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.

 

 

 

 

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.

A day or two or three late.....Finishes

Did everyone have a lovely Australia Day long weekend.  We went camping with friends and had a great time.  At our peak we had 16 kids camping with us, the kids had a great time with plenty of friends to play with.

Over the past week I managed to finish another book.  I never finish a book this quickly, but I do like this author, Matthew Reilly. Matthew is an Australia and writes great action books with a good bit of history.  My son gave me this book for xmas and was waiting for me to read it, I read it very quickly staying up late some nights to finish "this bit, I have to know how this bit ends".

 

I prepped the flowers for the applique borders I showed last post.  The flowers started out as 4 patches.. drew circle and basted around the circle

 

I then pulled the basting thread around a mylar circle from Karen K Buckley, and spray starched and press the heck out of it.




Removed the mylar when the fabric had cooled, they are now ready to applique.

Here they are all stitched down. Now onto the 72 leaves and 48 berries still needed for the borders.

The summer school holidays ended and off to school the kids went, kind of happy, kind of not. Every year at the end of the first day the kids and I go get ice cream and chat about their teachers, classmates and the school.  The kids love the ice cream

And here they are on the beach, we always do this shot.... love them kiddos




















Not much Finished this week, but progress was made.  I did get some binding done and will show that in another post with lots of pictures.

Have a good week everyone

The past weeks Finishes

I  have had some success this week with crossing some jobs off "The List" and some others that were not even on "The List".

 

I did finish all the blocks for the Bonnie Hunter, Celtic Solstice. 

 

But first, I bought a White Xmas tree.  I have always wanted one and this one I got for $10, down from $69.99.... how could I not take it home with me, it is even a 6ft tall tree, not a tiny one.  Now I have a year to work out were it will go in the house..

 

I got some happy squishy mail this week. Several 19th Century squares in gorgeous colours, for now they are with the rest of them safe and sound in a pretty box waiting to be used, hopefully soon...



Now onto a finish or two.  The quilt below is my oldest UFO that is a Complete Top.  I have older UFO's but they are not complete as yet.  I made this top about 7 years ago, before I got my Longarm machine and was going to use this to practice on after a little while, but as you can see that didn't happen.  Two years ago I started to quilt it, but my machine played up badly and I had to take it off the frame, get a mechanic in to fix my machine. In the meantime I unpicked the quilting and by the time I got that finished I was well into customer quilts again and had no time to quilt it again.  Until this week, I was determined to get it done.  My machine played up again as I started to quilt, but I got it sorted and kept going and TADA done.



The curtains below were not on The List at all, they were only something I would like to do someday.  They are for the campervan, "Bluebell".  I made 8 very, very basic curtains, hoping to pretty up the van, for our next camping trip.



This is a picture of the inside of the van with the old curtains, very ugly, now it is pretty..


I got the vine and stems finished all 4 borders done, now onto the flowers and leaves, hoping to get them prepped and ready to sew shortly. But yay to getting the vines done !!!!


We had another Karting race day this past weekend, stinking hot day, my son got a 2nd place trophy for the day. I got these hexagons basted in the car, not many this time, but still some is better than none.



Last year I started the Scrappy Trip Around the World with the rest of the world.  What I did do was as I saw family and friends, adults and kids, I asked them to pick out strips for a block. It was interesting to see how each person picked colours.  Some were even a bit scared to, it helped me get the blocks done with out over thinking it all.  I even got my 2 year old niece to pick out 6 strips, it took me about and hour but we got there and she did very well.

Here it is all quilted and looking gorgeous. I love this quilt, the colours, the family and friends willingness to help me and be part of my passion.  I would make this again.



Here is the back, an orange on white print from Moda, perfect. I used a variegated thread on top and a solid orange on the back.  I have the binding, aqua, machined on waiting to be hand stitched down this week.




I finished reading "To Kill a Mockingbird".  I didn't read this in High School and had always wanted to read and have finally finished and enjoyed it.  I would now like to see the movie, the one with Gregory Peck in it, and see how it compares to the book. Has anyone seen the movie, is it close to the book ??????

 

School holidays are nearly over for the kids.  My daughter spent a whole day making these items for her dolls.  These are tiny items, I put a 10c coin in the middle there to get a size perspective.  Felicity's dolls are now ready for a new year at school, pens, books, laptop, calculator, school bag, so cool

 

 

These are some of the blocks I hope to work on throughout the year.  The blocks finish at 7", so some of the pieces are tiny and cut at odd sizes, this is going to be an exercise in accuracy and patience.

 

 

I found in my collection of rulers the Marsha McCloskey Feathered Star Ruler, it has increments for 1/8th's and 16th's and have found it very handy cutting fabric for the sampler blocks, still have to piece what I have cut so far, so fingers crossed all goes together nicely..

 

 

Well that is everything I got done this past week, how did you do???? Let me know.

 

 I will leave you with one last picture of my favourite quilt, can you tell I love this one.

 

 

have a good week, keep stitching, each finished step will get you closer to completing those UFO's

 

 

 

Celebrate the small finishes

Hi All

I have been working away on a few things and am calling the steps as Finishes.  Sometimes you need the small ones to keep you going towards the big Finishes.

 

This is block 7 of the 2013 Mystery BOM from Fat Quarter Shop.  There are 12 blocks in total, so half way through the blocks, but I have made all that I have received so far. 

 

This finish is actually a quilt I am teaching at The Patchwork Angel on Saturday 15th February.  I have called it Spring Picnic.  It is a big quilt, using 2 Jelly Rolls and white solid for the sashings, very easy to make it smaller.  I love this Finish.  Call the shop to book in..

Now don't think I have worked my butt off to get this to a completed top.  I had pieced the strips late last year and only needed to make the sashing and put together, done.  It still needs to be quilted, maybe this week, I would like to bind in a navy stripe, but am not finding something I like as yet.



We had a little road trip this past Sunday and I got these hexagons basted in the car.



This is two more diamonds pieced together.  The above hexagons will be pieced into these units for this quilt.



I have a hand pieced quilt that needs applique borders to complete it, here is the vines and stems completed on 2 of them. The third is started, when all 4 have the vines then I will work on the flowers so I can get some balance to the colours.  I had put off doing this for about a year now, so very happy it is coming along. Oh look my toes made it into the photo



I have had a sampler pattern for ages and thought I would start it by cutting and piecing as I have fabric already out on my cutting table.  Block 1 done but will have to wait and see how well I stick to this plan...



And every project needs cute storage to keep it safe for when it gets forgotten....



and finally the Bonnie Hunter Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt.  Here is my pile of alternate blocks, I think there is 42 here


Still working on the Star Blocks, I have about 6 or 7 still to go, but have run out of the 4 patches



here I have played them the placement of the blocks.  I was a bit worried about my choices, but it is going to come very close to how I pictured it in my head, don't you like that when the finished quilt comes close to the vision...



NO quilt comes together perfectly, at some point you have to do some unpicking. This is the first time I will have to unpick, didn't even notice until after I ironed this block..

Now all of this has been worked on since about the start of the year, not all this week.  This is all about seeing the progress, you know yourself that some days you know you have been busy but feel you have nothing to show for it.  This is for me to look back at the end of the year and see what I have accomplished and remember what I did.

Thanks for making it to the end of another long post, I hope you enjoyed the pictures.. What small steps did you get FINISHED this week

lots of love and Finishing wishes to you all