another postcard

Hi. I'm Maureen. ;-)

Pratima graciously asked me to post a few words about our experience doing the Postcard quilt together.

Gulp. This is my first blog post.

Ever. :-)

Pratima and I met online a few years ago. Our relationship started out innocently enough, ;-) we were both participating in a block of the month. Little did we realize that within a short time we would be attempting such an amazing project.

This is my "Little Blossoms" block. I would never have attempted this foundation pieced block, but Pratima encouraged me to use a foundation that was more like interfacing and it worked wonderfully!

After a number of months we ended up being the only active participants in the block of the month. During that time I quickly realized what a kind, generous person she was. She was so encouraging. She had me attempting things I would have never previously contemplated. I learned so much from her!!

I really admire her knack for design and her ability to combine diverse fabrics to produce really spectacular quilts. There are so many of her quilts that I want to do exactly as she did them!!

Before we arrived at the end of our project we started thinking of ideas for our next endeavor. We discussed the idea of doing a medallion quilt. I have enjoyed seeing many come to life online.

Pratima and I both admired the designs of Kaffe Fassett and looked through his books to find a project that would be both fun and challenging. We decided on the Postcard Quilt designed by Liza Prior Lucy.

My next step was to look through my boxes of fabric to find a focus fabric that was worthy of such a fantastic pattern.

This is "Marrakech Bazaar" by Free Spirit.

I purchased it years ago and it has been waiting to be used for "something special". This project certainly met that criteria! Luckily, I also bought a number of prints from the line. They really came in handy in this quilt! One unusual thing about the Postcard quilt pattern is that it called for 25 different fabrics. Pratima and I both wanted to predominantly use fabrics from our stash.

Block #1

My first block was blah.

I knew I needed the adobe and also the green colored fabric in the quilt but this block didn't convince me of that!!

A few rows later, the center seemed to anchor the rest of the of the design.

And then there were times...

Ugh! This was beginning to look too dark to me!

but then...
when I began auditioning fabric for the background of the next row it lightened up again!!

I eventually stopped worrying

and realized that everything would balance out.

eventually!!


Thanks so much for looking.
Thank you, Pratima for being such a wonderful, sweet and kind person!! She really makes the world a much brighter place!!

meadow of flowers

a meadow

with long winding paths

sprinklings of pebbled walkways

trails dotted with wildflowers

flying geese flocking to the stream...

...few gulps and they are off

while little lambs merrily play in the grass.

This is a 2 year old project that my friend Maureen and I have been doing together. I got distracted with other things and haven’t worked on it until recently. It’s been lingering for so long that I got panicky with visions of a UFO hovering over me forever… I had to roll up my sleeves and finish it before another year pass by.

I mostly started this quilt to practice working with templates and wanted to use what I had in my stash which was very limited at the time. This Little lamb fabric is one of my favorites and was left over from another baby quilt. I had to use it sparingly considering how little was left. I picked colors from this print to choose rest of the fabrics.

Some of the fabrics were just fat quarters and as the quilt was growing in size I kept running out of them and finding replacements was challenging. I hope it came together without looking too patchy.

Maureen has been my guardian angel through out the process. It was her idea to do this quilt and I don’t think I could’ve pulled it off without her helpful suggestions all along.

Her work is a synonym for perfection. Unlike me, she painstakingly mapped out even the tiniest details and worked hard to get everything right. Her pieces fall where they were supposed to fall and the borders end just where they were supposed to end. It is truly a labor of love.

She doesn’t have a blog but I’m so happy that she’s going to be sitting with us under the Peepal tree and tell more about her quilt soon.

Maureen has been with me since the beginning days of my quilt journey and I’ve learnt so much from her. She is always encouraging and sweet and kind beyond words. I thank my lucky stars for having crossed our paths. I hope she drops by often and treat us with her beautiful works.

Thank you for taking time to visit… it sure is crunch time for crafty elves. And I hope you didn’t mind my unusual post on flowers in this frosty month :-\

~Pattern is ‘Postcard quilt’ from Quilt road book by Kaffe Fassett.
~Focus fabric is ‘Little lambs’ by Michael miller and checkered aqua fabric is Carolina gingham.

Wish you and yours a joyful December and happiest of holidays! ( * u * )