COSY CARNATIONS
BEHIND THE PROJECT
VINTAGE INSPIRATION
“At last year’s Festival of Quilts, I was lucky enough to spend some time in quiet (and, frankly, awestruck) contemplation of a selection of Baltimore Album quilts on loan from the International Quilt Study Centre & Museum in Nebraska.
“I particularly loved the blocks of flower-filled urns and baskets that featured in most of the quilts and saw the potential for making a more achievable one-block project like a cushion. I then promptly forgot about it until I found a beautiful, vintage needlepoint cushion featuring an urn design that recalled those beautiful quilts.
“Once I’d settled on the little Carnation flower block that gives the cushion its name, I knew I wanted to use my big stack of soft pink and faded red French General scraps (most of them are from past projects for Today’s Quilter). This really is the perfect project to use up those precious scraps of fabric that you just can’t bring yourself to throw away. It’s a big block too, so nine would make a lovely quilt. And I don’t know about you, but I certainly have enough scraps to make those nine!” – Nicola Dodd
