2022 Christmas Countdown - The Candy Man quilt

It's Day 19 of my Christmas Countdown and it's The Candy Man quilt.

A few weeks ago I blogged about a spur of the moment Christmas quilt I had started.  Well, now it's finished and all ready to be used this Christmas. 

The pattern (Watling Street) was designed by Sheila Christensen and is in her book, Quilts with an Angle.  I made my quilt smaller because I only had a limited number of scrappy Christmas fabrics in my stash.  Can you believe I made a whole quilt from stash? Even the backing and the binding? Well I did, and I want to use more of my stash in 2023.  

I've called my quilt The Candy Man because at first I thought of Candy Canes (due to the colours and stripes), but I don't really like to eat candy canes, but I did love performing The Candy Man song on the stage at the Regent Theatre in Dunedin back in the 1970's.  

I quilted this quilt myself using my walking foot. 

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

"Quilts with an Angle" by Sheila Christensen - plus a giveaway

Hello, and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Sheila Christensen's new book - Quilts with an Angle, published by C and T Publishing.
Keep reading to the end because one lucky reader is going to win an electronic copy of Sheila's book!

I was excited when Sheila told me she was going to write a book.  We share a love of Kaffe Fassett, Tula Pink, Anna Maria Horner and Alison Glass fabrics (all the bright ones) so I knew Sheila's book would be colourful.

Sheila asked me to test one of the patterns in her book, and in return she's printed my name in the acknowledgments! I can't picture myself writing a book, so this is as close as I'm going to get to being a published author.  I'll take it. 

Here's what I made.  This is Mirror Mirror from Quilts with an Angle:

Isn't the pattern effective? And it was quick to make too because the pieces are much larger than I'm used to dealing with.  The trick is all in the cutting, which is very well explained in the book.

Here's the back view showing off the edge to edge quilting done by Busy Bee Quilt Shop in Wellington, New Zealand.

the back view showing the wavy edge to edge quilting by Busy Bee Quilt Shop

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Mirror Mirror by Sheila Christensen
Quilted by Busy Bee Quilt Shop
Size: 40.5" x 58"


The full title of Sheila's new book is:
Quilts with an Angle: New Foolproof Grid Method and Easy Strip Cutting; 15 Projects with Triangles, Hexagons, Diamonds and More (A Field Guide)
and it's published by C and T Publishing.

There are seven "lessons" in the book, but there are more than seven patterns because the blocks can be assembled in different ways. The quilt below uses the same blocks as I used in my quilt above.

Here is the original version of Mirror Mirror from the book:

And my cut down version for a single or twin bed:

The book is full of clever patterns and I'm looking forward to making more of them.

If you're in NZ and would like a copy,  you can buy directly from Sheila's shop, Quilters Lane here.
If you're outside NZ, you can ask at your local quilt shop, or buy through Amazon here.
Or, you can follow the blog hop and enter the draw for a free electronic copy on each one of these blogs below.  Yes, there are 10 copies to give away - one at each stop on the blog hop:

April 16th C&T www.ctpub.com/blog
April 17^th Wendy Welsh  wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com
April 18^th Sheila Christensen www.mysteryquilter.com
April 19^th Angie Wilson www.gnomeangel.com
April 20^th Juliet van der Heijden www.thetartankiwi.com
April 21^st Kim Moos www.cottoncuts.com/blog
April 22^nd Yvonne Fuchs www.quiltingjetgirl.com
April 23^rd Aurifil www.auribuzz.wordpress.com
April 24^th Jacquie Gering tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com
April 25th Sheila Christensen www.mysteryquilter.com



To enter my giveaway for a free electronic copy of the book,  just tell me who your favourite fabric designer is, and add your email address if you're a No Reply Blogger.
I'll leave the give away open until the blog tour is over, and draw a name on 26 April.  Good luck everyone.

Peacock Party - and the winners

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway.  It was lovely to hear from so many of you, and surprising to hear about your favourite fabric designers.

