Chevron and Swoon Quilting

 

These cool Chevrons belong to Barb.  Barb talked about wanting the chevrons to continue out into the borders and then the rest was up to me.

 

 



 

This quilt is huge.  The outer borders alone are 14" wide.

 

 

These are all the threads I used along the way. 

 

 The pictures have a blue tinge to  them from the afternoon light.

 I tried to edit this one to show the quilting a little better, but I don't think I should play around with them again....

 this is the original.  The top and bottom borders have a row of chevrons created with quilting, the same as the coloured chevrons and then straight lines out to the edge.

 The colours used are just lovely.  The fabric is from a Moda range called Bluebird Park by Kate & Birdie Paper Co.

 Another photo I played with.  Straight line along the Chevrons...

  and curls in the backgrounds. The same quilting that is in the chevrons and background are extended out into the side borders. The chevrons are made with Half Square Triangles. Simple but effective.

 

 Here is the back showing some of the quilting.

 

There was a lot of marking done before I could even start the quilting, but so worth it.

 The grey is looking mauve in this picture.  The colours are just lovely and fresh against the white background.

 I loved this quilt and so did Barb.  She is very happy with how it has turned out.  So happy that Barb called me several hours after picking it up to let me know that the quilt was just perfect on the bed at home.

The past week I also got to quilt a Swoon quilt for Wendy.  I love this quilt, along with many many other quilters in the world.

 Set up ready to go

Wendy asked for Baptist Fans, they are just the perfect  thing for this quilt, just like the original

 Photos again taken in the backyard in the afternoon, so the light is not perfect

 Wendy used Scrumptious by  Bonnie and Camille.  Love this fabric as well.

 

It was very hard to hand these two quilts back to their owners, sometimes my job is not fun.

 

And I have been doing some hand piecing at night, trying to get some more quilts finished to quilt top stage.  I still have more pieces to put together, but it does go together quickly, this part anyway.

 

 

 

 

At the End of the Day

I got most of what I wanted or was on my Wish List for the day done.  I knew not all of it would be where I had hoped because there will always be other things that come along and slow you down.

So here is where I started just to recap

The yellow quilt was so very close to together at the start of the day.  Now here it is all together.  This is a Christmas gift, so far I am on track to have it done by then. 

 

I just love it.  The pattern is called Star Blossoms by Kim Brackett from her book called Scrap Basket Beauties by Martingale books.  The orginal has 12 blocks mine is 16 blocks and measures 65 x65.  It was super easy and quick to make.  Next is to quilt it.

I did get the bundles of fabric cut, not as far as I had hoped but I was getting tired at the end of the day and thought it was better not to cut them, just in case I stuff it up.  These are for Metro Hoops quilt by Sew Kind of Wonderful.  I am teaching this on August 16th at The Patchwork Angel. There is already a sample in the shop, this one will be a little different. It will also be bigger than the pattern size also.

And I got the borders pieced for the Fat Quarter Shop 2013 Mystery Quilt. Many Flying Geese units pieced and then sewn into the border strips.  Very happy with them, the border strips are the length I need to fit my quilt top.

So there you go.  I had tried to load these pictures last week but something wouldn't work right to make it happen.  Most probably it was user error.  Anyway here they are for you to enjoy

Keep stitching

Fiona

Ready set

Go

Home alone this morning. 

Have this pile to work on ..... And laundry and food shopping

Lone Star Class

Last Saturday I taught the second part of  the Lone Star quilt at The Patchwork Angel.  The girls all had their 8 star points pieced.  We had started piecing these in the first class.  So this last class was sewing the background to the star points then sewing the star together.

I was very excited to see the Lone Stars come together.  And when they did the results were beautiful.

Here they are,

Vicki's purple pansy's and gold

Deb's shades of blue

Kathryn's blues, greens and yellow

 

Jenny made hers in Christmas colours and prints

Gail used purple batiks with blue and hot pink mixed in

Bridget had an Aboringal print as a focus and great tone on tones to highlight

Deb has greens and a great aqua

 

 I love teaching this class, every one has a different set of fabrics and creates a different feel to all the others.  So if you are thinking about making a Lone Star quilt I will be teaching this again in October and November this year at The Patchwork Angel.  I would love to see your interpretation of this stunning quilt.

 

 

 



White Wedding Hexagons

I finished the hexagons, yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a close up of the piecing....

 

I started basting my hexagons at the same time my son started Kart racing.  This was something to do while in car and to also help with my anxiety with my son racing around a track at great speeds.  So two and half years later I am done piecing.

