Rita's Roses

Last August Sandy's book Quick and Easy Romantic Quilts was published! Yeah for her!! I love her work. Pacific International Quilt Festival was just around the corner and we wanted to have a sample from the book for our booth there. I had a few pieces Moda's Fruit Cocktail fabric and a bunch of my favorite fabrics around the shop, and I came up with this version of Rita's Roses. I love the pieced blocks in this quilt, and of course I love Rita, Sandy's mom. It was the perfect fit.

The quilt is partially quilted, I got the ditch work and borders completed, but left the blocks for later, so I could take my time. The quilt was displayed at the shop up till a month of so ago, and I finally brought it home.

Like a lot of people I have a hard time figuring out what to do in the alternate solid blocks. I'll just stitch in the ditch around the pieced block.. in fact when laying this out I was surprised I hadn't already done that. When working on the binding for Elizabeth's tulip quilt, I noticed a lovely little design she was using in her squares, so I think I'm going to look for a similar design to use in my alternate blocks. I'll use the Golden Threads paper to draw my design on and stitch through. It really works well.

But as usual, I have lofty plans for getting right on stuff and then my attention is lured away by something else. Hmm, what will it be this time? Until then, I have this quilt draped across Frankie's bed, which is across from the sewing room, where I can enjoy it (and not notice that its not done!)