Possum Magic: Round 5

Possum Magic is in its fifth round. There are only two more rounds to go!

In this round, I was adding to Alice’s quilt. Alice is French but lives in New Zealand. She blogs at Blossom Quilts & Crafts and is relatively new to sewing and quilting, but she is brave enough to tackle a challenge like this round robin.

Alice started her quilt with a Liberty floral-print star on a yellow and pink background. It has since been added to:

• Wendy of Wendy’s Quilts and More set the block on point.
• Sharon of Motherdragon’s Musings added a floral appliqué border.
• Jo of Riddle and Whimsy echoed the original star in a starburst border, which I absolutely adore.
• Serena of Sew Giving made a border of foundation paper pieced butterflies.

As for me, once again, I was in recycling mode – I reused elements from earlier borders to try to create a feeling of continuity. I added a narrow striped border with cornerstones, the same width as Jo’s narrow pink striped border, and I drew and appliquéd flowers, stems and leaves similar in size and shape to Sharon’s. Some of the flowers include small pieces of the Liberty fabric from Alice’s centre block and the yellow fabric used in Wendy’s border. I used a pale green background colour, not dissimilar to a green used by Serena.

Initially, I thought of having the stems snake around randomly, but I do not do random well. Instead, I drew myself a pattern to make sure the stems were curved evenly. Given how strongly the green of the stem stands out, I am glad now that it forms an even and gently curved frame. I evenly spaced the flowers roughly, allowing them to rotate or be slightly off centre for a more natural look. I did manage to sew the leaves on spontaneously – without a pattern!

After the fifth border has been added, Alice’s quilt looks like this.

This project allowed me to play with some of my Clover tools. The pressing bars made making lengths of bias stems nice and easy. I concealed all the joins in the stems under flowers for a neat finish. As Sharon had done, I made the flower centres from yo-yos, using my 30 millimetre yo-yo maker. The fine Liberty lawn makes the best yo-yos.

I was able to play with my Clover pressing bars and yo-yo maker.

My floral border is a peculiar width – 4¾ inches wide – but I did that deliberately. Now, the quilt top is an even 60 inches square (60½ inches cut size), which is an easy measurement for Jane of Where Jane Creates to work with as she plans her addition.

I sewed all of the appliqué by hand. I do not begrudge the hours of work as I enjoy hand sewing and I felt that such a pretty and feminine quilt top deserved some feminine and pretty flowers. Sometimes, you just have to do whatever the quilt needs – be it a simple border that you can whip up in an hour or something more painstaking. It is about doing the best you can for each project.

I had some of the same yellow fabric that Wendy used in her border.

I placed the leaves randomly.

I included some small pieces of Alice’s feature Liberty fabric.

To make the flowers, I raided my scrap box and stash for pastel pinks, blues, yellows and mauves.

The funny thing is that Alice added leaves and stems to my quilt too! Great minds think alike!

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