Lori, Wendy, Cynthia, Cathy and Katy are hosting this quilt-a-long inspired by Gwen Marston’s work, and I am excited to join in. I especially love the liberated element of this project, because I’m sure the quilts will all be very different. It’s not too late to join in — just visit Lori’s site (Humble Quilts) for details.
I chose to adapt one of my 1920s Betsy Dean embroidery transfer patterns as my basket design (the same patterns I post every day in my sidebar), and the fabrics I’m using are chambrays, checks and plaids from my collection of antique scraps. The fabrics are very early 1900s, so they’re earlier than my pattern, but what the heck — it’s a liberated quilt!
My basket is a 12″ block, and it’s not needle-turned because I never learned how to do it. I’m an old quilter, and use the techniques I was taught when I was young. My method is to pre-baste all my pieces by rolling the edge in with my left thumb as I stitch — no freezer paper for me, although I did use cardstock circles to make the flower centers. There’s more prep work, but I like being able to pin my pieces down and see exactly how the finished block is going to look, and the final stitching goes really fast.
