April Quilt of the Month

Here is my April Quilt of the Month.

The antique feeling of this quilt fits right in with our white headboard.

This quilt is almost as antique as it looks. I started this quilt in the summer of 1996 in a scrap quilt class with Pat Fay at the long defunct Quilter's Nook in West Roxbury, MA. I think it is one of my first collaborative quilts with my friend Marion. We each made two identical nine patch blocks and then swapped them with each other to bolster our fabric selections. All of the fabric came from our respective fabric stashes. This is one of the very rare occasions where my quilt is finished and Marion's is not. Usually it is the other way around.

This pattern is simply a nine patch block alternating with an hour glass block. The colors in my hour glass are consistent throughout: a tiny floral and a cream colored solid. The cream colored solid is also used in each nine patch block.

As usual, the quilt colors are complimented by the tapestry over our bed.

Click on this photo for a close-up of the beautiful quilting.

The wonderfully talented Monty Haubold machine quilted this for me on her long arm back in 2002. I finally finished this quilt in 2004. This is the only quilt that I have ever entered in a quilt show. It hung at Images, a juried quilt show, in Lowell, MA in 2005. I was very proud. Sadly, Monty had a stroke several years ago and is not able to machine quilt any more. Her daughter,  my good friend Kate Mitchell, continues to offer machine quilting services, and her son Justin is also part of the family machine quilting enterprise.

This is the first quilt that I ever put an appliqued border on, and I think it took me more time to make the border than the entire center of the quilt. There are 40 flowers in total in the border. Each one took me about an hour and a half to two hours to machine applique. Each flower has eight pieces in it. For me, this is quite elaborate. I used a heavy thread called Jeans Stitch by YLI which makes my blanket stitch applique really stand out.

Pretty little flowers all in a row.

A close-up of a border flower. Look at Monty's beautiful echo quilting.

Perhaps this lovely floral bordered quilt will help bring springtime to Boston! We are very tired of winter.

Linking up on Thursday to My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday. Adding a link on Friday to Richard and Tanya Quilts, CrazyMom Quilts and to Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy