Ghost House

I love it when I come across photos of old quilts that I made many years ago. Ghost House was made for our youngest son Richard. 

He wanted a graveyard scene but it looked so depressing no matter what I tried and so the Adam's Family style house developed into a ghost residence. It is still here at home even though he now lives in Norway. I wonder if he will take it with him some day?

First Quilt

Isn't this cute? I am just starting to convert my old photos into digital version and came across this  photo of the very first quilt I made. Isn't it a wonder. By the look of things they were about 20in square. All hand cut with a pair of scissors and many were cut on the bias so the design would go diagonally. You can tell I knew a lot about quilting. I made that quilt in 1984.... Wow I hadn't realised it was so long ago. Unfortunately I discarded it when I learnt how to make proper quilts :-(

Rolling on the quilt is my eldest son, wearing another of my creations. I used to sew clothes when the children were young. It saved so much money, that we didn't have and filled in so much time, that I also didn't have :-) 

Topsy Star - APQ

Several months ago I was asked to make a block for Patchwork and Quilting's birthday celebrations. They had decided that they would ask people to make a block each and combine these into quilts for an aged care home. The blocks were HUGE... 24 1/2in each. Made it easy to make a full quilt as it only needed four blocks with sashing and borders to make a quilt suitable for the establishment.

I had designed this star for Val who you can see sewing it just here. Val wanted to learn foundation piecing and I figured well why not simply blow it up bigger and use that. So both Topsy and I made the circling geese and then I finished it off while she started on a smaller version.

Looks totally different to what I had in my head :-)

Ocean Waves

A few years ago my friend Terri started a class using a wedge ruler. After she finished making all of the wedges the project sat in her 'to be finished' pile long enough for her to buy a new table. This one was long rather than circular and so the planned circular table cover was not going to suit.

 So off she went and played with her finished blocks...... the result was a gorgeous runner which Patchwork and Stitching thought others would like and so published the instructions for it. 

I recently received these photos from Susan of the results of a sewing day she had with a few of her friends. Funny isn't it how Susan has completed the cycle, joining her wedges into a full circle as per the original class.

The circular table centre is by Susan Flynn, while the red and green runner belongs to Judy Smith and the purple one in the same photo is by Linda Allen.  These three women all belong to Clermont Patchwork and Quilters Group. The single runner was made by Sandra Galvin from Walcha who visits the Clermont annually whilst her husband is gold prospecting.

Joy's Quilt

What a difference fabric can make. Joy, the woman with the bright red shoes, made this quilt for one of her grandson's and isn't it absolutely amazing. 

She'd had many plans but wanted to highlight the background fabric and her original plans would have meant a LOT of work and left little space for this fabric to feature. 

She had already made about 40 of the NYBs when she saw the Wedding Quilt layout and thought it would be the way to go and so asked me to design a central circle that could feature and allow her to us my layout. 

Viola not bad ... the quilt I mean. 

Won't her grandson be gobsmacked when he sees this!

Hexagon Anyone?

Was just cleaning up my camera card and came across this photo. Would tell you the name of the maker but I just don't know it but there she is in the photo. 

She lives in Berry if that's any help :-)

Isn't it a great quilt! Looks simple enough too .... If you like fussy cutting and EPP neither of which am I into.

Look what I found!

Was attempting to clean up my sewing room... not a successful venture if one is honest but look what I found. I did a class several years ago with Jacqueline DeJonge and started this quilt. Learnt her technique but like all classes hit a snag after the class finished. That is one thing about doing classes the tricky bits are often at the end... well after the teacher has gone. I have actually finished all of the pieces but alas the circle appears to have too much in the inner section to fit the outer section.... another problem for another day.

Khanam's Surprise by Joy Cook

Khanam's Surprise by Joy Cook

An advantage of having so many friends who also quilt is there is usually someone who is willing to make up a quilt design. Khanam's Surprise is a block which I designed for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks series. 

I made it but wasn't fussed on some of the colours I chose. Joy saw it in the magazine and wanted to try a new technique I have been encouraging my friends to try and so this was the perfect project to learn it on. The technique is where you print the sewing and cutting lines on the back of the fabric using your inkjet printer. After printing it is then a simple matter of cutting along the dotted lines and sewing along the solid lines. 

Joy had some difficulty with the method as we were unable to find the settings on her computer to set the printing for 100% but once we overcame that it was full steam ahead. 

If you like the look of this pattern it is available here. 

Change - Yes / No?

