Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt

Gay at Sentimental Stitches first showed me her primarily red and green quilt back in November 2009, at a Dear Jane meeting in Shipshewana, Indiana.
It is as you see not in the best of shape with faded green leaves to tan in some blocks, some of the brown/purple fabrics have oxidated, the turkey red has badly worn and in places it is difficult to tell whether the original colour was a sky blue, pink or white? But, somehow the quilt has survived 150 or so years and was calling out to be noticed.

Some of the blocks are quite unique in design and some have a familiarity about them when compared to other red and green quilts. There is a certain naivety to the quilt which I love, and the quilting is made up of flowers and individual symbols rather than the ordered quilting of feather wreaths and cross-hatching etc. To me a country quilt unhindered by formality.

Gay has a wonderful website and she is generously offering a different block a month from her quilt for free, so please visit her website. Past blocks are for sale at a very reasonable price.

I finally began my version of the quilt after I fell for a new range of fabrics by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts. Edyta designs batik fabrics and has recently produced a combined batik and reproduction style of fabric for Moda called "Bon Voyage". I loved the teal and mustard colours in the range. I met Edyta at a Dear Jane meeting in Shipshewana back in 2009 when she gave us a talk on how she designs her quilts - she has an amazing knack of being able to mix batiks with reproduction style fabrics to produce wonderfully vibrant quilts, something I would never consider myself, but with this quilt I have decided to challenge myself, although looking at the fabrics I have auditioned from my stash, I need more batiks!

Mustard coloured fabrics for the stems and leaves



Teal, cherry reds and pinks for the flowers and berries.

The large floral fabric is for some of the baskets and is the inspiration for the fabric selection.


I worked on my first block over Christmas and have a further three blocks in various stages of construction, but I finished my first block, block 8 just on midnight of New Years Eve and I am very pleased with the result.

Block 8 - Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt