Cloth: Liberty of London Triangles Quilt

A few years ago I made my sister bring me back a bunch of Liberty souvenirs when she had traveled to London—that’s how gorgeous and exquisite their fabrics are.              And a year later I finally bought a bundle of fat sixteenths of Liberty Tana lawn fabrics from Purl Soho with the intention of sewing them into their Prism quilt.

But I wish I had curated my own collection of their fabrics because some of the lawns Purl Soho included in my bundle were just meh. Still sumptuous and detailed in illustration, but not as as saturated in color which looked incongruous to the vibrant florals I did like very much.

                                          And some of the fabrics were whimsical English-themed like you would find in a Beatrix Potter story. I didn’t want to sew a baby quilt.

However, I love most of the florals and the more modern motifs were growing on me.

Despite my lack of fondness for some of the paisley or Victorian peacock feathers, I was determined to “have a go” and aimed to use each and every lawn and cohere all of them into a quilt. I had made 9” half square triangles of ALL the Liberty lawns and Kona natural yardage. And then aaargh, some of my patches were 8” squares instead. And so I gave myself a massive headache on all of a Sunday, trimming all the patches to the smaller size.                            

That’s okay. The 9” squares made up too big a quilt for my liking. I arranged the patches into groupings and rows that I thought looked presentable. But while sewing the rows, I didn’t like the layout as much and switched up some of the order while sewing.              

And this time I used my bed as a design wall rather than my living room floor.  Also I didn’t want to waste any of that expensive lawn, and so I treated the triangle scraps I trimmed away as raw edged appliqué and zigzag stitched the then to the Kona rather than trim it down from a square adhered to the patch. While sewing and pressing, I noticed pink, both tiny and large in volume in all the fabrics. Therefore pink will be the color of the thread when it comes time to machine AND hand quilting this sandwich.