Happy Valentine’s Day!
Lucy Boston’s Patchworks are featured in the April 2014 issue of The Quilt Life!
It is a fascinating FIVE PAGE article by Diana Boston, Lucy Boston’s daughter-in-law, with beautiful photography by Julia Hedgecoe.
POLB 
POTC
Some of the photos in The Quilt Life are familiar from Diana’s book, The Patchworks of Lucy Boston, and from my book, Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses.
Lucy Boston gives hope and inspiration to any artist or quilter—but especially those of us in our fifties and sixties.
The Life of Lucy Boston
Lucy Boston made her most famous quilt, The Patchwork of the Crosses when she was in her 60s. She was most prolific when she was in her 80s and continued to quilt in her 90s.
A LONG, CREATIVE OLD AGE, DESPITE LIMITATIONS
I cannot help but wonder how Lucy Boston’s artistic expression might have developed without three limitations that we do not face today.
1. Limited availability of fabric
Lucy Boston’s efforts to find suitable cotton fabric in England are described in letters in The Patchworks of Lucy Boston, (sold out, may be available on Amazon) one of my all-time favorite books.
Did you know that even though the war ended in 1945, sugar, meat and other food was still rationed in England until 1953-1954? Cotton fabric was in limited supply in the 1960s and 1970s too, before the revival of quilting in America. In our abundant world, it is hard to imagine.
Lucy Boston had a painter’s eye, and fabric was her palette but she lived at a time when only a very limited selection was available. Did it spur her creativity or limit her?
It’s a great time to be a quilter! In the whole history of the world there has never been more beautiful cotton fabric available than there is now. What would she have been able to create with it?
2. Failing eyesight
The last 10 or 15 years of Lucy Boston’s life were saddened by her failing eyesight. How tragic for an artist!
She tried using a magnifier and village children threaded needles for her after school. “Damn my eyes. I could keep my spirits up if I could see,” Lucy wrote in a letter to her niece when she was in her nineties (POLB, page 5).
It’s a great time to be a quilter! There have been breakthroughs in the treatment of glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration, diabetes, and other age-related causes of blindness in the past 50 years. If only there had been help for her! All of us have a better chance of keeping our sight even if we live to be 98, like Lucy Boston.
3. English Paper Piecing
Lucy Boston is famous and respected as an artist for her brilliant use of the designs in the fabric, not for her sewing method.
Joan in Australia was inspired by Lucy Boston to create stunning POTC blocks by hand (more in the albums on Inklingo IO) but she sewed with a running stitch, not English Paper Piecing, and was able to finish blocks in a fraction of the time.
English Paper Piecing is the slowest, most difficult, and least precise method in my book, but that was the method used in England at that time.
American quilting methods were not well-known in Britain, and Lucy Boston learned to sew by mending quilts that had been made in the early 1800s.
She cut her own templates from brochures and Basildon Bond writing paper. What if she had spent that time designing and sewing instead of basting and whip-stitching? A key to her artistic vision was matching identical motifs, but they were hidden from her when she was sewing!
I will always believe that she had even more exciting designs dancing in her head as she sat by the fire on long winter evenings. (That’s Maggie Smith sewing POTC in the movie From Time to Time based on one of Lucy Boston’s children’s books.)
We are grateful for the magnificent quilts, her delightful books, the impressive garden and the restored manor house, but I also think of “the lost quilts of Lucy Boston.” How many more masterpieces would we be admiring when we visit Hemingford Grey if she had had a better, faster method?
It’s a great time to be a quilter! Even if we choose EPP instead of faster, easier methods, we can print freezer paper templates and the best of everything is readily available. (One of many EPP Tutorials)
We have many options. We can sew by machine or with a running stitch by hand to create her designs in a fraction of the time, with or without printing the shapes on fabric with Inklingo.
Fern in Singapore has finished a spectacular POTC quilt using Inklingo to print the shapes on fabric.
“I attempted and abandoned Lucy Boston’s quilt some 12 years ago. Inklingo makes it easy-peasy to make a complex, exquisite and magnificent quilt. I am having so much fun with mine now.”
THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
As the article in The Quilt Life explains, music and gardening were also passions of Lucy Boston. She had a large collection of classical recordings. During the Second World War, she regularly hosted musical evenings for RAF pilots in her ancient manor house, as described in Diana’s book.
Given Lucy Boston’s passion for music, it seems appropriate that I have a favorite song running through my head while I write.
It’s not Lucy Boston’s classical music, but she makes me think the best is yet to come.
All quilters would choose to be as creative and artistic as Lucy Boston was in her sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. Lucy Boston showed us how. She is our heroine.
We need to believe that the best IS yet to come for us.
LEARN MORE ABOUT LUCY BOSTON
- Diana Boston’s website—The Manor at Hemingford Grey
- My website—Main Lucy Boston Page (includes video)
The All About Inklingo blog is also searchable. There are dozens of articles about Lucy Boston, her quilts, English Paper Piecing, fussy cutting, etc. (right sidebar).
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I hope you are feeling loved on Valentine’s Day. Lucy Boston is certainly well-loved by quilters all over the world every day of the year.
“Whatever she touched, whether it was literature, horticulture, topiary, needlework or simple everyday life, bore the imprint of her unerring sense of beauty and quality.” (Lucy Boston Remembered: Reminiscences Collected by Diana Boston)
What a legacy!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Linda & Monkey
thanx for all your hard work, taking all the guessing out for us
thanx to bonnie also for sharing her work with all of us
both you nice ladies deserve a big hug
Love inklingo, still working on my potc & everyone who sees them loves them too. So fast & easy. I watch those who are paper piecing and think how much more they could do with Inklingo, they claim to enjoy the paper piecing poor things….
