Neptune and the Mermaid

My Neptune and the Mermaid quilt is finished and currently on display in the Quilt Symposium exhibition at the Lower Hutt Events Centre.  

I started this quilt in a class with Wendy Whellum at the Auckland Quilt Symposium in 2019.  We made our own plastic templates and hand pieced each of the blocks.  

Here's some close ups of the blocks for those who can't make it to the exhibition:

I chose to use some gorgeous fabrics called "Neptune and the Mermaid" by Tokyo Milk for Free Spirit Fabrics.  And some Tula Pink too as required.  

I finished the blocks reasonably quickly, but I spent months hand quilting it all with Aurifil 12wt.  I used quilting templates for the first time and I'm very happy with the orange peel design in the borders and sashing.  

you can see the lines I made with my hera marker

I finished this quilt months ago, but I couldn't show it to anyone because I wanted it to be a surprise at Quilt Symposium.  

Finished size is 70" x 70" (180cm x 180cm).  

Pattern is Pieces of the Past by Wendy Whellum - Legend and Lace on Etsy.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  I've just realised that the colours of Neptune and the Mermaid fit the peacock theme beautifully.  That's why they call me Mrs Peacock!

Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Neptune and the Mermaid

This week I've been hand quilting my Neptune and the Mermaid quilt.  I usually use a hera marker to mark my quilting lines, but this time I've used a blue washout pen because it was hard to see the marked lines on the highly patterned fabrics. 

I always use a hoop when I hand quilt, but I must have taken it off before I took the photo above.  Here it is on another section of the quilt.  

Aurifil 12wt is my favourite thread for hand quilting

I like to experiment with my quilting, so I'm going to try different quilting designs on each block in this quilt.  I want to fill each block out to the edge, and then do a wavy pattern along the sashing (to continue the ocean theme). 

I started this Pieces of the Past quilt in class with Wendy Whellum at the Quilt Symposium in Auckland in October 2019.  It was a hand piecing class, and although I already could hand piece, I wanted more tips and tricks to perfect my techniques.  I feel comfortable with my hand piecing skills now, and I've even made some videos you can watch if you're interested.  There's a tab for Hand Piecing Videos at the top of the page.  

 

Now I'm involved in planning the next Symposium that will be in Lower Hutt, Wellington, in October 2022.  If you 'd like to know more about it, please visit our website and / or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.  You can pre-register now to keep up with the news and be in the priority queue when it comes to booking classes. We've already had over 900 people pre-register in just the first week which is amazing!

What have you been up to this week? Have you registered for Symposium if you live in NZ or Australia? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Neptune and the Mermaid (and the Peacock Party)

Last month I showed you the blocks that I started in my hand piecing class at Symposium.  Well,  here they all are, finished.  I used some really fun fabrics called Neptune and the Mermaid, designed by Tokyo Milk for Free Spirit Fabrics.  I've added in some Tula Pink fabrics because they work so well with the Tokyo Milk fabrics.

That's nine big 18" blocks finished.  I can hardly believe that I hand pieced a quilt this quickly! I've really enjoyed making these blocks. I'm quickly becoming a real hand piecing convert and actually prefer it to machine piecing now.  When I started out I wanted to get good enough so I could move away from English Paper Piecing.  I think I've achieved that goal now.

When I enrolled in the class at Symposium I really didn't expect to make the whole quilt.   However, I really enjoyed playing with these fabrics and hand piecing these blocks, so I just kept going.

I've played around with the layout endlessly.  The blocks have lain on the lounge floor for more than a week, and each time I walked past I moved them around a bit.  It takes time to get the colour balance just right, and working with only nine blocks makes it harder than when there's 99 blocks.  I didn't want to sew them together until I was 100% happy.

I am going to add borders, but I'm still deciding what to do in the corners.  Should I mitre the corners? Or is that old fashioned? Should I add cornerstones? I'm not sure yet.

The patterns for these traditional blocks were designed by Wendy Whellum for her Pieces of the Past quilt.  Wendy is gradually adding them to her etsy store here https://www.etsy.com/shop/LegendandLace

Here's Wendy Whellum's quilt below. This photo I saw in the Symposium catalogue.  It just shows how different things can be when you put your own spin on them.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to lately?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Symposium wrap, a survey, and the Peacock Party

What a week that was!

Some blocks I started at Symposium

Yes, I'm back from Symposium and filled with inspiration.  I met so many lovely people and I want to thank all of those people who came up and introduced themselves to me.

There must have been at least 3 people every day who came up to me and quietly said, "You won't know me, but I read your blog / follow you on Instagram".  It's wonderful to know that so many Kiwis read my blog.  I really thought most of my blog readers were American, but it's great to know that there's plenty of Kiwis too. I try to keep things pretty real, and I guess that appeals to Kiwi quilters.

