Samuel Street

It's done! And it only took me about three months! Being only a part-time quilter, that's good going for me.

I planned this quilt years ago. I had decided to make a quilt for each of the four daughters of my niece, Liz and had the first nearly finished when she gave birth to a son, Ben. So I followed Lillie-Mae's lily quilt with a bear one for Ben. Tigers for Jackie followed and finally it was time to make this long planned design. I had originally planned a house in the middle square but I managed to find this pieced "Overall Bill" which did nicely for the boy. Fer had got me the Rag doll block pattern from an old Quiltmaker magazine, and , though I have no confidence with my hand-appliqué skills, I managed to make these up without too much hassle. The problem was that they were not square blocks and I preferred a square quilt for this series. So, after some fairly violent mathematical calculations on my part, I made the green sashes different widths to bring it up to square and match up with the 6 inch blocks for the outer border.

Many years ago I had made another quilt, Samuel Town, using these different houses and trees and it had been my favourite quilt. Now as Liz and her children lived in Samuel street (a very rural road!) it was a logical name for this effort. I tried to use fabrics from my stash so I graded the colour of the background of the outer blocks. I nearly got away with it but had to buy one more fabric ...

This detail shows the hand quilting of the inner panels. Perhaps I got a bit carried away! Anyway, I've finished and I love it. Samuel Street is machine and hand stitched and hand quilted. The batting is a 60/40 wool/poly blend and it is backed with a printed cotton flannelette. The rag dolls are embellished with a few beads and lace and have hand-embroidered details. The finished quilt measures 108 cms square (3 feet 6")

And now for Pheobe's quilt ...