Way back in 2009 (the inaugural year of my design adventure) we had just moved 7,000 kilometres north-east from the cool and remote ocean-side town of Esperance to the very hot outback country town of Charters Towers.
Even though we arrived in winter, heat shock knocked the wind out of us for a long time.
We learned that our new winter was warmer than our old summer and even now, into our seventh year up this way, we still find ourselves gasping for cool air much of the time.
Secluded in the air conditioning for much of that first year it was relatively easy to design and create as I was new to it and the distraction of stitching and sewing helped the days pass.
Always one to finish what I'd begun there was never much of a UFO pile, so I decided to begin a 'work in progress' quilt and not give myself an end date, although I did have high hopes of seeing it made within a few months.
The quilt was to be made of churn dash blocks with a solid white background and fit our queen size bed. I had been gathering some vintage style fabrics for about a year and used those to make a start. The plan was to sew two blocks every day. Ha ha ha!! My friends, that never happened.
Here we are in 2016 and my little pile of vintage style churn dash blocks live hidden away in a pretty pink box waiting to be remembered and I never do. Isn't that sad??
I was making larger churn dash blocks from my Flower Sugar stash for a friend over the weekend and that's when I remembered my dream for these pretty vintage blocks so I unearthed them from their hiding storage space to admire and croon over their simple elegance...
A funny thing happened while I was pulling out the blocks and fabrics I'd stored with them. I noticed there wasn't a single yellow block made so far and the only 'yellowy' print I could find was this one which is more of a washed out lemon I suppose.
Now if you've read this blog post from last month you will agree I must right this wrong when I continue making more of the blocks.
Under the material and previously pieced churn dash blocks I found two partially patch-worked squares of the vintage fabrics...
...and really needed to put my thinking cap on so I could jog my memory as to why I had them.
Then, the lightbulb moment.
Way back in 2009 when we first moved up north and I was just starting to design (yes, we're back to the beginning again) my daughter Blossom who was 15 at the time, was also dabbling in a few designs of her own.
Long time readers of my blog know that Blossom's dream has never been career oriented, but purely focused on one day being a wife and mother - so it's no surprise that her designs had a soft side, a gentle side, an essence of child-like innocence.
She drew up a set of tiny little motifs on pale pindot fabric, stitched them over a weekend, and handed them to me with a "Maybe you can do something with them, Mummy?"
Blossom had chosen vintage fabrics from my box of churn dash prints as thread colour inspiration so we already had the materials on hand.
I ran the idea of a simple doll quilt and bag by her and she was thrilled.
So that's what I made from her deliciously delightful stitcheries.
The little quilt folds to slip inside the bag and there is still room for dolly too.
After a few more designs my girl moved on to other things but she's thinking of using her skills again in the future because she's finishing up at her telecommunications job next week and setting up a workspace in an office under my house.
You see she is 16 weeks along in her first pregnancy and found her scoliosis made long hours in front of a computer perched on an office chair extremely painful in her job, so she could not continue any longer.
Over the weekend she made another change when her and and BB (Blossom's Beloved) moved into the cutest little cottage just a few streets from Mr E and I. Now she'll be able to do a few hours each day from either of our homes working on her ideas and resting whenever she needs to.
I thought this would be a wonderful time to release Blossom's "Vintage Simplicity" pattern in my shop.
It's such a sweet pattern and makes up very quickly, so you might like to make it for a little girl in your life?
Actually, it would be a good pattern for teaching a young lady how to sew backstitch and do patchwork!
All 'Blossom Designs" sales will go directly to her...
The pattern is here.
Back to the churn dash blocks...I'd better show show you the two Flower Sugar ones I made at the weekend which jiggled my memory about the forgotten blocks.
Did I mention that Churn Dash is my favourite patchwork block? Well, it is. In fact it's hard for me to consider making any other.
The 8" block pattern I use for the vintage style blocks can be found here.
The 12" block pattern I've used for the Flower Sugar blocks is here. This is also a quilt pattern.
What's yours?
