New York Beauty Cushion

For quite a while now I've been wanting to design and make a New York Beauty quilt. However, busy as I am with my other sewing projects, and just life in general, it hasn't happened yet. Also the thought of designing one has been a bit daunting. I haven't done any Foundation Paper Piecing before and have worked with very few curves before, making New York Beauty blocks very different to my previous quilting and sewing experiences.

Given the very different style of patchwork involved with New York Beauty quilts I decided that I'd start with a smaller project, a cushion cover, as a trial run. And I'm glad that I did. Not because it was a terrible experience that I don't want to repeat, but rather because I absolutely love my cushion cover! It is by far one of my favourite projects I've ever made, possibly even my number one.

I'm planning on one day making a quilt in this same sort of colour scheme to go on the queen bed in our spare room. I'm not yet sure if this cushion will go with it or if I'll keep it in my sewing room and make a new cushion for the spare room when I make the quilt.

I started off making a fairly basic New York Beauty block , and then thought I'd step it up a bit with a more complicated one. However my "more complicated one" actually ended up being easier than the first. Even though it had more sections to put together, with the green arc between the two pointed arcs I didn't have to match together any points like I did with the first block.

Once the blocks were all made and put together I had fun quilting it. I just did basic quilting in the ditch for most of it, with some free-motion quilting in the bigger areas. I am very happy with how this cushion turned out, I love the colours I chose and, although time consuming, the foundation paper piecing was really not as difficult as it looks. I have some other things to work on before starting a New York Beauty quilt for my spare bed (like finishing the bugs and flowers quilt I've been working on for ages!), but am very excited to get to it hopefully in the not too distant future.

Till next time, happy quilting!