2022 Christmas Countdown - Little House Ornaments

Welcome to my 2022 Christmas Countdown.  

I've made a lot of special Christmas decorations over the years, so this year I've decided to do a Christmas Countdown and show you a different handmade decoration each day of December until Christmas Day.  It will be like opening a virtual advent calendar.  

I'm going to publish my daily December posts at 8pm New Zealand Daylight Savings Time (like I normally do with my weekly blog posts). The beauty of blogging is that the posts will always be there to look back on.

First up - some little house ornaments to hang on my tree. 

As you can see, these little houses were quite fiddly to make.  There's tiny beads, backstitches and lots of colour changes.  But they are so cute.  

I made these ornaments 10 years ago in 2012.  Back when I had more time on my hands than I do now!

I used the Victoria Sampler "Little House Ornaments" pattern and I love that they are all different colours.

Victoria Sampler patterns always include great finishing instructions with plenty of photos, so don't be intimidated if you want to give them a try. 

Tutors' Exhibition at Symposium

Each of the tutors at Symposium were invited to bring a quilt for the Tutors' Exhibition.  

Collectively the quilts formed a wonderful display in the school library.  I visited the Tutors' Exhibition quite a few times and enjoyed studying the quilts up close.  

My favourite was "Looking Up" by Wendy Williams from Australia.  I took a lot of photos because I wanted to remember:

- the range of stitches Wendy used on the wool felt applique

- the number of different fabrics Wendy used in the quilt (it was made during lockdown so Wendy had to use what she had on hand)

- the number of different blocks in the quilt - quite incredible

- the amazing custom quilting by award winning quilter Katherine Jones from Tasmania, Australia.  

Enough talk though, here are my photos:

I love so many things about this quilt.  I've vowed not to do any more block of the months in 2023, but maybe I could buy the pattern and make it from my own satsh one day.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Little Christmas Quilt

I hadn't planned to start anything new before Christmas, but when I was pulling out Christmas quilts to  show Wellington Quilters last week, I realised that I could do with a couple more small Christmas quilts to use as table runners.

So I checked what I had in my stash and found these fabrics: 

They're not all especially "Christmas" but they are red and green and that says Christmas to me.  

Surprisingly I settled on a pattern quite quickly, and was cutting and piecing within an hour of pulling the fabrics.  

I made as many blocks as I could out of the fabrics I had available, and then I joined them into three rows.  Next I put on the borders, and now I've even basted it all by myself! 

I'm going to try to machine quilting this one with my walking foot.  It won't be anything too fancy, but it will hold all 3 layers together. 

The pattern is Watling Street from Sheila Christensen's Quilts with an Angle book. The cutting out was a bit tricky, but the piecing is straight forward if you're comfortable with 60 degree triangles.  

Now I just have to make sure that it's finished before Christmas and I'm not sewing binding down on Christmas Eve.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Auckland Festival of Quilts - the exhibition

We got a lovely surprise when we walked in to the Festival of Quilts and saw mum's Lucy Boston quilt had a ribbon it!

I was so pleased for mum because it really is a beautiful quilt and deserved something I thought.  

We met lots of friends at the quilt show, and made some new friends too.  Everyone was so nice, and I felt very relaxed because I wasn't involved in organising it.  

We even went to the prize giving on Saturday evening and mum received a monetary prize for her efforts.  We weren't expecting that!

The Auckland Festival of Quilts is held in a large indoor netball arena. There's plenty of room for the quilt show and the merchants.   There's also lots of natural light due the skylights, so the quilts all look great.  

I didn't take a lot of photos, but here are 3 quilts that grabbed my attention.  The first is by my lovely friend Diane Campbell and it won first place in the Large Amateur Quilt category.  It's a Caswell quilt designed by Corliss Searcey, and all hand appliqued and hand quilted by Diane.  It was lovely to meet up and congratulate Diane in person.

The second quilt I liked was also a Caswell quilt designed by Corliss Searcey, but it was different in quite a few ways.   Susan Wade, the maker, added a border and did stunning machine quilting on her quilt. Susan won Best Amateur Quilt for this quilt.  

I always look for Sue Flego's quilts when I go to Festival of Quilts.  Sue is very clever with fabric so I wasn't disappointed when I saw her Pinball Wizard quilt.  The hand quilting was extra special on this one.  

And then we did some shopping, of course.  We're both going to be busy now.  

It was a lovely weekend and I'm so glad I went and could share the excitement with my mum, Joy Hill.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Auckland Festival of Quilts

I'm writing this post in advance because I'm going to Auckland Festival of Quilts on Friday with my mum, Joy Hill. 

Mum has two quilts in the exhibition so we're going along to see them hanging, plus everything else of course.   

Here's mum's first entry - her blue and white Lucy Boston, all English Paper Pieced and hand quilted.

Mum loved making her Lucy Boston quilt and was naturally a bit sad when it was finished! 

Mum's other entry is a wool felt applique design by Wendy Williams called "Over the Hill".  I've only got these photos taken before she put the binding on, but isn't it beautiful? It's a very cute design, but mum's Kaffe border just sets it off perfectly.    

So if you're in Auckland I hope you get to visit the Auckland Festival of Quilts too.  There's going to be merchants (of course!) so we'll enjoy looking at their stalls too.  

Next week I'll show you my highlights from the exhibition. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter