28 Aug 2011
The
Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-Long {round 2}
This weekend I finally got around to
playing at being a Farmer’s Wife again. I’m really more of an occasional
liaison as it’s been two months since I last played
around with any blocks.
I have recently been stash building so I
had a lot more choice to play with; some AMH Loulouthi, Kate Spain Terrain, Piece O’ Cake Treasures and Tidbits and some gorgeous Kona solids.
So here are my next 5 blocks…
Block 6 Big Dipper:
Fabric is Hullabaloo and Loulouthi
Block 9 Box:
Fabric is Kona deep rose and Kaffe
Fassett
Block 13 Buckwheat:
Fabric is Terrain and From Little Things
Block 20 Churn Dash:
Fabric is Terrain and From Little Things
Block 41 Friendship Star:
Fabric is Kona azure and Treasures &
Tidbits
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehappyzombie/5825789651/" title="fwqal button by Happy Zombie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2766/5825789651_96d9ed0e59.jpg" width="300" height="278" alt="fwqal button"></a>
21 Aug 2011
I
heart the General
2011
I have been busy trying to catch up on my
Christmas blocks of the month. I should have completed seven blocks by now! I think this batch
brings me up to 5 blocks, so I am catching up.
I do love the French General La Petite Ecole fabrics this Christmas quilt is made from. I remember when I first
discovered the General – flicking through an online magazine and spotting a
quilt made from French General Rouenneries and I simply had to have it. At the
time a kit was available from Sarah Fielke’s Sewn shop. It was made using jelly rolls and layer cakes and was really
simple to piece. I bought some extra fabrics and added a border. I used more
General for the backing and binding.
I machine quilted it in a big sunflower
pattern that I made up as I went. It’s the only machine quilting I have done
myself and been really happy with. I think it helps that the thread blends into
the fabrics and that I wasn’t trying to follow a line.
This quilt is the one I snuggle under on
the couch and it has gone lovely and soft over time and after being washed. It certainly
started my General addiction!
14 Aug 2011
A
Baltimore wedding
2011
Well I am back from hol’s but still
haven’t made it back to the sewing machine. This weekend a good friend is
visiting from the UK so I am enjoying a girls day out.
This week’s “quilt from the past” is a Baltimore I made as a wedding gift for a great friend. I started classes for it after they announced their engagement, a year before they got married. I finally finished and gave it to them just after their fourth wedding anniversary! My excuse is that I wasn’t working on it that whole time!
The first Baltimore block I tried in
class was a wreath of flowers and I tried to cram in a whole range of different
colours for the different flowers. Well, it looked like a dog’s breakfast and
was awful! So after that I decided to stick to traditional red, green and bits
of cheddar (I love cheddar as the name of a colour).
I hand quilted all of the centre sections
and machine quilted the outer border as well as the red border with a
traditional weight quilt thread (this was to save time and ensure another year
didn’t pass without it actually being gifted!). Each of the white blocks in the
centre section have a quilted pattern, whereas the applique blocks have cross
hatch quilting.
This quilt has been well loved and I
really enjoy the way my friends are not precious about it and use it day to day
in the winter to keep warm. These friends have a baby on the way now and while
there won’t be a mini Baltimore there will certainly be more quilts for this
family!
7 Aug 2011
A
quilt for my parents
The design of this quilt is called Now
and Then and is from the wonderful book Material Obsession 2 by
Sarah Fielke and Kathy Doughty. This is the second quilt I have made from their
books and I’m sure it won’t be the last as there are so many fantastic projects
inside.
This quilt was for my parents and after they had chosen the design my mum and I spent a lovely couple of hours with Gina at Amitie choosing fabrics. The great irony of choosing fabrics for this was that the quilt is meant to be scrappy and a stash buster. At that time I had almost no stash to bust and in fact most of the wide range of different fabrics were bought that day. I didn’t mind because it became a bit of a stash builder which was just what I needed.
Then the cutting began!! Soooo many
squares and triangles to cut for this one. It wasn’t too bad though as the
range of fabrics were all so lovely they were fun to play with. The big flowers
were made by sewing together random shaped scraps and then appliqued on. All of
the other blocks were machine pieced, lots of chain piecing and a couple of
rolls of thread!
I machine quilted it with 40wt Aurifil thread and
was happy with the cross hatch lines. I tried to freeform echo quilt around the
flowers, not as happy with how this looks. The cream thread on the light
background really shows up the quilting, nowhere to hide here! My parents think
it is wonderful though and that is what’s important
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