Blue Garden is finished

Well, as promised in my last post, this quilt is finished and I'm ready to share it with you all. Fortunately it's a lovely clear winter's morning here in Wellington, New Zealand, and I can get some outdoor photos in our backyard.

Blue Garden

I purchased a blue Kaffe Fassett jelly roll for this quilt from a little quilting shop in Karori, Wellington. Sadly that shop has closed down since then because the owner wanted to retire. But if you want to make a similar quilt, you just need lots of strips that are 2.5" wide by at least 7.5" long.

I cruised the internet looking for a suitable pattern, and found Rockin Roll by Lyn Brown (click here). It's a free pattern in pdf form. The directions were nice and clear, and it was a very easy pattern to follow.

Hand Quilting with Perle 8 thread

I decided to hand quilt this quilt because I love the finish hand quilting gives. I used DMC Perle 8 thread in two shades of blue - a bright blue for inside the blocks, and a more subtle blue on the bright blue sashing. When I quilt with Perle 8 I use a Chenille needle which has a big eye and a sharp point. I also used regular quilting thread and hand quilted in the ditch where I thought it needed it.

I belong to two quilting related groups on Facebook - Celebrate Hand Quilting and Kaffe Fassett Collective, and members from both groups loved the snippets of this quilt I showed last weekend. Both groups are 'members only', but anyone involved in quilting can request to join.

Some people have asked how I keep the quilting lines straight. You can either draw lines with special pens that wash off, or use quilting masking tape as I did for a lot of this quilt.

Lavinia for the back

I wanted a blue / green floral for the back so chose Lavinia by Philip Jacobs and am really pleased with it.

At the end of a project there's always some pieces left over, and so you might have noticed that I used the scraps from this quilt to form the border of the quilt in my blog header. I'll write a full post about that quilt soon. I just couldn't bear to waste any of these gorgeous fabrics.

The facts:

The pattern is Rockin Roll by Lyn Brown

The feature fabrics are all from a single 40 piece Kaffe Fassett jelly roll
The border is Kaffe Fassett Philip Jacobs Rambling Rose in blue
The back is Kaffe Fassett Philip Jacobs Lavinia in blue

The finished quilt measures 64" x 80"