Little Quilt swap

This year I finally participated in Lori's of Humble Quilts blog,  Little Quilt swap  I've been meaning to join in previous years but had always missed the sign up deadline :(

So here is the lovely little quilt I received from Christy, all the way from the USA, isn't it adorable?Thank you Christy & also a big thanks to Lori for organizing this great swap :)

 You can view all the gorgeous little quilts made & swapped at Lori's linky party here

.....and here is the small quilt I made & sent off to Mary

 Whilst I had all the repro scraps out & was in the mood, I also knocked out a few more small quilt tops, some of them just to use up little orphan blocks I had lying around.

Just need to crack on & get these hand quilted next!

Hand Quilting

Where have I been you may wonder?

Well, remember these above? That became this below

I decided I wanted to have a go at hand quilting baptist fans on this scrappy repro log cabin in order to keep this quilt as traditional as possible.

I used these washable fine tipped markers and some circle templates to mark the rows of fans

...........as I didn't trust my skills at doing these freehand

Loving the look of these fans & the texture they create

Almost done......

Ta dah, all finished!

 and washed (the marker washed out perfectly)

 Look at all the texture, love it.

Here it is in all it's glory, this quilt finished at single bed/generous lap size, which was big enough for my first big hand quilting project.

Small Quilts

In between bouts of hand quilting I've managed to keep up with the Small Quilt Talk group monthly challenges set by Kathy Tracy:

April's challenge - Contrary wife block

May's challenge was a beautiful Sweet Pea pattern that Kathy designed and published the free pattern on her website here

..........and my interpretation of June's challenge, Flowerpot applique from her book, Remembering Adelia. A bit different to the original pattern, I admit I got just a little carried away doing my own thing here! lol

Here we have a possible layout of how I'm planning on joining these together "Quilt as You Go" method to make one large quilt. As I've mentioned before these little quilts are very good practice for improving my machine piecing and hand quilting. Odd orphan and play blocks are being used as fillers.

Hopefully it won't be so long before my next post, in the meantime, keep on stitching :)

March round up

As explained in my previous post here my 1st new project for March was cutting into the beautiful Oakshott cottons.....

Next up was the Small Quilt Challenge set by Kathy Tracy, to use our ugly fabrics to make a small quilt, I chose this drab repro fabric that I've never liked and added red, blue & yellow  to brighten things up

Still enjoying making these small quilts, especially the hand quilting part of it! Got carried away and made another one for fun.

This one is a gift for my Mum's birthday and is winging it's way to France, hope she likes it.......

March also saw the end of the log cabin blocks, I ended up making 80 in total and now have a completed top. I'm thinking about hand quilting this one with baptist fans, do you think that would look ok?

.........and finally, whilst i had all these repro scraps lying around, I just couldn't help myself and started making some scrappy stars, so this is my final new start for the New FO challenge for March, all in all, another busy month!

8.5" & 4.5" scrappy star blocks

Durrell News

We have a new arrival at work......

Meet Jantho, born on 1st April, the latest addition to our Sumatran Orang utang family.Baby & mum Annette are doing well :) To read all about it click here

Mini Quilts

11.5" x 13.5"
(This one is all crinkly as it's been washed)

As you all know I have always favored hand piecing, especially English paper piecing but I've recently challenged myself to love my machine more and have been making a few mini quilts. 

Thus I have learnt to make a 4.5" maple leaf block, half & quarter square triangles, log cabin piecing and setting triangles.........all by machine! (are you impressed?)

19" x 19"
Looking at this picture now it would have been better with colored logs all round 

These mini quilts are also great for practicing hand quilting & I've been having great fun playing around with border designs etc.

the back shows the quilting better

maple leaf in the corners

the next one waiting to be completed

I'm also still plugging away at the baskets, well, that is when Lucy allows me to get to my supplies.........

and when she does move, she monitors to ensure they are still being made properly!

Thanks to kind donations of lovely scraps from my friends Kim & Sandra, so far, not one fabric for the baskets has been repeated

Spoilt with lots of luscious reds 

beautiful blues

and pinks too!

I picked out a few of my favs, I love that pink one with the green leaves in the middle, thank you so much for these Sandra : )...................aren't quilting friends just great?

Baskets made with Kim's fabrics

I'm really on the home run with these now, only 16 more baskets to applique and add the sashing to make the last 4 rows, then all that needs to be done is the binding to complete the quilt. 

Until next time, happy quilting : )

Finished this....

A few weeks ago my son contacted me from Wales where he is currently at university asking "Got any spare quilts kicking around Mum?" On further questioning he was wanting to gift a quilt to a kind couple who run Old Chapel Farm where he does volunteer conservation work on weekends.

 

Having many projects 'on the go', nothing was really suitable or completed yet to send in such a short time frame so I decided to make a large 4 patch in repros using the Quilt as you Go method following this blog tutorial by Welsh Quilter, Andrea (how uncanny is that with this quilt going to Wales!)

1st 3 rows back view with long sashing still to be slip stitched

 It was so simple and quick to do, the quilt grew row by row in no time at all and just took 3 weekends to complete the sashed blocks with just the binding to add.......voila, quilt complete!

 I love this technique as I really struggle with a large quilt on a domestic machine.......no more aching shoulder, arm and neck using this method.

Edit: just noticed looking at these photos I have made a boob & placed 2 purples together, bugger! Too late now :(

and finished this too......My 1st Mini Quilt!

 

On catching up with my blog reading I came across this post by Kathie of Inspired by Antique Quilts and just had to have a go at this little pinwheel quilt. Not being an expert piecer on the machine, I decided to make the blocks by EPP and it wasn't until I had cut and prepped all the pieces I realised the error of my ways......... I should have made my card templates smaller and not the size Kathie had given which included the seam allowance!

Hence my white pinwheels are not the same size as the red and to be honest it doesn't bother me at all, I'm not striving for perfection and like it just as it is :)  Have you seen this super flying geese mini Kathie has recently posted about? I think another mini red & white may be in the making, could be the start of a collection........lol. Do go and check out Kathie's blog, she makes the most amazing quilts and all her minis are gorgeous!