A basket quilt

 I was inspired to make this by copying an old quilt which was my maternal grandmother's. The original quilt was much bigger, and the sashing was that great bubble gum pink. The story was that each of her friends had made a block and signed their names. Even though each of the squares looks as though it was made by a different hand, I found no signatures at all. The flowers in the original were all hand embroidered.

When I decided to make this quilt I had originally intended to use pink sashing.The only problem was that I picked out the fabrics for the flowers and baskets, and there was no way it was going to work with pink! That's when I decided to go with black, for which I have the greatest fondness. I've never seen this exact basket pattern anywhere, so I've named it Grandma's Baskets. I've seen blocks which were similar, but not quite the same. I fused the basket handles (cut on the bias) and the flowers, and then used a machine blanket stitch to sew around each raw edge. If I made this again I would probably use wider borders, but I'm quite pleased with it nonetheless. The binding is made up of strips cut from the remains of the fat quarters I used for the baskets and flowers. I must admit that I sort of "borrowed" the flower shapes from Diana McClun and Laura Knownes' book Quilts, Quilts, Quilts.