In between making more eggs the inner frame options keep popping into my head.  I'm seriously considering remaking the inner frames with yellow/mustard against the inner circle then red and blue for the taller blocks, with a pale white based outer ring. This quilt definitely won't be ready by June, it hasn't even made it to the longarmer for basting yet! Oh well at least I have plenty of time to keep working on my free motion ditch stitching.

Border Eggs

Yes the borders are progressing. I wanted a curved border with spikes and after much designing came up with this. 

I have to make ten eggs plus the corner sections and then float them into the border fabric. The green looks great here and I keep vacillating between that and the one below. The photograph below doesn't do justice to the red and black option below but that is my choice - green inner and purple outer or red & black inner with purple again as the outer .... hmmm looking at these photos I'm still not sure that I like that purple and red in the middle. 

I think I will simply go off and make more eggs and leave the worry for another day :-)

Joy's Central Block

Well I have finished my contribution to Joy's NYB quilt. The inner arcs were taken from the wedding quilt and the extra arc was designed to extend the circle from a 9in to a 13.5in circle. Should be interesting to see what fabrics Joy uses. 

One thing that did surprise me was the number of foundation paper sheets that were needed...24. That has to be the most that I have needed in such a small area. Although with the wedding quilt I did need two per block minimum which makes108 for the central blocks  and I'm still working on the borders.  :-)

What a difference a fabric makes - Joy's NYB

Well what do you think of this version of the wedding quilt? Joy has been making the New York Beauty blocks for one of her grandchildren for several months now. He has requested a quilt with paisley. Isn't it amazing what children ask for and what surprised her even more was that he actually knew what paisley was. She had searched high and low for something other than the traditional dull mud coloured paisleys we are all used to and one day came across the fabric in the background. Isn't it a beauty?

Joy had found a layout that she loved and wanted to substitute the NYB blocks for the circles in it. Only one problem with her original layout .... there was no where to showcase the fabric. So change of plans was called for. She decided that my wedding quilt layout would suit.... it also only needed another 12 blocks as opposed to her original design.

So a few days ago we sat down together to design the setting for her centre. Unlike my quilt, where I have many different backgrounds Joy has only one. We didn't want to bring in another to frame the centre and we didn't want just the feature fabric as that would leave the centre all lost and forlorn.

Joy chose four of my wedding quilt blocks and then I drew up various designs extensions to take the circles out to 15in. Thankfully it only took a few hours to draw ones that matched what Joy was looking for. Lucky she doesn't need them right away as I am flat out with other things I need to do, but if you check back in a few days I will put up the design here so you can see how different it is. It will probably take her another month to make the extra blocks and the centre then I will post that also.

Mind you after working on this design I'm considering redoing my wedding quilt middle...boy will I be glad when I get it finished and can't change my mind again 

Hilde's Camel

Yes the camel quilt is a true quilt. I found a series of photos of different camels, plus a few stitchery designs that I liked the look of. I contacted the original designers asking if they minded my basing my quilt on their designs and all were happy with that. 

I went out to a friend of mine who does lots of applique and she simplified it for me and viola we have the design for Hilde's camel. 

I have even collected the fabrics for it. I was going to say I bought them but in truth I had most of them already. I did buy the fabric for the background which are a mixture of creams and contrasts sewn together as a 1600 quilt. I went to a shop and asked them could I have a jelly roll cut out of fabrics I chose if I was willing to do the cutting. They were willing to let me and so 40 strips later I had the perfect background.

Red Berry Stars

Don't you like making group quilts? They get finished so much faster than your own quilts. Well when I put it like that I suppose I should say 'they get finished' period!

This quilt was made by the Red Berry Quilters and will be their raffle quilt for next year's Berry Quilt Show. I'm not sure but I think it will be in April as they have decided to move it from the original date as someone had already booked the hall. There will be some really beautiful quilts on display so keep April free. I will let you know the actual date as soon as I  know it.

Btw if you would like a copy of the patterns for this just click on this link for a pdf of the foundation papers. You will find there is also a second document for completing the border stars that although were in my original design they decided not to use. Send me a photo if you decide to make it.

