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

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Licorice Allsorts update

I've finished all the hand embroidered blocks for my Licorice Allsorts quilt, so now it's time to start machine piecing the other blocks.  

There's actually one more embroidered block in my cupboard, but how do you fit 10 photos in to a grid!

Here's the first machine pieced block that sits in the centre of the quilt:

It's only 6" finished which is smaller than I imagined.  But I do love these colour combos and am looking forward to making more blocks next week.  

Here's what the finished quilt will look like:

Licorice Allsorts was designed by Wendy Williams and I bought it as a Block of the Month from Material Obsession in Sydney.  I'm so glad I did because I love it.  

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Ruby Star

My Ruby Star quilt is finished! 

I used the Raindrops are Falling on My Head pattern by Willyne Hammerstein from Millefiori Quilts 4. 

I've called it Ruby Star because the fabrics are all from Ruby Star Society.  I had a lot of fun fussy cutting ice creams, rainbows and birds.

I chose to hand piece my quilt, but there are English Paper Piecing papers available. 

Last year I used the same Raindrops pattern to make my Bollywood quilt. 

I had a bundle of Ruby Star Society fabrics that I wanted to fussy cut, so I decided to make the pattern a second time and change the direction of the stars.  Here's the two quilts together:

Ruby Star is 42" wide x 50" high, so not huge, but once again the size was dictated by the fabrics and the number of repeats in each fat quarter.  

I had both of these quilts custom quilted by Rayna Clinton.

I'll be taking this quilt along to my Millefiori Quilts class at Quilt Symposium on Friday 7 October.  It's not too late to join us if you live in NZ.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been working on this week? 

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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.  

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September

 I've made it through winter and we're officially in Spring now.  My work conference is over for another year and I finally have some headspace to think about quilting again.  

The US Open tennis started earlier this week and I've been enjoying watching that on TV.  The timings work really well for someone with a flexible part time job like me.  The night session starts at 7pm in New York, but that is 11am here in New Zealand.  I try to do my work in the mornings and then watch a lot of the night session during my afternoon.  If it goes really late it can still be going at 6pm here in New Zealand, which is 2am in New York.  

I try to choose one quilt to work on during the two weeks of the US Open.  This year it will be my Spooky Darlings Halloween quilt.  I showed you a sneak peek of it back in July.  It's a very simple design, but I want to jazz it up by hand quilting cobwebs on to it.  

I started by quilting a cobweb into the centre of each diamond, but now I've decided to quilt a giant grid first and get those lines in first.  I was finding it difficult to work out paths to follow because there are so many lines in the design.  I'm using a stencil and chalk pencils to transfer the cobweb design on to the quilt.  

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

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Hello!

 It's Friday again, and what have I got to show for this week? 

I've embroidered one more block for my Licorice Allsorts quilt.  There's just one more block to embroider now, and I'll be sad when they're all finished.  

My wool felt applique class at Coastal Quilters went well last Saturday.  The ladies all came with different ideas, so it was fun to see their designs emerging.  Coastal Quilters owns a Sizzix machine so we experimented with all the templates and cut lots of different shapes.

I came home with some snow flakes that I'm sure I'll find a use for one day.

Tomorrow I'm demonstrating hand quilting at my own guild, Capital Quilters.  We're going to have 8 tutors set up around the room and members will get 10 minutes with it each tutor who will give a quick overview of a new skill.  

Last night I started sorting out what I should take along to show how effective hand quilting can be.   

Bedazzle 12"x12" 

Whole Cloth Cushion

I hope I can inspire some more people to give hand quilting a try.

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Wool Felt Applique

Firstly - thank you for all the answers to the question I posed last week.  How do you follow blogs in 2022?  I haven't had time to digest all the answers yet, but I will.  

This week I've been busy finishing up this piece so I can take it to Coastal Quilters tomorrow.  

It's something that I started when I came back from Dunedin all inspired by the local's use of woollen fabrics.  The maroons in the centre are from a small bundle of Sue Spargo woollen fabrics, and the borders on the side are flannel that I purchased from Fox's Cottage in Foxton, New Zealand.  

I got radical and chopped up a scarf for the back!! I've never tried anything like this before, but someone at Taupo Quiltmakers guild meeting had chopped up some scarves to make a quilt for a friend, and I thought, "Why not!". The colours work so well with the front of this mini quilt.  

In another first I used my new pounce pad and a stencil to transfer this cable design on to the flannel, and then I hand quilted it with chunky stitches to match the overall rustic feel of this piece.  

I'm really pleased with how it's all turned out.  I'm still painfully slow at developing my own designs, but I just let this piece grow slowly and I'm pleased with how it's ended up.  I suspect it's only finished because I have to take it to a quilt guild tomorrow, but sometimes we need a bit of pressure to get things finished.  

I LOVE that green velvet for the vase, and the pretty pink flower and Kaffe Fassett ribbons.  

This piece is 22' x 22".  I'm not sure if it's a wall hanging, a table mat, or just a teaching sample.  I guess it can be all three things at the moment.  

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

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