Home and Away is finished

My "Home and Away" quilt is finished!!!  And after two years work it it totally deserves all those exclamation marks.

I love this quilt - it's bright and whimsical - just what I like, and it's full of beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabrics too.

I loved making this quilt. I enjoyed choosing and cutting the beautiful wool felt, and appliqueing it onto the background with my bright Perle 8 threads.

I even enjoyed making all those Half Square Triangles, although I wish I'd had a Bloc Loc ruler to help me.

This pattern was designed by the very talented Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits, Australia (click here for her website). Wendy works at Material Obsession in Sydney, with Kathy Doughty.  Material Obsession offered this quilt as a Block of the Month back in 2013.  I enrolled in the program after seeing the original quilt when Wendy came to NZ to teach at Handmade. The program ran for 10 months and I loved opening my parcel each month.

Updated Aug 2016:  This pattern can now be purchased directly from Wendy William's website here .  Wendy also has a number of similar patterns on her website and in her book.

Wendy Williams, the designer, called her quilt "Your Place or Mine?", but I've chosen to call my version "Home and Away".  Some of you will know there's an Australian TV series called Home and Away, so it seemed an appropriate name, given that the quilt has Australian origins..  I've never watched Home and Away myself, so it's not because I'm a fan.  I chose the name because the quilt shows cities, farms and beaches, so it really does show both home and away.

It's ended up a big quilt at 88" x 88". Here it is on our queen sized spare bed.

I chose to use the border fabric on the back too. It's a Kaffe Fassett print called Paisley Jungle.

I asked Sue Burnett at Busy Bee Quilt Shop in Wellington to quilt this for me on her long arm machine. She did a fantastic job of stippling all around the felt, and the flowers and animals stands out even more now. I'm so pleased with what how Sue quilted it. She did a great job.

I chose a lighter blue Kaffe print for the binding, which you can just see in this photo.

I don't have a wall space large enough to hang this quilt, and I don't have little children to enjoy it right now, so it will be used with care, and maybe one day I'll have grandchildren who will enjoy it too. Until then I'll use it on our bed, and I'm sure I'll have sweet dreams under it.

This quilt was the third item on my Q2 Finish Along list.