Summer In Paris

A tah dah moment.
I finished this quilt top yesterday.

It's my own design and I'm ecstatic with the way it turned out. I wanted to make a quilt that captured memories of Paris and the beautiful gardens throughout the city.

The idea developed from this fabric.

Photo from Fabricworm

Paris Map by Yoko Okomato at Fabricworm.


Then I started auditioning fabric,

some from my stash, the top three and the sixth one from the right I found at Hawthorne Threads and Lucky Kaeru Fabric. Some others I found at my local store, Patchwork Angel.

My original idea was to use a Kaffe Fassett pattern.

I liked the idea of the central large square for the map of Paris, but I decided the overall pattern was just a little too regimented for what I wanted.

Then I saw this pattern at Carolina Patchworks. I loved the more random look of this, although by now I wanted to convey the idea of city blocks and a central block where all the blocks radiated from it, so this pattern was a little too random.
That's when I thought I should try to design my own pattern.

A little bit of math was involved to work out what size block was needed to be able to divide into halves, quarters etc, to have sashing between each piece, and to make every block the same size.

Quite a bit of fussy cutting.

As I was making it I was worried that it was looking fabulous in my head, good drawn out in my notebook and not so great when finished.

I'm very very happy with the way it turned out and I'm already planning on making Autumn, Spring and Winter in Paris quilts.

Larkspur lilac

This is what I've been up to this weekend.
Do you remember these?

I've been cutting into them and working on a design, the one that was in my head and scribbled in my note book. Some of these made the cut, a few were shown the door and some more added.

A little fussy cutting here and there.

Excuse the loose thread.






It's coming together nicely. Pieces for 25 blocks cut,  12 blocks sewn, 1 row finished (to see if I was on the right track. I think I am.)