Sunday 22 May 2016

May Blooms - One Block Wonder 2015

Again, this month, I have participated in Upstairs Hobby Rooms One Block Wonder.
After making a small quilt last month, I was determined to make time for a bigger one this month.
The May block is called May Blooms, and is a wonderful  large flower block of 24 inches.
I have 2 options for a recipient, and both love pansies, so I decided to try to make my flowers into pansies.

I found 4 Fat Quarter bundles amongst my stash which gave me sets of 3 shades of the same colour in the way I was looking for. There are Butterflies by Lizzy House, Mixmasters Fizz by Robert Kaufmann, Dream by Timeless Treasures  and Pepper Corry's Brushstrokes.  Always great not to have to buy extra fabric

Some of the flowers I graduated colour from light to dark, and others I reversed the order. This was to show the different types of pansies. The same went with the centre's of the flowers, which were again alternated. The yellow centre's have the black outside them to represent the "faces" of the pansies.




The quilt finished at 80.5 inches, so it grew quickly.
I quilted this with Aurifil white colour 24 in a all-over swirl and petal design.


Originally I planned on a 3rd border of yellow, but after these I felt it was enough.  Seeing the Red Bridge photo  I think the extra yellow border would have been good too.


A quick word about the Red Bridge for those who don't know about it. This pedestrian bridge is in Feilding a town less than 10 minutes from our home. When I was looking for somewhere to photograph a large quilt a couple of years ago, I found this. The large quilts can hang down so the full quilt can be seen. The redness with the green grass and trees in the background is a great setting for many of the quilts. The Council even painted the bridge shortly after I started using it, so from dull red it has become a bright shiny orange-red.
Now most of my quilts get a Red Bridge photo.


I am linking up to the Upstairs Hobby Room Linky of May Blooms.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Fancy Foxes

I had bought a kit to make  for a Fancy Fox quilt quite a while ago from Whimsy Quilts & Fabrics. so I decided it was time to get moving.  I love Elizabeth Hartman's animal patterns and had made some of her other animal blocks. I had made up some Fox blocks as a test maybe a year ago. These 4 test blocks eventually got made into a tote bag by a lovely friend.

This quilt has a background of Michael Miller Pinhead Dots in Fog, with the foxes made from many different orange, rust coral and red fabrics.  I wanted a larger size than the kit made up, so I gathered a few extra fabrics than provided in the fabric bundle.
The pattern is borderless, and I have yet to see it otherwise but I wanted a border to add a bit if size and to keep the foxes contained. I chose the darkest fox fabric for this, and am happy with how this works.



The label is a white fox so I guess he is an Arctic Fox.
Size:64 inches by 74 inches
This is quilt finish No 8 for this year.