Happy Birthday

 My youngest son turned 21 this week and I finished his Topsy quilt just in time.

I haven't been able to get outside for proper photos yet, but I took some quick photos when we tried it on his bed yesterday. 

It's the biggest quilt that I've ever made, so I had it custom quilted by my friend Rayna Clinton from Tui Song Quilting in Wellington, New Zealand. We chose the pattern together and I'm really pleased with it.  It's called Snakes Hexagons by Sharon Perry.

I put the wide back Onion Rings by Brandon Mably on the back and I love that too. 

I used the queen size Topsy pattern and used some of my fat quarters, but I added more blocks so the quilt is 100" wide, and almost reaches the floor on a queen sized bed.  All will be clear when we get outside for some photos. I promise to do another post with better photos.

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

  

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Topsy Quilt

The Topsy quilt top is finished and I dropped it off to my long arm quilter this morning.  We looked at a lot of quilting designs, and I chose a custom pattern that I'm quite excited about.  I hope you'll think I made a good choice.  

I'm really pleased with how this quilt has turned out.  I loved going through my blue stash and finding all the fabrics that would work.  

My son will turn 21 in July, and this quilt is for him.  As you can see below, it matches the feature wall in his bedroom.  I'm not sure what will happen to it when he finishes university and leaves home.  Will it stay in this room? Or will he take it with him? I don't mind if he wants to take it with him, provided he looks after it and brings it back home if it needs washing. 

My previous post about this quilt is here and it has lots of details about the Topsy pattern designed by Sheila Christensen.  

I enjoyed making this pattern and may well make it again in the future in a totally different colour way. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.     

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Trans-Tasman Bubbles

Here's my latest finish, Trans-Tasman Bubbles.  

This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted by me.  The pattern is by Willyne Hammerstein from her book Millefiori Quilts 4.  In the book it's called "Dancing Cheek to Cheek", but I called my quilt trans-Tasman Bubbles, because the circles keep disappearing and re-emerging as you look at it.  

The trans-Tasman bubble is an agreement between the New Zealand and Australian governments that lets citizens of those countries travel between the two countries without having to stay 14 days in managed isolation/hotel quarantine on arrival.  

However, as soon as there are community cases in either Australia or New Zealand, the trans-Tasman bubble is suspended and people can no longer leave that city and go back to their home.  

That's why I won't be going to the Quilt NSW Sydney Quilt Show this year.  I'd love to go, but I don't want to risk being stuck in Sydney for extra days or weeks.  

But back to the quilt - I started this quilt for three reasons:

1. I'd always wanted to make a Winding Ways type quilt with optical illusions

2. I wanted to try out more of the patterns in Millefiori Quilts 4 because they fascinate me. 

3. Quilt NSW were going to have a special blue and white challenge at the 2021 Sydney Quilt Show and I wanted to enter (it's now deferred until 2022, but I'm ready!).  

I've experimented with the Quick Curve Ruler and sewing curves on my sewing machine, but I decided that it might just be easier for me to hand piece a version of the Winding Ways quilt.

So I bought the hand piecing templates from Paper Pieces in USA.  I always opt for the 1/4" seam allowance because I think 3/8" is too bulky. 

I won't say it was easy to hand piece curves, because it wasn't, but I did get quicker as I went along. My main piece of advice is to mark extra registration points on your templates, and copy them onto the back of the fabric.  I know some of you would like me to make a video of how I hand piece curves, so I'll try and do that soon. 

I entered this quilt into the Great New Zealand Quilt Show in Rotorua in May 2021. It didn't win any prizes, but a number of people told me they loved it, so that was nice.  I love it, and that's what's most important.  And I learnt a new skill making it.  

Size: 43" x 49"

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

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Topsy Quilt by Sheila Christensen

I told you I got inspired at the Kapiti Quilt Show last week.  I saw Sheila Christensen's Topsy quilt on her stall, and I remembered that I had bought the pattern back in October at our own guild's exhibition. 

I had promised that I would make new quilts for the bedrooms when we had them painted four years ago, so I decided "this is it".  And I started cutting all my blue fabrics to make a quilt for the room with a blue feature wall.  

I'm making the Queen sized version of Sheila's Topsy pattern, and I can get the 12 triangles out of a fat quarter - provided there's no fussy cutting required for pattern direction.  

Here's my progress to date:

I've made all of these blocks from fabrics I already had on hand! Don't worry, blue is the biggest colour in my stash. But I weakened today and went shopping for a few more blues. 

Here's some links to Sheila's Topsy pattern if you're interested in making Topsy too:

Etsy for the physical pattern

PDF for downloads.

The pattern recommends the two triangle rulers above and I'm very glad I've got them.  I already had the one on the left, but I bought the one on the right and it makes cutting the segments so much easier. It's CGRT30 - Half Sixty by Creative Grids.   

There's usually a complication with my quilts, and this time I've decided to make the quilt bigger - more like a King size, but with the Queen sized blocks.  The advantage of this is that I can keep using up unloved fat quarters from my stash, but I do have to make a lot more blocks to keep the pattern nice at the edges and the top and bottom.  

So I'm plugging away here, churning out blocks and covering the lounge floor with them.  Soon it will be time to lay them out and start planning the assembly.  

I do love how quickly this quilt is coming together.  It's a big change from my usual style of quilting, but I'm enjoying it.  And to get this quilt ready for use this winter, I'm going to get it machine quilted.  I've got a backlog of quilts waiting for hand quilting, so I'll take the easier road with this one.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party - note I'm using my peacock colours above! What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

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