Finished Scrap Quilt

Finally finished the top that I have been working on for a few weeks !
But before I show you the entire quilt here is the fabric I used for the border...
When I set eyes on this fabric I just loved the quirkiness of the design and had to have it.

The fun part of doing these quilts is the excitement of playing with lots and lots of fabrics.

Going over my stash and selecting fabrics that read as 'white' to contrast enough and still have as much variety as possible.

And this is the other block.

 

 

I love scrap quilts more and more and this time I gave these blocks some 'controlled scrappiness'. 

 

And here is the entire quilt.

The original pattern is called "Roll Roll Cotton Boll" designed by Bonnie Hunter.  The original pattern had  different border but after trying various options I settled for a one fabric border.

This is my third quilt using Bonnie's patterns and I have another one started which is not a main project but to be done when I feel like playing with my scraps.

One of things I learnt from Bonnie's style is to look as all fabrics as useful and not in isolation even when they are dated.

 

And here is the final quilt !

My aim now is to quilt it in time to have it in my bed by Spring !

Mini Log Cabin - playing with scraps

I have been making these 4 1/2 inch blocks for a while to use up some of my tiny scraps.
I used thin interfacing as foundation.
There were over 100 blocks stacked up so it was a good time to join them up.
I wasn't sure what configuration to place them as they had been randomly sewn, so this is what I came up with. I hope you can see a star in the centre...

This is a close up of some of the blocks....
I used fabrics from all collections, some I no longer like, from leftover projects and some are years old but when it's all in the mix they look just fine.
I think I will continue to add more blocks as I enjoy making these cuties....

I also completed all the blocks for my current scrap quilt  (Queen size) but haven't decided what the border is going to look like. It has been a fair bit of work with so many scraps in each block but it has been worth it !

Catching up after a long absence - quilt, books and fabrics

It's been several weeks since I last posted on this blog but it does not mean I haven't been quilting.  In fact I have been working with a lot of fabric !
For those quilters who are familiar with Bonnie Hunter  it's well known that her patterns take a large amount of scraps and some of the blocks have many pieces which take a fair bit of time to make in spite of using quick piecing techniques.  And that's precisely what I have been doing.
The blocks are all done but not pieced together; so until that is done I will not post any pictures but here are a few clues; the colours I chose are very different from Bonnie's quilt, the pattern comes from one of her books and there are a lot of strings in the blocks....

To give myself a break from this quilt and also because I wanted to learn how to do a "faced binding" on a quilt I made this small quilt using an old charm pack and some other matching prints.

Then I loaded it on the long-arm and quilted it.  I'll be sending it to my mom.

Let me also tell you what else I have been doing;
Yesterday I went to see the Waverley Patchworkers Quilt Show.  They had a lot of varied and beautiful quilts. It was very inspiring to see all the quilts including the member's challenge display (see below, some of these). These girls are very creative and many have exhibited and won many prizes in the USA.

One of my small quilts has been featured in the latest Down Under Quits magazine.

   

I have taken advantage of a couple of book and fabric sales recently;

For sometime now I have been wanting to build up a collection of batiks so I started with this collection by Benartex  (Fossil Ferns) and a few others to supplement.
The box includes 90 fat quarters and I also got some other batiks.
I have a few projects in mind to use them but until then I am happy to feast my eyes on these beauties.

 

 

The books I got have some interesting projects as well as techniques to learn so I am looking forward to start one of the projects from the book 'Angles with Easy' and the ruler.

I am expecting to be very busy at work in the next two weeks so let's see how much I am going to achieve to be able to blog.