Primroses in the vicarage garden

The winter has been harsh, wet and very cold but yesterday morning the sun shone through the curtains and warmth was palpable. Suddenly there were buttery yellow flowers everywhere  and it seemed to us that the primroses were more prolific than we remember them being before. I had waited for this weather for months and knew this was the time to photograph the simple yellow quilt I made for the spare bedroom two years ago. (For some reason I never thought about doing it last year).

Patchwork quilt and primroses

The sun was in fact so bright  that it has temporarily bleached much of the colour out of the quilt but it’s none the worse for that.

Patchwork quilt with view of the beginnings of the Chilterns beyond

I usually hand piece quilts but I wanted something functional and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making it, so this time I used a sewing machine. Almost all of the fabrics were offcuts from various projects and, in the case of the very chintzy multi-floral print (Sanderson), the fabric came from cast off curtains whose edges had been bleached to the point of rotting by the seaside sun. I did buy the Mankin fine strip for the border and the Amy Butler orange and yellow print used for the binding. The backing was an old Laura Ashley that used to be a curtain in the girls’ bedroom.

Patchwork quilt: bound edge and reverse. Hand quilted.

I hand quilted every other square as I couldn’t resist it. At least I could have the quilt on the bed tacked up at that point and just whip it off of an evening when a bit of hand sewing calls with its siren song – as it does if you haven’t anything else on the go. I might hand quilt the rest at some point when I’ve come up with a quilted pattern that attracts me – it would be too much to quilt the whole thing in concentric squares.

Primroses and patchwork quilt in spring colours

When we got to our second church this morning Green and Gorgeous had been having a flower demonstation in the village and had used the church as one of the settings for their arrangements. Usually my husband’s heart sinks at the thought of professional flower arrangers doing their stuff but this time he was delighted as the flowers were simply arranged without artifice or exotic importations.

End of pew flowers: a jam jar of narcissi, tied on with brown twine (by Green and Gorgeous, South Stoke, Oxon.)

A big bunch of forsythia twigs, flowers covering every stem, filled a plain cream bucket, forcing you to admire them, transient unadorned, and at the same time reminding you how late their appearance is this year. Every other pew end had a little jam jar of narcissi attached with rough brown twine which took your breath away for its simplicity and cheapness. (No future local wedding may escape this clever idea – why had one never thought of it before?) All was green and yellowy-cream and we left the church filled with the joy of this long awaited spring.

Flower arrangement by Green and Gorgeous in our church by the Thames

North Stoke Church: looking west, showing forsythia on the left and narcissi in jam jars at the ends of alternate pews. (Green and gorgeous, South Stoke, Oxon)