 

I have used Civil War Reproduction fabrics for the pieced diamonds and many random Shirtings, from white backgrounds to tans,  for the neutral sashings 

 

this is a big quilt, 114" x 91", it does not fit in my camera screen,

These are 1" hexagons and I have no idea or want to know, how many I have pieced into this top.  I do have heaps of leftovers that have just been put away with my hexagon papers, not to be touched for maybe a year or two.  I am kind of  done with hexagons.  I have started another EPP project for Karting road trips, the papers have a 45 degree angle this time.

It looks different from this angle.  I just love this quilt and hope to get it quilted one day now, just trying to find the perfect backing......  I am counting this as a finish though.



I hope you like it also.

Found them

Everyone can stop looking now.  I found my pictures on the Ipad.

This is Celtic Solstice, designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.  This was the 2013 Mystery quilt.  if you decide you would like this quilt also, quickly head over to Bonnie Hunters site to get the instructions.  As of June 1st 2014 it will no longer be available on her site.  It will be included in a book in the future.

This was a great quilt to learn several techniques from Bonnie Hunter.  I especially wanted to make the star block with the black points.  When this block is combined with a second block it creates that dark curved circle secondary pattern. Loved it.

My version uses different colours to the original.  it was a leap of faith for me to change them and not know how it would look in the end, but I just gave it a go trusting that the colours I chose do go together.  My friend Jenny helped me nail down the final choice of colour groups.  I did want to have pink in there, but it was just not going to work no matter I chose.   I just hoped I had the values/colours in the right place at the end of the process.  I used Civil War Reproduction prints mostly.   Blacks, oranges, reds, greens and shirtings for the backgrounds.  All colour groups have many different prints with some having the other colours used on them.

The mystery quilt is offered in 2 sizes, so I made mine somewhere inbetween.  I had some units leftover and pieced them into the back.  At this stage it is quilted.  I am now hand stitching the binding down. I have used the same orange as the last border.

 

This should be FINISHED soon, in time to put on the bed for winter.

 

Thank you Bonnie for a great quilt, looking forward to doing it again.

Random Bits

Hi again everyone

I don't have alot to talk about, I have been busy but without much to show for it personally.  Most of my time has been working on customer quilts, not complaining at all.  I am still working away on my hexagons that I have shown several times before, so I wont bore you with that again, but it is getting closer to being a complete top.  I have all the rows together, and it is huge, and am now filling in the gaps around the edges.  I love this quilt and will show a picture of the top soon, i hope.

So, to show you what has been filling in my days.  This beautiful quilt belongs to Jane, I had fun with this quilt and had trouble handing this one back.

This next quilt belongs to Barb N and was another one I had trouble handing back.  This is The Circle Game quilt by Jenny Kingwell and looks stunning with the black background and all Kaffe fabrics for the piecing.  That lime gree in the sashing is just perfect for the whole quilt

I really like this block

 

 I did get to quilt two of my quilt, but can't find a picture of the second one at this time.  I wil look for it or take another one shortly.

This is a mini version of my Pretty Clamshells.  It didn't take too long to quilt on a quiet Saturday morning.  I have it now hanging in my sewing room and just love it.

This is the back of Pretty Clamshells showing how I quilted each clam with feathers.  The backing fabric is one of the piecing I Ice Dyed last year.  The colours are perfect. I have crossed this one off my long list of Tops to Be Quilted. and it is bound to

This is next picture is still in need of borders.  It is from Bonnie Hunter and is called Nine in the Middle. It is a great scrap quilt and has been easy to put together so far.  I have a border still to piece but need some more scraps cut to size to continue.  This top also still needs a good press.

 

 

 

Just after Easter, hubby, kids and I went to Melbourne for a few days.  We had a great time, I hope to remember to share photos one day.  We did a day trip to Sovereign Hill in country Victoria.  It is a place showing life in the Gold Fields in the early days of the goldrush.  So in one of the homes there was a quilt and it just happened to be hexagons.  So of course I had to take a picture. I don't think it is an antique, but at least it fit the time period.



 



 

I did take some basting to do on our trip and here is what I got done.  These are tiny pieces so it looks alot done but in not alot of time. The down side of this is that I will need heaps and heaps of them to make any sort of decent size quilt...... on I go with them.

 

 

So that is all I have for now, hope you liked the photos.  I am off to  sew some more hexies together for the edges while trying to stay warm.  We are having some cold nights lately.

 

keep sewing