Long time, no blog and no really good excuse! So much has happened since I last wrote.
2014 was such an exciting year for me starting with the release of my book,'Of Needle, Thimble and Thread' which was published by Quiltmania in February. As a result of this I travelled to Nantes, France, in April to be with my quilts which were on display, sign books and teach at Pour L'Amour  du Fil which is hosted by Qjuiltmania.  In October some of my quilts were then featured in a special exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in Houston and I was lucky enough to travel to Houston to sign books, deliver a lecture and demonstrate Broderie Perse during festival. After Houston, I taught at The Quilt Merchant in Chicago, Inspirations Patchwork in Hills, Iowa and The Quilted Moose in Gretna, Nebraska. It was a dream come true for me and I didn't want to come home.
My friend Virginia, with whom I travelled, and I were lucky enough to stay with Margo Krager for our last 2 nights in the US. We spent 2 lovely evenings looking through Margo's fabric sample books dating back to the 18th century and we thoroughly enjoyed 2 days 'playing' in her shop, 'Reproduction Fabrics', where we were easily entertained sifting through a drawer of Dargate fabric scraps from bygone treasures and drooling over the wonderful shelves of reproduction fabrics, all arranged according to era.
Margo topped off my stay in the US by asking me to design and make a quilt using her new, upcoming fabric range, 'Dargate Treasury' by Andover. Of course I couldn't say no to that request! I left Margo, and America, complete with the Skus card for the Dargate Treasury fabric range and I have spent much time since pondering over a design that would do these beautiful fabrics justice.
The inspiration for my central block is the design on a 60 year old dinner set owned by my Mother- in-law and, in particular, the tea cup and saucer from this set in which she served me a cup of tea on Christmas Day. This block features an appliqué basket with Broderie Perse flowers and butterflies. These have been mostly cut from the floral feature stripe border fabric of Dargate Treasury. This central block will be surrounded by a series of pieced and plain borders featuring all the fabrics from the range. The quilt will travel to America for Spring Market and the pattern will be available, after May, on my website, www.michelleyeoquiltdesigns.com
Enjoy and I hope you like it!