I haven't counted up the responses, but if I did, I suspect that Alison Glass might be the most popular fabric designer!  I'm slightly surprised by that, but can understand why people who love her fabrics might be reading my blog.  Alison designs with bright colours and I do use a lot of bright colours myself.

a table runner I made with Alison Glass's fabrics

On to the winners:

1. Aurifil 12wt goes to Patricia of Amity Quilting in USA.

2. Aurifil 28wt goes to Turid of Den syende himmel from Norway.  

3. Quilts with an Angle by Sheila Christensen goes to Barb Neiwert of Mountain Quiltworks in USA.

4. The Kiwiana tea towels go to Frances of Fabadashery in UK. 

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to the sponsors - Aurifil and Sheila Christensen.


Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  I haven't got a lot to show this week because I've been busy working this week.  I did manage to finish up five little Mill Hill beaded kits that I started after Christmas Day.  I glue felt on the back to hide all the tails.  They will go in the cupboard until Christmas rolls round again.

Now it's your turn.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post and let us all know what you've been up to.

Inlinkz Link Party

It's Giveaway Time!

This giveaway has closed now.  

Great news! It's five years since I started blogging, so I've decided to run a giveaway to celebrate.

First a bit of history.  
I started my blog a way to record my finishes, and share them with friends and family.  I never expected to make so many friends through blogging, or to eventually meet so many of them in real life!

My first blog header back in 2014

The main purpose of my blog is still to record my finishes, and that's why I keep my writing simple and let the photos do the talking.

Although I love Instagram and Facebook, I find I frequently refer people to my blog to find out more about how I performed certain quilting steps.  This is particularly true for la passacaglia, where I have a whole tab containing links to the blog posts I wrote while making my quilt.

having fun with fabric at a Kaffe Fassett class

Another popular post is the one I wrote about attending a Kaffe Fassett class in Wellington.  I point people to that post when they ask if it's really worth attending a class with Kaffe and Brandon.  Just look at how much fun we had and how my quilt turned out!

And then there's my cross stitched Gingerbread Village.  A lot of people have questions about that, so I refer them to the tab on my blog for all the answers about where to buy the patterns and the linen.

Blogging is a great way to maintain a permanent record of finishes and tips and tricks, but it's also a good way to make quilting friends all over the world.

Recently I started a weekly link up party called the Peacock Party.  I met a lot of other bloggers through Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday, and was sad when it came to an end in December.  So I decided I start my own link up party and now provide a no pressure place for bloggers to share their posts and meet other bloggers.  The Peacock Party runs each weekend, and you're welcome to join in at any stage.

So, onto the giveaway.  

Firstly, a big thank you to Aurifil and my good friend Sheila Christensen who have very kindly provided these prizes.  They have generously agreed to ship these prizes anywhere in the world.

The giveaway is open to anyone who follows me on any platform - via my blog, Instagram, or Facebook.  I know not everyone has time to read blog posts but lots of people enjoy keeping up via Instagram or Facebook.

This giveaway has closed now.  
The giveaway closes on Tuesday 29 January, and I'll announce the winners in next week's Peacock Party post.


1.  Aurifil 12wt pack
If you follow my blog, you'll know I love to hand quilt with Aurifil.  I use both 12wt and 28wt for hand quilting.  This gorgeous pack of 12wt contains colours picked by Jo Avery of My Bear Paw.

2.  Aurifil 28wt pack
The second giveaway is also for Aurifil thread, but this time it's 28wt - slightly finer and more like traditional hand quilting threads.  These colours are selected by Nancy Rink.

3.  Quilts with an Angle by Sheila Christensen
My friend Sheila from Quilters' Lane in Masterton, New Zealand has written a book, and even though it doesn't get released until next week, Sheila has kindly offered to send one to a lucky winner.  Here's a link to it on C&T Publishing if your local quilt shop can't get it in for you.

I'm sure this book is going to be great.  Sheila loves maths, and she's done all the hard work for you, so you can create amazing geometric quilts.

4.  Kiwiana tea towels
Finally, because it's often fun to receive something quirky from another country, I'm going to throw in some Kiwiana tea towels that I picked up on my recent travels.

So, I hope you've got all those instructions.  Here they are again just in case:


This giveaway has closed now.  

Good luck everyone, and thank you for following my blog.