Anne of Green Gables

Margaret asked me, pretty please to show pictures of Mrs. Furui's Anne of Green Gables quilt kit that she bought so while I was visiting yesterday I took pictures... I guess this post is for Margaret.

Mrs. Furui has been working on redwork for a quilt to be donated to the hospital where she volunteers. There is a group of ladies whom I've never met, that she is guiding towards making things for the hospital. Their first project has been a redwork Anne of Green Gables.

Actually this was also a kit of stamped embroidery patterns that have sat in Mrs. Furui's closet for years and so she pulled it out and divied it up between the ladies (and me). There were 9 patterns in the first kit and most of us have finished the redwork. (I did the church.)

But somewhere along the line Mrs. Furui decided she wanted to make a bigger quilt with stars in every other block so she really needs 12 redwork designs... And there she was at a stand still until we went together to the quilt shop last week... and found a different Anne of Green Gables quilt kit, this one also red work but with the fabrics and batting and backing included. Different redwork designs so you can see Mrs. Furui's brain turning and figuring out how she could choose three more designs and incorporate them in the original project and also make a complementary quilt with this kit.


Mrs. Furui doesn't like the tipsy topsy setting in this kit but here is a picture of what the finished product is supposed to look like if she did it this way...

We laughed (Mrs. Furui noticed it before me) that the new kit has a block called "Red Hair Anne". That is surely a literal translation if ever there was one! In Japanese, the book is called Akage no Anne, (akage means red-hair), and Green Gables never gets near the title. So I guess this is an original Japanese quilt block. Red-hair Anne? I think Mrs. Furui will leave the words off of that block. Even "Anne's Country Life" in the first kit is better than that!

One of the nicest things about this kit was the backing provided... a half yard of scenic fabric depicting Prince Edward Island, the home of Anne. Unfortunately the quilt shop no longer has anymore of this fabric (just this swatch in the kit) because it was extremely popular with Green Gable fans. Can you see Anne in the buggy in the first picture?

I hope that whets your appetite for Red-Hair Anne... as they say in Japan.