Debbee's Designs Blog

The rest of the project is comprised of border stitches surrounding the interior blocks. The first border is a rice stitch.

Click here for Spring Quilt Block D instructions

I stitched this border with Gumnuts Buds, a silk pearl, in 386 Medium Cornflower. This is the same color as the first block, but a different weight of thread. For those of you who are ordering supplies and want exactly what I used, you would probably be fine using the same thread for both of these, either the stranded silk floss used in the first interior block, or the silk pearl used in the rice stitch today, if you want to reduce costs a bit. If you like the different textures, as I do, you may decide to use both weights of threads.

These rice stitches posed a bit of a challenge. If you look closely at the first block in the upper left, you can see my thread carries through the canvas. I was not happy with this, and decided to change the stitch order and direction. I explain all of this in the instructions (see the above “click here”).

But here are the diagrams as I used them.

Finally, if you’re using different threads and want to use a metallic or contrasting color, here’s a suggestion:

And here’s the whole diagram.

We’re almost to the end, just a couple of stitches to go!

I promised I’d be quicker with the next step! This part is similar to the previous giant reverse scotch stitch, but this time the scotch stitches are not reversed and I added blocks of cashmere stitch.

Click here for Spring Quilt Block C instructions

But before we go on, I made a mistake on the kind of thread used for the giant reversed scotch stitches and I want to call your attention to it. The kind of thread I used was Gumnuts Poppies, a silk/wool blend, not the stranded floss in the table. I’ll correct the instructions in the previous post as well, just wanted to make sure you were aware of it.

For today’s section, I stitched the giant scotch stitches first using Gumnuts Poppies in Medium Lemon Crush, #706. Isn’t that a bright sunny color? I love it next to the purple, reminds me even more of irises and pansies.

Notice that these blocks of giant scotch stitch are not reversed, but are all slanted the same way.

Next I used Gumnuts Buds, a silk pearl, in the same color, 706 Medium Lemon Crush, to stitch the cashmere blocks between the giant scotch stitches. These blocks are all slanted the same way, but opposite of the giant scotch.

I’m really pleased with the way this is turning out!

Here are the diagrams for today.

We’re making great progress! Hope you’re having as much fun as I am!