The Peacock Party and a touch of Kaffe

It feels like it's been a very short week here.

We had public holidays for Good Friday 19 April and Easter Monday 22 April.  And then on Thursday 25 April it was another public holiday for ANZAC Day, where we honour the Australians and New Zealanders who have fought for our countries.

So there's only been 3 work days this week, and it's also school and university holidays, so my university student has been back home this week.  Fortunately the good weather has returned and it feels like one final reminder of summer today, before we get ready for winter.

I'm still plodding away on my Kaffe Fassett scarf in Rowan wool.  I've found I can't do it at nights, because the arms on my arm chair are too close to accommodate my knitting style! Therefore I'm trying to add a few rows each day while I sit on the sofa. 

On the quilting front I'm adding a few green blocks to my Shuttles quilts from Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.

I've started playing a little game with myself where I try to guess from the link photo who wrote the post.  Sometimes I get it right, but sometimes I'm surprised,  I'm trying to visit at least 5 of the links every week. I do appreciate everyone who links up, but I just don't have time to visit every link and also answer comments on my blog.  I hope you understand.

So what's everyone been up to?  Feel free to link up below and share what you've been up to:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Kaffe Fassett class in Wellington - January 2018

Last Sunday I attended my second design class with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably.  (The first was two years ago which you can read about here.)

Kaffe talking about my quilt

This time we were making Green Diamonds from the Quilts in Ireland book.  I wanted to push my own boundaries and try something new, so I chose a rich, tamatoey red as my base colour!
I found a snazzy colour wheel online at www.sessions.edu/color-calculator/ which tells you what other colours work with any colour you chose.

So, I set about pulling all my red and green Kaffe fabrics that matched these strong colours.  Here's what I took to class (plus more of course).

Kaffe and Brandon don't mind if you bring along non Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, but I thought it was a good opportunity to go all out crazy and put lots of Kaffe's fabrics together.

Mine is on the left

We were encouraged to work quickly and get a few of our first diamonds cut and up on the wall.  Then we could stand well back and see if the fabrics were working together.  Seeing them cut to size is quite different to looking at them on a table.

From there it grew and grew as we got the idea of how the colours could transition from one to the other.  Those green and blue spots you see on the bolt above are for the top and bottom half rows.  I thought the red and orange spots would be better, but as Kaffe says, you never know until you put it up against your fabrics.

We didn't do any sewing in the class - it was all about designing the quilt.  At the end of the day we rolled up the design wall fabric from the bottom up, and the diamonds were preserved in the correct order.  Any bets on how long it is until I unwrap this sausage?  I can't at the moment because it's too hot and all the doors and windows are open and the pieces would blow away. (excuses, excuses)

At the end of the day Kaffe walked around and talked about every single quilt.  We had 28 people in the class and we all heard his thoughts on each of the quilts.  Here are some of quilts:

So you can see that we had a wide variety of colour schemes.  The room looked very colourful by the end of the day.

It was a great class, and even though I've been before, I'd still go again if they came back to New Zealand.  It really was a privilege to learn from one of the great masters of colour and design.

Mediterranean Hexagons become Tropical Hexagons

Yes, I finished my Mediterranean Hexagons quilt on Friday, just two days before the 2018 class with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably!

This is the quilt I started in the previous class with Kaffe and Brandon, exactly two years ago.
You can read all about that class in this blog post here.

I'm really happy with the bright colours I chose for this quilt.  I was planning to use black with purple spots in the triangles, but Brandon suggested going lighter and I'm so pleased I did.  The black and white prints allow the hexagons to be the star of the show.

I used wool batting in this quilt, and have hand quilted it all myself.  It did seem to take forever because I quilted three hexagons inside each of the 99 hexagons in the quilt.  Gulp!

I quilted it during the US Open AND the Australian Open. 

For the inner hexagon outlines I used acrylic hexagon templates and my hera marker to mark the lines to quilt along (which you can just see in the photo below). On the outside of the hexagon I just eyeballed it, and the same with the grey triangles.  Life is too short to mark every line (or so I try to tell myself).

I used Aurifil 12wt thread in a range of complementary colours.  I worked out how much thread I needed to quilt each sized hexagon and wrote it down in a book.  This saved me a lot of thread because I hate ending up with short ends which are too good to throw away, but not long enough for a complete round.

