Bordered Diamonds is Finished

Bordered Diamonds is finished and I'm very pleased with it. I think I fulfilled my goal of "Summery florals". There are so many beautiful Kaffe Fassett Collective prints in this quilt. 

The bird fabric is "Summer Tree" by Philip Jacobs - out of print now

The centre fabric is "Orchids" in blue by Philip Jacobs

Centre fabric is Brassica in Rust by Philip Jacobs

I really enjoyed making this quilt.  The big diamonds give plenty of room to showcase the flowers in Philip Jacobs' and Kaffe Fassett's designs.  And when you put smaller scale prints in the borders, they separate the blocks nicely.  

As I said in my previous post here, I think this pattern works best when the same fabrics are repeated within the quilt, but with different borders.  

And here's the back - pieced from Kaffe Fassett pieces in my stash.  

I cut down the Midnight Diamonds pattern from Quilts in Burano, and left off the border, so the finished size of this quilt is 63" x 55".

I had it machine quilting by Busy Bee Quilt Shop in Wellington, NZ, and they used a wavy design running down the quilt.  

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

Bordered Diamonds

Bordered Diamonds is such a great pattern.  

The original pattern is in Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts by Kaffe Fassett, but that book is out of print now, so I've been using Midnight Diamonds from Quilts in Burano by Kaffe Fassett.  I think the patterns are the same, but I haven't got out my ruler to check.  

I've had fun mixing the fabrics and applying borders to the fussy cut blocks.  I especially like the big Cactus Flower block above, surrounded by the blue section of the Diamond Stripe.  The blue in the border highlights the blue in the flower. 

Although Bordered Diamonds can be a scrappy quilt, it's still important to balance the blocks and get a good flow throughout the quilt.  I like to use the same feature fabrics more than once, but change up the borders so there's no exact repeats.  

The Cactus Flower looks good in it's final placement.  

Oh! And in exciting news I see that the Shawl design is going to be re-released later this year. I love Shawl.  Here it is in the Bordered Diamonds quilt - the pink flower in the centre.

I'll show you full photos of the Bordered Diamonds quilt soon, but in the mean-time, here's one I made back in 2014.

I called it Bordered Peacocks because of the feature print that started it all.  You can read about it here. 

In fact that quilt is where I got the name for the Peacock Party from.  I've always loved the jewel tones in peacock feathers.

Well, now it is time for the Peacock Party.  Fee free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The Say Yes to Kaffe Collective winners

Free Spirit Fabrics have announced the winners of the Say Yes to Kaffe Collective online competition, and I'm thrilled to say that my Turkish Coffee quilt was one of the winning quilts.  

The aim of the competition was for fans to make any quilt from Kaffe's Quilts in Burano book in their own choice of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics. Then the Kaffe Fassett Collective team chose their favourite quilts and the winners will receive some Kaffe fabrics from his upcoming 2021 release.  

You can view all 10 winning quilts here on Free Spirit Fabric's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/freespiritfabrics/posts/4899251733481549

or, you can view them as a slide show on Free Spirit Fabric's website (make the slide show full screen to see the quilts better). 

My favourite winner was this beautiful version of Shimmer Star by Peggy Gelbrich.  Congratulations Peggy!

I don't think that the fabrics have been sent out yet, but they have my address and I will be sure to show you my fat quarter bundle when it arrives.  

In the mean time, what have you been working on this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Turkish Coffee #sayyestokaffecollective

Each year I eagerly await the release of the next Kaffe Fassett book.  This year their book was photographed in Burano, Italy, and all of the quilts look gorgeous in the colourful seaside town.  

My version of Turkish Coffee

As I flicked through the book I saw lots of pretty quilts in soft pastel colours, but the one that really grabbed my attention was the last one - Turkish Coffee, in rich, dark colours, designed by Liza Prior Lucy.  It was so different to anything I'd made to date, so I decided that Turkish Coffee would be my first quilt from Quilts in Burano. 

I used the feature fabric, Turkish Delight, in the same black colourway, but I changed just about every other fabric.  I know Kaffe and Brandon encourage people to make their quilts their own, and not strive to replicate every fabric used in the patterns.  

I went to my local quilt shop, Busy Bee Quilting in Wellington, New Zealand, to see what they had in stock.  They had Millefiori in Orange, so that became my background, rather than Millefiori in Antique which is used in the pattern.  I preferred the orange anyway, because it's brighter.  

I framed my blocks with Ferns in Black, and then just used a wide variety of dark fabrics for all the checkerboard blocks.   Some of these fabrics are from my stash, and and some are from the latest release as shown above. 

When it came to the backing, I knew I wanted a Kaffe wide back.  I had two options, but I chose Mandala in Red and I love it.  I'll use the other one for something else.  

My Turkish Coffee quilt was quilted by Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilting in Wellington.  She did a fantastic job of custom quilting the large flowers, and then used a pantograph on the other blocks. 

People have asked me about the border - I used a thin border of Zig Zag in Gold by Brandon, and then Busy Lizzy in Black from Feb 2020.  And I used Roman Glass in Gold for the binding.  So this quilt is made from 100% Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics.

Finished size is 86" x 86" (218cm x 218cm) - so it's BIG.  

Free Spirit Fabrics have been running a competition called #sayyestokaffecollective, so I'm entering this quilt into the online competition.  The prizes are more fabric, and we can all use more fabric. 

There are so many beautiful quilts in Quilts in Burano.  I encourage you to buy the book, even if you only look at the pictures and dream of a holiday in Italy.  

I'll close with one more photo of the quilt taken this morning. (Yes, the trees are green - it's Summer in New Zealand. )

 

Turkish Coffee quilt

This week I've been working on my Turkish Coffee quilt from Quilts in Burano by Kaffe Fassett.  And watching the US Open of course.  It's really weird with no spectators, but I'm getting used to it, and at least it's keeping everyone involved free from COVID.  The French Open (rescheduled to start on 21 September) is going to allow some spectators so that will be interesting.  

There are so many lovely quilts in Quilts in Burano.  Free Spirit Fabrics are running a competition called "Say Yes to Kaffe Collective" and encouraging people to make quilts from Quilts in Burano in different colourways.  All the details are here.  

I'm hoping to enter my Turkish Coffee quilt into the online competition so I'm not going to post any full photos until it's finished.  But here are some progress shots:

It's a great quilt for using up bits and pieces left over from other quilts.  I've used the brown Aboriginal Dots that I used for the background in my Shuttles quilt:

Shuttles 

And some spots from You Spin Me Round:

You Spin Me Round

My local quilt shop didn't have enough of the orange Millefiori so I've added some yellow Fans because it was the closest thing I had.  I think the background blocks are scrappy enough that you won't notice the different fabric - I've tried to spread it around randomly.  It's alway fun watching a new quilt come together.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  Thank you everyone who continues to link up week after week.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter