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 !