Horsham Patchwork Quilters Show

The Horsham Patchwork Quilters group had their show the last weekend of May, in our local town hall.  The venue is ideal but very very large, with wonderful high ceilings.

Having discovered a new found interest in curves I was drawn to this drunkards path.  However it also caught my attention because I have a few of these fabrics in my stash as well!
A lot of quilts looked tiny when hanging in this lovely space! 

I have previously made Scrappy Trips from my 2.5" stash of strips but I fell in love with this wonderful pretty, happy and bright quilt made by Pam Capstick.  

 

I love the way she used the lovely colours in this quilt to create the background colour wash and was super impressed with the amount of work in hand piecing all those blocks.

Lots of gorgeous detail (from doilies and embroidery) in this quilt. Up close shot you can see the pieced hexagons with a mix of diamonds and triangles that helps creates that lovely detail.

A second quilt (well wall hanging size) was made by Kaye Hoffman from old doilies, buttons, lace and ric rac.  It really caught my attention because I knew I had a small collection of these at home.  But my mother gifted me all the doilies and fancy work that she had been handed down through the family.  So there is no excuse for me to not make something similar! 

We normally have a challenge at our shows (held every two years) but this year for something different we were asked to make a neonatal quilt (24") and this is mine.  Honestly I made it in a day, using what I had in my stash, but it is one of my favourite makes for the year!  

I really liked this modern version (made by Faye Woodhart) and think I will try making this in a larger block with some of my novelty scraps.

All the neonatal quilts were then taken home for washing by the coordinator and will be delivered to the Very Snuggly Quilt Coordinator of the Victorian Quilters guild in July, who then distribute them to the babies being cared for at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.

Happy quilting Sue

Beth’s baskets by Jo Morton

Are you bored yet?  For weeks now I have been finishing things, all in time for our exhibition!  This is another UFO that I dusted off to make our late May deadline. 

I started this pattern Beths Baskets from Jo Morton's book Jo's Little Favorites a long time ago.

I have in fact made the baskets twice, because the first attempt was awful.  I unpicked them all, remade them and they were still awful, so my cutting must have been off.  Sew I started from scratch!  Which explains the extended periods in the naughty corner for this wall hanging - time is a good healer ; )

I love the pink fabric in the setting triangles but it is a dirty pink bordering on coral and has been very hard to match.   I had  put a top/bottom border on in the brown stripe, which satisfied my need for symmetry, but made the quilt too heavy.  When I checked the pattern, Jo Morton had just used three vertical sashings.  But she had another chocolate floral print as cornerstones in the border, which looked lovely and balanced out the contrast.  

After several failed attempts to buy the perfect border fabric (and at half a yard each they were expensive mistakes) I decided to just use this one and stop wasting time and money.  Once I made that decision I didn't bother trying to find another fabric, as there is such a thing as too much pink and brown in your stash!

Deciding on binding was an easier chore.  I normally play it safe and use the border fabric for binding, but I had plenty of hot pink used in one of the baskets, which I think gave a nice contrast.  I used my quilting from the back trick again for the cables in the sashing- as much as I love Frixon pens for marking, I have the color come out of the fabric when I ironed the pen markings away.  So marking from the back seemed like a good solution.

I own a few quilting stencils, this is the first time I have really used this one in the outer border....it makes a great pattern that I am in love with.  Combined with some free motion quilted in the setting triangles, this would have to be the most quilting I have ever done on a mini, but I am super pleased with the outcome.

Happy quilting Sue.

Kim Diehl Warm Regards quilt finished!

I have been working on my version of Kim Diehl's Warm Regards quilt for over a year.  I started this quilt with two friends, after Lisa gave me the book Simple Friendships as a birthday gift and pointed out the patterns by Kim Diehl and Jo Morton were designed for friendship swaps.  

Instead of swapping blocks we each made our own version of this quilt.  I normally use a more subdued palette, but decided to use as many brights as I felt comfortable with, which turned out to be a lot!  I also stretched my comfort zone to include black in some of the pieced blocks.  Kim Diehls pattern calls for yo yo flowers, but I chose to needle turn applique mine (and only used red and pink) using the Perfect Circles and starch and was very pleased with the results.

