New York Beauty or Dogwood Blossom? You decide.

I get most of my quilt inspiration from vintage and traditional patterns. New York Beauty is one of them. I first made a quilt using the basic curved unit with "teeth" about 20 years ago. This is Dogwood Blossom. It appeared in an issue of Quilt Magazine and then was in a batch of 20 quilts that was stolen in 2005! I miss this little quilt.

Dogwood Blossom, 1998

This lovely quilt was also in the same suitcase and now hangs on the Giant Quilt Rack in the Sky. Same units, different arrangement.

Dogwood Blossom in Brights

What do I mean by the units?

Paper pieced arcs with sharp points

And here are some with black for the background. These were pieced a LONG time ago!

Units with black background

Of course, when the two Dogwood Blossom quilts were stolen, I was on a teaching trip and they were the basis of one of my workshops. I had to beg fabric from my hostess so I could make some quick blocks in order to teach the class the next day.

Quick made blocks for my workshop

Then I decided to make ANOTHER one. Am I a glutton for punishment. No, I just like these blocks!

This 16 block quilt appeared in a magazine years ago

Then I decided to try a real New York Beauty with the stars and the Dogtooth borders. Yes, it's a LOT of piecing. The quilt top languished for 9 years as I agonized on how to quilt it. Nine. Long. Years!

New York Beauty before quilting

I've made some of those Dogtooth borders with some scrappy brights:

Paper pieced Dogtooth units for those side borders

Then I asked a fellow teacher who is an educator with Handi-Quilter to quilt the purple and green one above. There are no words to describe how happy I was to get this back. She filled in that huge center space with glorious stitching.

New York Beauty (about 40" x 40") beautifully quilted by Jane Hauprich

This is a planned new workshop that I hope to take back on the road. I had retired it for 13 years (when your samples are stolen, what can you do?)

Remember those four units near the top of the page? I combined them with some Kaffe Fassett fabrics and made a small sample.

Four New York Beauty/Dogwood Blossom blocks

 Now, if you're still with me, I want to show you my last quilt sample. I remembered I still had some OLD teaching samples in a box and I pulled them out in July. I got busy piecing and stitching and came up with this 12 block arrangement. What do you think?

12 New York Beauty/Dogwood Blossom blocks

Whew! That wore me out. Hope you enjoyed the show. I do have these patterned for my workshop, but not in a tight pdf for downloading. But, I'm working on it!