I had a great time at Symposium, and I'm very grateful to all of the organisers.  I run conferences and events for my job, so I know how stressful it can be.

After big events I like to run a survey to check how it went, and what we could do differently next time. I don't think that the symposium people will be running a survey, so I've put together an unofficial survey and invite you to take part if you attended symposium.  All responses are totally anonymous - there's no way for me to find out who said what.  I won't share any direct quotes, only aggregated data such as "60% of people who responded to my survey attended the gala dinner and at least 3 days of classes". I think it's important to capture this information before it's all a distant memory.

Here is a link to the survey.  It will take about 3 minutes to answer the questions, and it will be open for one week, until 18 October NZ time.  Feel free to invite your friends to respond too.  Thank you.


Click here for The Unofficial Quilt Symposium Survey 
by Wendy's Quilts and More.


So, what did I do at symposium?

On Days 1 and 2 I took a Dodecagon class with Margaret Sampson George from Australia.

Mum's on the left, mine on the right.

I convinced my mum to join me in the class, and she loved it too.  Although we can both English Paper Piece, we learnt valuable lessons about colour and pattern from Margaret.  We also made lots of new friends because there's plenty of time to chat to other people in hand sewing classes.  

My mum, Joy Hill, standing on the left, and Irene Anderton seating on the right

trying out hexagon surrounds

Exploring different layouts using everyone's rosettes

a closeup of  Margaret's quilt, showing how she anchors the border by using the animal print sparingly

a wider view

If you're keen to start a Dodecagon quilt you can get templates and paper pieces from www.paperpieces.com or the Ribbon Rose in Auckland had some when I was there on Monday, and they can always order in more. I'll warn you though, getting the points from 12 pieces to meet nicely in the centre is quite tricky.  But practice makes perfect. 



On Days 3 and 4 I took a hand piecing class with Wendy Whellum from Adelaide, Australia.

We started 4 blocks from Wendy's Pieces of the Past quilt.

Wendy Whellum's Pieces of the Past  quilt

I chose to use my Neptune and the Mermaid fabrics by Tokyo Milk.  I actually bought these for something at the previous symposium in 2017, but I was never happy with the one block I made, so I abandoned that idea.  I'm much happier with this idea, and am excited about making these blocks.

I could already hand piece, and have made two entirely hand pieced quilts, but I wanted to refine my skills and learn more.  I was very keen to perfect hand sewing curves, and I do believe I have improved.

There are two main tips I can share for hand sewing curves:
- "always sew with a smile, not a frown" - have the piece shaped like a "U" facing you.  That's the smile side of the curve.
- mark your intervals and pin at those intervals before you start sewing. Fold your pieces to find half way, quarter way etc.

We had a lovely small class so we got lots of hand sewing done.

There's still a lot more to say about Symposium, but I'll cover other things in future blog posts.  Don't forget about the survey please.  I'd love to hear your feedback.

So now it's time for the Peacock Party. What have the rest of you been up to while us Kiwis have been at Symposium?  Feel free to share a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Bowl Me Over Bag

My Bowl Me Over bag is finished and I love it.

The front

The back

The pattern is Bowl Me Over byAnnie, and the fabrics are Skylark by Margot and Elena for Tokyo Milk - part of Freespirit Fabrics.

I've used the same fabric in two different colourways throughout the bag, with a complementary pink trim for the bindings. I machine quilted the panels with hot pink Aurifil before I started to assemble the bag.

I included the easy access pockets on one side of the interior, but skipped the zipped pocket on the other side of the interior.  I felt it already had enough pockets, and another pocket was just going to add to the bulk I needed to sew through to complete the bag. I used Soft and Stable trhoughout - as recommended in the pattern.

Annie describes this bag as "fun to make".  Mmmm...... stressful to make is possibly more like it! There are a lot of pieces, and if you use a fabric with a directional print you need to take extra care with the cutting.

The instructions are all very clear, but the whole process takes time.  I spent a whole week on this bag, sewing for 3 or 4 hours each day.  Some may say I'm a perfectionist, but I wanted it to be as good as a bought one, so I took it slowly, and took breaks before I made a mistake.

Here are some WIP photos:

The exterior pieces - front and back

The reverse sides of the front and back - the inside of the bag

Preparing to seal the inside seams. I hand sewing the binding down. 

Clover clips to the rescue

So yes, it took time to make this bag, but I'm very happy with the result.  I love these fabrics and this bag pattern is a great way to show them off.

Look out for me and my bag at the Sydney Quilt Show this year!