Sharon's Roses

In January 2003 I had the brilliant idea to make a quilt for my dear friend Sharon for her 50th birthday in February 2004. I decided to make a quilt featuring Rose of Sharon blocks and during my searching for patterns came across "Rose Sampler Supreme", a quilt designed by Rosemary Markhan. I can't believe that I had the audacity to start this quilt being such a novice - must have been a case of ignorance is bliss.

My needleturn applique is atrocious and after trying a block or two, I decided to blanketstitch the applique. The quilt top was finished in time for Sharon's 50th birthday and it stayed at her place for well over a year before coming back to our place to sit in my sewing room for a long time while I thought about how to quilt it and then worked up the nerve to start. The quilt was pin basted last April and then all the blocks, sashings, swags, borders were ditch-stitched.


I free-motion quilted around all the applique and used machine embroidery "Rose of Sharon" designs between the swags with a machine embroidery "S" in each corner (it's called "Redwork S" but looks a bit like Superman's 'S').

Yesterday I made a machine embroidered label and the last stitches were put in the quilt.

Sharon and I met when we were 21 and have been friends ever since. Our families have a great deal in common and John and I are very fortunate to have both Sharon and Gary in our lives. This photo was taken last Tuesday night at Sharon's birthday dinner.

We are seeing Sharon and Gary next Saturday night, so we'll give her quilt then.

I want to say something about the awful bushfires and loss of life but I'm pretty much speechless - it's just heartbreaking - and then at the other end of our country people are fighting enormous floods.