Ohio flower garden

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project 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 I really enjoyed making this one.

This month I’m sharing my twelfth charity quilt and my new pile is now growing, since the first nine have now been donated to the Mansfield Coordinator of Project Linus UK.

My twelfth charity quilt

This month I decided to embrace the pinks and everything floral - after a couple of months avoiding pink, it felt good to let the pink roll! The Ohio Star block looked similar but different to one I’d completed earlier in this challenge, and when I looked back it was the friendly bee quilt it reminded me of.

I think all of these fabrics have made appearances in previous charity quilts and as you can see - it was destined to be full of florals, with lots of pink.

Laying out the pink and floral fabrics for the borders

Making the central block

The Ohio Star block requires lots of squares cut into triangles and then sewn back together again, and despite it sounding (and looking) complicated it came together relatively quickly - and the individual stages looked pretty on my cutting board too.

The triangle components for the ohio star block laid out ready for sewing
The twelve component parts - four for each block laid out once sewn
the four central ohio star blocks completed and ready for borders

Adding borders

I randomly laid the blocks out after adding the first log cabin border and really liked the position of the darker burgundy fabric, and so that became the layout I was working too, although it meant I needed to make some adjustments when adding a final border so that it remained balanced to the eye.

First borders on - two pinks, one more burgundy - the layout is not symmetrical and I like it
With all three borders on - the asymmetrical means addition borders are required in odd places

As soon as I saw the layout above, and especially the daisy which had placed itself quite unintentionally right in the centre of the quilt, that was the layout for me. I’d love to say it was planned this way, but it wasn’t!

the completed quilt top ready for the next stage
the fortuitous central daisy
With backing and wadding and pins, folded over a chair before quilting

It’s a really effective central block and one that I enjoyed making, so I can see more Ohio stars in my future. And with all these floral patterns, it really did remind me of a flower garden so this month finding a name was easy.

The finished quilt - now quilted and with scrappy binding (using fabrics from the quilt) added

That’s twelve, but that isn’t it!

You may be thinking that now that’s the twelfth charity quilt, that’s my stretch project finished for the year. You’d be wrong - this is only the October edition of the Mystery Block quilt I’m making, so I’ve a further two quilts to go before I complete this challenge. It does mean that I’ll be making fourteen charity quilts in total but the first two that I shared were not part of the mystery block challenge. I always knew this would hopefully be the case, but I also knew that it’d give me a two month leeway if I needed it!

I have the November block and that’s currently doing its best to intimidate me a little, but I’m sure once I actually start it I’ll be fine…

You can see my other quilts 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.

Post Comment Love 21 - 23 November

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

The weather has certainly changed this week. Temperatures have dropped significantly from the unusual balmy temperatures that were so unusual for November. Somehow I think the dramatic change has made it feel all that much colder than if there’d been a gradual decline. While we did have a lot of rain last Friday, and the river levels are high, we have so far not had any snow, and hopefully it’ll stay that way.

We had a day in Nottingham last week and luckily managed to time it with the best day weather wise, which was completely unplanned but very welcome. We looked around a new to us part of the city, Sneinton Markets, which was just up my street. We discovered an independent bakery, an asian grocery shop, a couple of craft shops and a shop full of curios. The bunting caught my eye, but then I spotted some bundles of vintage fabric at too good a price not to buy, that really wasn’t in my plan, but I couldn’t leave them there!

Have a good week.

Colourful sashiko stitched bunting hanging across plenty of items to look through in the curios shop

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A garden for all weathers

* 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.

Given the weather we’ve had recently, which seems to have been everything from summer to winter in a matter of days, sharing this garden seems appropriate!

Lyn’s Garden: a garden for all weathers was designed and built by August Ponds Ltd and won a Silver Award at the show, and it looks at how we can continue to have a garden that can be enjoyed with year-round interest in light of changes to our climate, while also being mindful of the environment.

Looking towards the front door, through dense and lush planting with a stepping stone path dotted with plants
the gravel path with pavers and interspersed with plants on the left, with a small tree closer to the house and in the foreground a metal sculpture taking the form of gunnera and facilitating the waterfall

There’s much I like in this garden, but there’s also a couple of things that I’m unsure about.

To me that very much looks like a front door on the house at the back, and it’s great to have a good looking front garden, as well as a back garden but I can’t get my head around having a table and chairs in a front garden. And yes, I know this isn’t a real garden and is demonstrating what we could have.

The main feature of the garden is a pondless waterfall that is fed by rainwater collected from the house roof, which I could get on board with as given the amount of rain we have at times it would be good for us to manage the rainwater in our gardens. The waterfall means the water is aerated and therefore allows the water in the main harvesting unit to remain fresh for use for irrigation.

The planting with hostas, euphorbias and acers and plenty more

I loved the planting which was chosen for their hardiness and ability to withstand winter rains and summer drought conditions, and I love how densely it’s planted. That’s definitely something I could use and learn from, but I’m unsure about the plants dotted in between the pavers.

The foreground shows a brightly coloured mosaic table and chairs on a paved area, on the left is the gunnera shaped waterfall (just) with more trees which will screen the house when grown

I just don’t think they work on a practical level. I know that I’d be tripping over the plants, or kicking them, as I wandered up the path with my shopping etc - though of course that would be comedy gold for anyone watching!

Don’t get me wrong, as a show garden it looks great - and that table is definitely swoon worthy, but as a front garden this one doesn’t work for me. Which is fine, especially as I don’t actually have a front garden!

But the planting, that’s definitely something I can get onboard with.

* 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.