Khanam's Surprise

Well this quilt was started over four years ago. 
I designed the block for Volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks series and just loved it. I had just heard of a method for drawing the cutting and sewing lines onto the back of the fabric using my inkjet printer and thought this ws the perfect opportunity to try it. That worked out well and the fabric was marked and cut out in under a week if I remember correctly. 
I then took the project with me overseas and had a perfect take anywhere project while travelling around. It was that Xmas when airports all over Europe were closed due to lots of so now. My first and hopefully last white Xmas... the theory or idea is great... the actuality is cold, wet and slippery. Wonderful from inside beside a warm fire.
Anyway finished the quilt top fairly quickly, then basted it and there it has sat waiting for a l...o...n...g time. 
This year is my adventure with free motion quilting and after a few successes, with baby sized quilts it was now Khanam's Surprise's time. 
I have decide that I will stitch an octagon around each star and then free motion inside the octagon to highlight the star. Here is attempt number one..... I will keep you posted in my progress.

Are We There Yet?

Well another free motion quilting exercise finished and very cute too ! This was another block that appeared in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, volume 9 I think. It was called I Should Have Flown South by it always reminds me of that line we have heard so many times when starting out on a trip with our children Are We There Yet?

I enlarged it by 140% and so rather than a 12in block it is now 18in ..well there abouts. Perfect for a pram quilt I think.

Gertie

Well it is time for me to bite the bullet and start to work on my free motion quilting. A few weeks ago I did a class in needle turn machine appliqué. The class was to be a vase of flowers, which as beautiful as they were, was something that I knew I would never finish so I decided to make Gertie instead.

Gertie is by Sue Marsh from Whistlepig Creek productions and was the perfect design for the exercise. I had been wanting to try needle turn machine appliqué for a while and had seen a demonstration by Paula Storm on preparing templates using freezer paper. Put the two ideas together and viola... Gertie was born

POP

POP - Pachyderms on Parade

Besides teaching Raconteur last year I had the pleasure of teaching a group of delightful women from the Bateman's Bay area. They choose to make what I call my Scrooge series of quilts. The name comes from the fact that all of the quilts, at least mine, were made from my scraps. I had many unwanted fabrics lying around and so cut them into strips and then proceeded to make a few quilts from these strips. 

POP, aka Pachyderms on Parade, was one of those quilts and here you can see Gill's finished quilt. It is amazing how your eyes try to follow the paths throughout. 

I had previously only made this with smaller blocks but unless we enlarged and modified the blocks Gill was going to be making blocks until next Xmas. Increasing the blocks meant we had to add an extra curve into several of the blocks but this sat beautifully with her design and colours. 

She likes it enough that it is a keeper.

Scrapbox Wonders

Carol decided it was time for a clean up in her sewing room and found these three left overs from other projects. Perfect she figured for a few more of her blocks. Carol is making a king size Raconteur and her preferred layout needs three more collections than the original, so these definitely won't go astray. For other delightful original blocks by Carol simply click on the 'original' label on the right.. you will adore here angry bird :)

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Tutorial - Foundation Piecing

Well next month there are three of my favourite foundation pieced blocks and so I thought a tutorial wouldn't hurt..... well that was until I tried to make one and discovered that it wasn't as easy to explain as it was to do. So I have done some surfing and hope this helps you. 
I have drawn the foundation papers for the first two videos below if you wish to try them first. 

Gourmet Quilter's Tree

Download them here. I have drawn them in two sizes. The larger size is easier.

When beginning to foundation piece cut your fabric with 1/2in seam allowance on all sides. Even when you are experienced 1/2in is useful if you are covering triangular or strange shaped areas.

Try this video by the Gourmet Quilter first as the shapes are easier as are the sizes.

This is a great video but watch it after the first video.

Connecting Threads

This tutorial is very well presented by Karen Johnson, of Connecting Threads. She teaches you the most common version of Foundation Piecing - usually known as Paper Piecing. Achieve perfect points on tiny blocks with just a few easy tips. Karen recommends the 'add a Quarter Tool' however for the miniature blocks the 'add an eighth ruler is better. Add a quarter is too big for our blocks.

One thing that I would advise you to do those is to NOT trim all of your seam allowances ahead of time. If the fabric slips before you sew it on then you may not have enough seam allowance to fully cover the section where it is needed.

Karen recommends you 
1. you drop your stitch length. She doesn't say how much to drop it but I usually recomend you only drop it by two notches. If you make the stitch length too small it makes it difficult if you make a mistake and need to unpick.
2. change your needle to a heavier or larger size, say size 10. This is to make the perforations larger and so it will make removing the paper later.
3. if you make a mistake and need to unpick a seam use Scotch Magic Tape to cover the mistaken perforated line
4. pressing or at least finger pressing each seam before adding the next seam.

Another video you may like to check out is from  Fons & Porter