I made my quilt the size in the book (Quilts in Morocco).  The hexagons are 3.75' each side, and we all used acrylic templates in the class to fussy cut the fabrics.  You can fin them here on this page at www.paperpieces.com.

I used a tone on tone wide back for the backing, and a black and white stripe for the binding.

I took it along to the class yesterday, and both Kaffe and Brandon admired it.

The pattern is Mediterranean Hexagons from Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett, but I've renamed my quilt to Tropical Hexagons.  Rather than being the cooling blue colours of the Mediterranean, my quilt is hot colours which remind me of the tropics - think Fiji and Hawaii, and the beautiful flowers of frangipani, hibiscus and bougainvillea.

My finished quilt is 80' x 84'.

Holiday Sewing Part 1 - Daytripper 2.0 bag

The last two weeks have been very enjoyable.  I've had my mum and dad staying, and together mum and I have been busy sewing many things.

First up was this gorgeous Daytripper 2.0 bag.

Mum gave me the kit for Christmas.  It was a total surprise - she clearly knows me well and knew I'd love the new Kaffe Fassett Artisan fabric.

The pattern is byAnnie, but mum bought the whole kit in New Zealand from The Ribbon Rose. It even included the Soft and Stable, zips, buckles and webbing for the strap.

I made the bag "with parental supervision".  It was great to have mum in the house providing expert advice as required.  There were a few tricky bits, and I don't think I could have done it without my walking foot because there are very bulky sections.

It will be a great travel bag.  I like to have a crossbody bag like this when I go away because it leaves both hands free for getting on and off buses and trains.

I'll be able to try it out when I go on holiday next week.

WIPs and some flowers

Well, it's December again and I'm trying to finish a couple of small Christmas quilts so I can have them out on display before the 25th.

First up is my "Flocks by Night" by Wendy Williams.  I really enjoyed doing the wool felt applique on this quilt.

But I wasn't happy with one of the wonky stars, so I finally took it out last night and changed it.  Then I basted it, so now I can hand quilt it.

My Holiday Patchwork Forest is almost finished too.  I made it from a pattern designed by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter.  I paid $2 and got a pdf pattern here, but she also explains how to make a smaller version of the block for free here. 

I'm proud to say that the binding is the only fabric I purchased for this quilt.  The rest is all from my stash, including the red Kaffe Fassett for the border, which looks very Christmassy when it's next to that green Roman Glass by Kaffe Fassett.  I need to get a full photo of it this weekend.

At least my Tula Pink Holiday Homies quilt is finished and is draped over the box in the hallway.  You can read how I made it here.

Of course it's summer time here in the Southern Hemisphere.  It's been unusually hot and dry in much of New Zealand and we're on water restrictions now.  Here's some photos of the plants in my garden which are still surviving well, despite the heat.

Agapanthus

Hebe - a New Zealand natvie bush

Lavendar - don't ask which variety

And some amazing hydrangeas spotted on my morning walk:

Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2017 - Tussie Mussie

Once again it's time for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side.

I love this quilt festival because the quilters don't need to put hanging sleeves on their quilts or send them away in the post, and the viewers don't even need to get off their sofas to see a wide range of beautiful quilts.  That's a win, win as far as I'm concerned.

I'm entering two quilts this year and the first is my Tussie Mussie that I finished a few months ago.

I made this quilt using a pattern in Kaffe Fasset's Quilts in Italy book.  It was quite simple to make because it's just big half square triangles.  I used some of my stash of gorgeous purple and green Kaffe prints.

I usually like to hand quilt my quilts, but I've got a bit of a backlog developing so I had this one quilted by Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilting in Wellington, New Zealand.  I chose a swirly pattern and I'm really pleased with the finished result.

These pretty photos were all taken in my mum's garden in Auckland.  I even used Kaffe Fasset's extra wide backing on the back and I love the smooth silky texture of it.

You can read more about this quilt in my earlier blog post here.  

My second entry in the festival is my Holiday Homies quilt and you read about it here.  

Please pop over to Amy's blog and look at some of the other great quilts in the festival.  The system is a lot simpler this year because there's only one category for all of the quilts.  There won't be voting either - just prizes awarded to contestants on a random basis.
 

I hope you enjoy visiting some new blogs.  Please try to leave a comment for the bloggers, even if it's just "I love your quilt".