Pine Hill

I think I'm going to call my tree quilt "Pine Hill" because that's where I grew up in Dunedin.  I went to Pine Hill Playcentre, and Pine Hill School. And the trees on my tree quilt look like pine trees to me.

It's really hard to get a good photo of this quilt.  The trees are quite bright in real life, but the whole quilt looks dull whenever I photograph it.  I don't know why that is.  

The brightness of the back makes up for any dullness on the front.  I used a large piece of Kaffe Fassett Diamond Stripe on the back, and inserted some fussy cut Kaffe Fassett Damask Flower to make it big enough.  

I had my quilt quilted at Busy Bee Quilt Shop and I chose an all over meander design.  

I'm going to give this quilt to my son and try and get him to part with this quilt so I can bring it home to wash it:

Picnic 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

Tree quilt along

Well, the hand quilting on my Spooky Darlings quilt didn’t last very long because even after the first day I could feel a few twinges in my hands. 

So, I decided to change to machine sewing and I made a few more trees for our Capital Quilters tree quilt along. I still had all the fabrics set aside, so it was quite easy to make some more wonky trees.  

Some Tula Pink Holiday Homes prints

Some Kaffe Fassett Mosaic Circles 

I laid all my tree blocks out and started to think that it looked a bit plain, so I turned to my Kaffe Fassett stash to brighten it up. It was a cloudy day when I took this photo, but the Kaffe fabrics definitely added some life to the quilt.  

I decided to cut narrow strips of Busy Lizzy in Black and I'm now trying to even up my rows and piece it all together.  

It's very liberating to make a quilt that doesn't require precise measurements or sewing.  I've enjoying making these wonky trees.  

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

Mini Tree Quilt

The end of the quarter is fast approaching, so it's time to finish the projects on my Q3 to do list and get ready to link them up with Adrianne from On The Windy Side next week.

One of the things on my Q3 to do list was this mini tree quilt.

I finished it a few weeks ago and it's hanging in my family room now (which is also my sewing room).

I bought the pattern and shot cottons from Jenny Hunter of Plume Art when she came to speak at our guild a few months ago.  Jenny bought her original version along to show us, amongst many other beautiful quilts she has made.

Jenny Hunter's mini tree quilt

It was the first time I'd made anything like this, and I really enjoyed the process.  There's both applique and reverse applique in this quilt.

 I machine quilted it with green Aurifil thread.

The finished quilt is 30" x 15".  I'm quite happy with how it's turned out, especially as it was my first attempt at an art quilt.

I'll be posting another finish tomorrow - that means all four things on my Q3 list got finished.  Time to start thinking about Q4 now.

2015 Finish Along - Q3 goals

Well, it's time to think about what I want to finish in Q3.  The answer to that is "lots of things", but thinking about it practically, this is what I hope to finish:

1.  Haunted House
This is an embroidered Haunted House from The Victoria Sampler. The pattern was only released about Halloween time last year, so I couldn't make it for Halloween 2014, but it will be ready for Halloween 2015 for sure.  It may look like I'm almost finished, but assembly takes days of fiddling around with glue and pins.  I want it to be perfect, so I'll be taking my time to get all of the sides even before I sew it together.

2.  Scrappy Bear Paw quilt
You can read more about this quilt here.  A number of people from Capital Quilters are making quilts like this for our guild's 30th anniversary.  Mine is all pieced and I've started hand quilting it. I just need to finish the hand quilting and attach the binding.

3.  Tree quilt
This quilt is my first art quilt.  Jenny Hunter, the designer, was the guest speaker at our guild meeting in June.  She bought along her original version of this quilt and I really liked it.  She also had packs of precut shot cottons for sale, so I bought greens and yellows because they were a bit different for me.  I've already started quilting it on my new Bernina and I'm really enjoying it.

Jenny Hunter's original quilt - Trees Mini Quilt

4. Spinning Stripes
I wrote about this quilt in my last post here. Now the top is all sewn together, and I just need to quilt it and bind it. I'll add it to this list so it doesn't get ignored. Shirley suggested that we quilted along the stripes, so I'll give that a go.

The Finish Along linkup party is working well for me. I finished all 4 things on my Q1 list which was here, and finished 3 out of 4 things on my Q2 list which was here.  Anyone with a blog or Instagram account can join up and share their goals. Adrianne is running the Finish Along this year, so see her blog On the Windy Side for all the Q2 finishes here.

I'll keep you updated on my progress as the quarter progresses.