Love this pattern and really want to use the fussy cutting technique, you have explained how to fussy cut in a very easy to understand manner. Going through my stash this evening to find the perfect fabric. If not, what better excuse to go fabric shopping. Thanks Linda and Monkey for all the inspiration!
I always need more Inklingo collections!
Love Lucy Boston’s beautiful Patchwork of the Crosses Quilt! It is so interesting to learn about her..and I am so inspired that she quilted at such a great age! Lets all stay healthy so we can do the same!
Would love to be entered in the giveaway! I’ll also be looking for that issue of Quilt Life… Thank you!
PICK ME! PICK ME! I just last night printed my first 2 pieces of fabric – it really is as intriguing as everyone says! I’ve already made notes of the patterns and I want to try first (wink…wink)!
I already know what I will order.
I would like to win the $50 gift certificate. There are so many things I’d like to buy on you site.
This is a project I would like to take on using the Inklingo method. I can see so many possibilities from everyone blocks I have seen so far. I will need a new hand piecing project soon. This may be it.
Love to win. Linda gerig
Lucy Boston was amazing. Like a lot of us things happen that we don’t count on. Three years ago I was diagnosed with Graves’s disease which affected my eyes and so it is extremely hard for me to sew like I used to. Thanks to Inklingo’s great method of lines to cut and stitch I am still able to sew. Thank you Linda
Me! Me! Me! I need to buy more Inklingo!!! Love it!
I’m commenting for the gift certificate giveaway. I love Lucy Boston POTC, but have to make the Jane Austen quilt first. POTC is on my list though.
Next project will be castle walls
I would love to win the $50 gift certificate. I have been on your site looking for months now. I want so many collections, it is hard to decide. It would be wonderful to be able to start out with Collection 3 and buy smaller collections as I can. Thank you for the opportunity to win!
I love all the ideas that come out of the blog. The photos are wonderful to view for inspiration. Thank you for sharing with us.
I am winter weary this morning…but your site and this project inspired me out of my doldrums! I’m off to dig out the Visa card and order me some and have visions of crosses dancing in my head to use up some of my more difficult to use fabric in my stash…thank you, thank you! last time I had quilter’s block like this, it was your quilted diamonds that saved my day….you are so generous with your creativity and I thank you for this. I just added a stop at the book store for Quilters Life magazine
I love the look of Lucy Boston patchwork of the crosses. I am going to try it this year for sure. Perfect design
I would really like to Inklingo. Thanks for the chance to win a $50 certificate.
As always, you and Monkey have come up with a wonderful new idea and have expanded your fan base even more. Congratulations on another marvelous idea.
Linda,
I am so glad I came across Inklingo on the internet and got curious enough to find out what it was. You method has opened a new world for me in quilting. I have been making blocks I would have never even attempted with the regular way of piecing. Thank you so very much!
Tammy in VA
I really want the hexagon inklingo because I am dying to finish a quilt with hexies. I love them but it is not in the budget for me. Thanks for this chance!!
I’m still working on my hexies with inklingo, but would love to start either a POTC or a castle wall quilt or a celtic solstice or…or…or……
I am enjoying my first foray in Inklingo.
Inklingo and Lucy Boston rock!
I just discovered inklingo i can’t wait to use it. i have been searching for a cowgirl and have discovered that there is not one in print allready si I’m gonna give you guys a try thank you for you ad in quilt life otherwise id never known you were out there.
I am just discovering Inklingo and am really looking forward to trying it out. I just have to decide which pattern to start with
I’m new to Inklingo and excited to try Storm at Sea with this method. I hope to download soon, but I’m also interested in the crosses of Lucy Boston – Beautiful!! Spring Break is fast approaching so I will decide and start printing so I have plenty to sew – at the beach, at the park, next to the pool – I can’t wait!!!
Linda, I still remember the excitement of your DJ blocks that were elongated to triangles. So beautiful. I’m lucky to have won a bag you made with the DJ elongated. Then came Ink Lingo which should be 4 on your list. What would Lucy have become if she had had Ink Lingo. I don’t have to wonder. It is an astounding invention. It has made a great difference for us quilters. Can’t wait to see the article in The Quilt Life about Lucy Boston.
PS Tony Bennett and Diana Krall are two of my favorites.
I’m new to Inklingo and can’t wait to try it. My printer is ready to go!
I picked up your “Lucy Boston: Patchwork of the Crosses” book at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show one week ago today. In the meantime I’ve become a tiny bit . . . well . . . obsessed! Lucy’s inspiring quilt, your simplified method, and some fabric I purchased years ago are going to come together into something special. Since inklingo is so fabric conservative, I’m going to need more of your patterns to use up the leftovers. 🙂
Love the look of this. Love Inklingo. Thanks for a chance to win a gift certificate.
I just started / am trying to use them. what a great idea.
Thanks for the give away
Love the Lucy Boston POTC quilt! Love Inklingo too! Thanks for the opportunity to when a gift certificate.
What An inspiring lady!
The Lucy Boston blocks are beautiful! Can’t wait to give this pattern a try.
I want to get the Lucy Boston patchwork of the crosses so much but hubby put my hobby on a budget
I love Inklingo! It’s as simple as that! Thank you.
Thanks for a chance to win $50 certificate! Really enjoyed your info on Lucy Boston. I think I will subscribe to The Quilt Life, sounds like a magazine I would enjoy.