Quilted top

My friend Teresa gave me this quilt top she made when I last visited her in Portugal, last August.
She did such a great job I wanted to get it quilted and bound so I could display it around my home. So I finally quilted it and looks beautiful !
Thank you Teresa.


I have done a few more blocks for the "Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014" and I used the Disappearing Pinwheel block this week.

 

With the same technique but swapping the placements another blocks emerges.



I went shopping this week at Darn Cheap Fabrics and came away with these !!!

Close up of the neutrals...

The blues...

Civil War reproductions, some by Jo Morton...

Some will be used as sashings for a couples of quilt blocks I have had for a while...

I have a couple of other projects in hand but not ready to show, so until next time, happy quilting and leave me a comment or let me know what's inspiring you...

I have been published !

The latest copy of "Down Under Quilts" magazine came out this week and it has my project on the cover.

The theme is "Australia" and the editor asked me to produce a project to fit the theme, so the table runner is what I came up with.

 

 

There are many other lovely projects featured with a variety of designs and skill levels.

 

Here is the project on page 44.

 

 

And page 45. 

 

I had made the project back in September but was not allowed to say that it was for the magazine.

 

 It seems to be a day for magazines and books; every year I have my blog printed and today I received the printed copy with all the blog postings for the year 2013.

 

Marvellous bugs , Hawaiian Quilt and Wool quilt top

 

This is a Melobasis species from the beetle family Buprestidae, commonly referred to as Jewel Beetles. You can find these and thousands of other pictures of these wonderful creatures from Australia in My friend Nick's website  .





 

And if you are wondering what the connection is with quilting, perhaps not much apart from the fact that the following photos were also taken by Nick at his home.  

 

This is a quilt I started last July  and I have been working on it on and off.

The applique blocks are made from wool using blanket stitch. With all the points and curves I decided to stitch it by hand and the cutting of each motif also took a while to do.

The rest of the blocks are machine pieced using civil war reproduction fabrics.

The pattern came from a store called The Quilted Crow .

 

 

 

I'm going to set it aside for now as I have other projects that need to be quilted soon, starting with the quilt top below I completed earlier in the week.

 

This top was made with a red and blue Hawaiian themed fabrics that I purchased a few years ago in Honolulu when I went on a cruise around the islands.

 

Using the other solid fabrics I had in my stash;  the yellow, orange and black made the quilt very vibrant.
The pattern comes from Bonnie Hunter's free patterns called Bricks and Stepping Stones .

I hope to quilt it soon as it is a birthday gift for early February.

 

Tomorrow I am hoping to blog about something exciting... related to quilting !

 

Celtice Solstice - Reveal, Angels quilt and other quilting

The mystery quilt is no longer a mystery and many of us were quite surprised that the clues were over and it was time to make up the blocks. I have made some blocks. 
 
I quite like them but made mine slightly different to enhance the contrast. Although I used a lot of different fabrics it would have been better to use only the darker shades (ie not light pinks or light greens).   But it still looks nice  and a second pattern emerges  when looked at it from afar.




 

Finally finished quilting, binding and labelling the Angels quilt below.

I think I started this quilt over 10 years ago. After doing all the applique (blanket stitch) blocks they sat for a long time before  I decided to join all the blocks and only recently I decided to machine quilt it.  

   

The photographs don't show how beautiful it turned out.

Close-ups.

I used a variegated thread of cream, pink and brown.

What else have I been doing ? 
I have made some blue blocks as part of the Rainbown Scrap Challenge . Each month we work on a project(s) with the colour selected and this month is blue.  All the fabrics are from my stash and I am using some of my least favourite fabrics.
 

I have a lot of solid fabrics so I was trying out some blocks but not too successful.
It's all part of the creative process and I already have some 'plans' in mind of what to do with some these blocks.


This week I visited IKEA and could not resist buying these plates to hang up above the bay window in my studio.

And as a good start to the weekend we went for a lovely meal at Miss Marples in Sassafras, a lovely village up on the mountains, not so far from where I live. The weather was lovely and there are many quaint shops to indulge...

 

 

Such as this store with a huge variety of teas and tea pots...

  

 

 

Off to a good start ... Part 5 - Celtic Solstice and other fun...

Happy 2014 !

 

Part 5 of Celtic Solstice is complete.

This time I decided to start the blocks after checking out others postings as quilters came up with various methods of doing this block "Birds in the Air" (my birds have landed !) or also called "Shaded Four Patch" or "Hidden Square"  and even "Mary's Triangles".  In the end I used Bonnie's instructions using the Easy Angle ruler.

I am happy with the results.

 

The bird fabric sculptures were a gift from my talented friend Lynne and as usual, her creativity and beautiful crafted pieces are always a huge inspiration to me. We spent a whole day together this week in my sewing cottage and had such a fun day !

As part of my research for this block I looked into  Deb Tucker technique;  she uses her speciality ruler "Tucker Trimmer" which I don't have but there were two other ways I explored  to make this block. One method was foundation paper piecing Generations Quilt Patterns site   has this free block and many others in various sizes.  The easiest free tutorial I found was in Kati's blog. With her tutorial we don't need any specially rulers and no triangles are involved, so I had a play and came up with these blocks using my scraps. I would like to make an entire quilt using this method.

 

Let me share what else I have been doing:
My daughter loves cats so she asked me to make her a cat quilt to hang on her bedroom wall.  For a while now I have been following this Cat Quilt-along  and although there are various cat blocks I have decided to use the same block throughout the quilt. 
These are my practice blocks. The pieces are very small so I will be using scraps from my stash.

 

 

With a few days off from work I feel so relaxed to play even more with my scraps... these are 2 1/2 " blocks... got the idea from Bonnie Hunter.

The jelly roll was a gift from my friend Lynne... 

I played some more this week but I'll leave you with my latest favourite block...
Anita Grossman Solomon's block "Arrowhead" which I learnt from a Craftsy's class I purchased recently. 

I have some 'plans' for this block, so keep tuned....

Lynne and I enjoying afternoon tea....