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Longford Commons
"Many years ago, when I had a brick-and-mortar quilt shop, I advised a customer, who had cut her blocks incorrectly, that "there are no mistakes, there are just design possibilities". That statement has always stuck in my brain as one of the things I love most about quilting, the possibilities. There are no mistakes in this quilt but there are many possibilities!
The team at Marcus invited me to design a fabric collection and BOM quilt, and that very same day, I received in the post an antique quilt circa 1890 -1910. It contained the most beautiful Mourning Grey prints as well as a gorgeous collection of brightly coloured calicos. Could this quilt possibly be the basis of the Westmoreland collection and Longford Commons BOM quilt? Yes, indeed."
"The Mourning Grey prints were just so pretty - heart shaped flowers with trailing vines, a beautiful paisley print, lovely fan shaped flowers, a darling little rose print with a striped background, and other delightful little florals and spriggy leaf prints. In fact, these motifs were far too pretty to continue life in their somber tones and I wondered at the possibility of reclaiming them in new colours, also inspired by the original quilt. - red, pink, blue, yellow, cream and we added some greens to balance them out."
With the fabric collection roughly established, Deirdre was led by the collection's garden "look," creating blocks with a classic sampler style in mind. Her combination of appliqued and pieced blocks roughly echoes the formal gardens that surrounded grand old houses from the same time period as the original document quilt.
"These gardens had symmetry and balance - just like our quilts do - so they make a good reference for a quilting layout with many possibilities." The BOM quilt's square center block is a pieced and appliqued block, flowing out to rectangular applique blocks, thereby forming a cross through the middle of the quilt. Small pieced blocks added to the sides of the
rectangular blocks form pathways through the garden beds. Large applique blocks with a diagonal arrangement highlight the corners of the quilt, with fairly large, easy-to-manage shapes, created with Deirdre's prepared edge applique technique. Finally, large pieced blocks (Hole in the Barn Door) framing the whole design. Deirdre invites quilters to follow her lead as shown, try one of her alternate layouts, or create their own block combinations, increasing the creative possibilities of "Longford Commons"
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