Summer in Torquay

I'm thrilled to share my most recent finish, Summer in Torquay, and to let you know that it received a Merit award in the Churn it Up challenge at Capital Quilters exhibition.

It seems I won a few awards at our show! More details to come next week.

I started this Jen Kingwell design back in January because I wanted to enter our guild's Churn it Up challenge which is part of our exhibition.  The challenge was to include at least one Churn Dash block in a quilt.

Jen Kingwell's quilt at Amitie Textiles

I don't especially love the Churn Dash block, but I stumbled across this Flea Market Dash pattern in my Quilt Lovely book by Jen Kingwell, and I liked that it contained Churn Dashes, but they weren't too obvious.

For most of 2017 I belonged to a stash building club at Amitie Textiles (Jen Kingwell's shop).  They sent fat 16ths to members every six weeks or so.  I ended up with a lot of fat 16ths, but I wasn't sure what to do with them.  This Flea Market Dash pattern seemed the ideal opportunity to use a lot of the gorgeous fabrics I had collected.

I've called this quilt Summer in Torquay, because it does look summery, and Torquay, Australia is where Amitie Textiles is based now.  I was lucky enough to visit the shop twice in January (summer in Australia).  One of those days got to 42C (107F) so I won't forget that day in a hurry.

The batting is Quilters' Dream - Cotton Request, as recommeded by Jen Kingwell.  It's nice thin batting for a summer weight quilt, but I think I still prefer wool for the loft.

The backing is voile and I'm not sure I'd use that again either.  It has more stretch in it than cotton, and didn't work so well with basting on a long arm.

Time seemed to get away from me on this quilt, so I had to take it on my recent holiday to Auckland, and I even had to quilt a few blocks in the hotel in Taupo on the way back!

I hand quilted with Aurifil 28wt in a variety of colours inside the blocks, and used Aurifil 12wt on the shashing and filler triangles.

I'm very happy with the result, and thrilled to see it hanging in the exhibition.

Pattern: Flea Market Dash by Jen Kingwell (from her book Quilt Lovely)
Size: 64" x 80"