Mothers’ Day and Meadowsweet
Yesterday was a perfect sunny lazy Sunday. One of those days that don’t come along very often. No plans, sunshine, badminton in the garden, good food and happy teenagers. As it was Mothers’ Day I was treated to lunch cooked by my son (in which sausages featured heavily – surprise!) followed by a fruit salad made by daughter no. 2, who is big into fruit at the moment. My better half commandeered the kitchen and cooked a delicious dinner too. Pretty good, huh! And rather nice that they didn’t get caught up to much in the commercialization of the whole affair.
I had the luxury of a couple of hours of sewing in my little room overlooking the garden with the windows open and the odd bee stopping by every now and then. I can honestly say that that is something that is very hard to top – and costs precisely nothing.
I’ve been making more Meadowsweet blocks. When I started out I was combining each of these crazy eclectic fabrics with solids from my stash. My mother brought me up with a phobia about non-matching fabrics. Clashing colours were the 8th deadly sin in our house. Meadowsweet is a total hodge-podge of fabrics, they don’t match each other at all – whoever came up with this lot really just threw a whole lot of happy,crazy fabrics in a pile and called it a day.
For somebody like me this poses a huge challenge and is partly why I bought the fabrics – getting out of my comfort zone and all that. Anyway, yesterday after a nice glass of White Zinfandel with my lunch I threw all my restraint out of the window and started mixing the fabrics together with wild abandon. I really like the result.
Now I have a conundrum and I need your advice….
Should I use what I have – a mixture of the tasteful and the, well shall we say not so tasteful? I would have enough blocks for a single bed-sized quilt.
Or should I put the more conservative blocks aside and make something with the crazy ones? I don’t have an awful lot more of this fabric line, so it would either have to be smallish or I’d need to get creative with my stash.
What do you think? I’d love to know!
Helen
May 9th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
although both look good, I think the second one looks BETTER!
May 9th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I do like the crazy ones… ;)) the red and green is gorgeous (though I’m partial to them all, yum!) so there’s my vote!
May 9th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I like the top photo best, if that helps. It sounds as if you had a lovely day yesterday. Penny L in Dorset xxxx
May 9th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I looked at the top one and saw two different quilts – not so much the colors as that one kind of blocks is a mix of solids and patterns and the other is pattern and pattern. I like them separate. But I have a hard time wearing anything other than boring neutrals, so I’m not the best to judge – just saying what I like. (To be honest – I thought the “less tasteful” ones were the ones you set aside as the “conservative” ones!)
May 9th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Sounds like a lovely day – do the Swiss celebrate it yesterday too?
I like both your quilts and looking at Z`s quilt now, which I`m nearly done hand quilting, it seems I fall in the crazy eclectic camp so my vote is for number 2 but I guess you could always add a border which would a) make it bigger and b) calm it down perhaps. By the way, your garden is looking gorgeous and I have a major case of garden envy. How lovely to play badminton in the sun.
May 9th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Helen,
I vote for the mish mash of all of them. More interesting that way, in my opinion, for what that’s worth!
Your garden looks lovely!
May 9th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I like the mix with the solids. Give the eye some place to rest. And it uses more of your stash!
May 10th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Is that first picture your garden? It looks beautiful!
I love the mix of patterns and solids – maybe throw in a little more of the black and the dark blue would to get a more ‘unified’ (is that a word?) look?
May 10th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Hi Helen, I’d go for the first combo although both are very nice the that one has more “pop” to my eyes. Your garden looks so inviting – may I come over for a cup of tea and a chat.
Enjoy your day.
May 10th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Go with crazy! Glad you had a nice Mother’s Day. Still three weeks to go here …
May 29th, 2011 at 3:57 am
Hi Helen, I love looking at your quilts. They remind me of my grandmother, who is a wonderful quilter. I haven’t carried on the tradition, but I do love to knit. I’m fairly new to blogging so I’m still learning the etiquette, so I hope it’s not out of line to invite you over to my blog to take a peek at the quilt we made for my daughter Lily. I would love to share the quilt’s story with someone who might appreciate it from a quilter’s point of view. (And best of luck with your marathon training!)