Lisa made the Jo Morton version of the quilt (no applique just pieced cross blocks) but amended it to add a centre of yo yos, as she loves yo yos!  Vicki made the Kim Diehl version, also appliqued her berries, but she choose a black background but followed the scrappy colours theme of the berries. 

Vicki is a long arm quilter and texted me in late February to say that she had a custom cancellation for March and I could have the spot if I wanted.  It was the push I needed to finish the border and I got it to her in time.  In a nod to Jo Morton I found a piece of JM fabric in my stash that was big enough to make a backing from, which I was delighted about. There was lots of consulting as I have only ever had one quilt custom quilted before.

Post delivery of completed quilt I found this little wing was not completely stitched down by me..big opps!  So glad that the machine foot didn't get caught in it while Vicki was quilting.
I am delighted with the outcome!   

Happy quilting Sue

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Star Quilt finished!

A collection of scraps, sewn together into blocks each month in nominated Rainbow Scrap Challenge colours - whats not to love about this beauty!

Yeah another finish in time for our exhibition at the end of May! 

This quilt measures 56 x 56" and is made up of 8" star blocks.  I cut up my accumulated scraps using my Go Cutter 2.5" square and half square triangle dies.  This is one of the blocks that I made with that combination of pieces.  Because you can get a triangle out of most scraps, I have ended up with a LOT of these star blocks.

This year I havent sewn a single new block for RSC, which makes me sad.  However I did make this top in January, during the heat of summer and it has been waiting to be quilted ever since.

In the end I gave it to my long arm quilting friend Vicki Jenkin because I knew I was running out of time to quilt it myself.  And I was very aware that lots of the intersections were very lumpy from so many seams...sorry Vicki!

So while I have been finishing minis quilts and sewing hanging sleeves ready for our show, Vicki has finished this quilt for me, using a much loved all over pattern called Asti (like the bubbly wine I guess!) in a turquoise thread, which just makes the fun rainbow of colours come alive. I am really pleased with this quilt!

Happy quilting Sue.

Temecula Quilt Co sampler

Temecula Quilt Company ran a free sew along for a mini quilt sampler in June 2017. I started the sew along with blocks from scraps, in a variety of colours and a second version in pinks and reds.

By October 2017 all the red and pink blocks were completed and sewn together with sashing.  Which clearly I didn't like and changed to add cornerstones!

Then on camp in April 2019 I found the completed flimsy and started quilting it.

Quilting the sampler was easy as I just did in the ditch, but when your up close and personal all the mistakes hit you in the eye.  I just kept going.....finished is far preferable then to adding another UFO to the collection!

So finally a finish for this old UFO and  it was in time for our exhibition.  Now to hunt down the multi coloured blocks and see where they are at!

Happy quilting Sue.

Antique mini quilt, pattern by Ann Hermes

After a lot of searching on my blog I found a single  image of this mini quilt, which I apparently started in March 2017.  I don't know how long it took to put the border on, but I am sure that it was the border that was the reason it spent two years in the naughty corner!

I like things to be symmetrical and I just had to accept this was not going to happen with these tiny pieces.  The important thing is the quilt is  now completed (after pulling the house apart to find a matching scrap of blue for the binding) and I am happy!  Because it is blue and white all is forgiven :).  This mini will appear on my lounge room wall after our exhibition in late May....something else will have to come down, but its time for a change!

Pattern by Ann Hermes based on an antique quilt, published in American  Patchwork and Quilting magazine February 2011, finished size 17" x 17".

Happy quilting Sue.  

Broken dishes done

It was easy to quilt in the ditch around the half square triangles but knowing what to quilt in the border was entirely a different matter!

Then once a decision had been made there was the issue of being able to see the quilting pattern I had drawn.  I tried various markers I had and none worked on this dark red :(  Might also have something to do with me needing new glasses?

So I quilted it from the back!  I had already stitched around the border, so I could easily determine the space I had available.  Because the only suitable able stencil was a little too narrow for the border, I filled it out with some echo quilting.  Then put folded squares of homespun on two corners for hanging pockets and a third (with folded side stitched down this time) on a third to form the label.  Done!  The backing was a lovely quilters homespun purchased while I was on camp.  I have never used homespun as a backing before, but definitely going to do it for all my wall hangings in the future.  

Happy quilting Sue.