted into the permeable path on their ends to give this effect. Simple (in design if not necessarily to replicate), but very effective, don’t you think?

There’s gutters at ground level as attractive solutions to channel and gather water - something we all probably need to do more of, and with the inclusion of astrantias in the planting I was always going to stop by to learn more about the garden.

I can see how the gutters at ground level could work and bring both calmness and a practical solution to the garden, but I’m still in two minds about water elements in gardens and the need for keeping them clean easily. I’m all for water storage though, as these past few weeks (and actually months) has shown, we need to do more to conserve rainwater when it comes.

And those angular gabions amongst all of the other angles are designed to reflect a landscape on a precipice, but still allow the garden to become a sanctuary for people, water and plants. And through their designs they’ve demonstrated that new builds can connect us more deeply to nature than you’d think, and don’t have to be the standard ‘square of grass’ left by the developer (if you’re lucky).

And I agree, they’ve definitely shown that style and sustainability can work together. The permeable walkways were something we spoke to the garden representatives about, and while I’m keen to have something permeable we don’t think these are for us. In this garden they’ve added the wooden cobbles in ‘high traffic’ areas as the surrounding surface could be muddier than you’d like after rainfall, something to consider as I definitely don’t want muddy footprints in the house.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was quite a show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy them as much as I did the show.

Making my Mystery Block of the Month: May 2025

You’ll have seen that I plan to complete Sherri’s mystery block a month quilt and yesterday I shared the test blocks which I made into my seventh charity quilt, today I’m sharing the centre block I made for my own quilt.

And yes, it’s July and I’m only just sharing my May block - holidays, heatwaves and life have played their part here!

In last month’s post I speculated that the next block wouldn’t be a star, and I was right. It’s a flower, though this one looks decidedly less tulip-like, though I think that’s down to my colour choices.

I remembered to pay attention to my seams and I’m happy with how they turned out. They’re not all perfect, but then again this is a flower and not all flowers are the same, and they all still seem to look pretty good.

Head-scratching? Which border…

Even though I have my handy hand-scribbled plan for the eventual quilt layout, I still found myself scratching my head to work out which of the green borders to use, and which side of the block they should go.

It took way more brainpower than it should have, but I ended up with this visual reminder to save me going over it all, and doubting myself each time. It’s not necessarily conventional, but it worked.

I’m pleased with my completed block, and couldn’t resist seeing what it looked like next to April’s block.

I’m even more pleased with this small preview of how the quilt will turn out, and although the green borders are not the same I’m happy with how they’re working out. It’s back to a star for June’s block so I’ll be back to the navy fabrics again, and hopefully I’ll be sharing it sooner than you know…

Join me hopefully later this month to see how I get on with the next mystery block, and check out my previous posts for my mystery block quilt or the charity quilts made from the test blocks.