Summer Solstice - Flying Geese

The first week of sewing for Happy Quilting's new Quilt Along meant making flying geese. because I chose the make 16  of the 20 inch blocks, I had to sew 16 groups of 8 flying geese.
We used the No Waste method, which meant it went fairly quickly.
Here are my piles of geese in Tula Pink's lovely Eden line.

Linking up with the Happy Quilting fortnightly show of blocks

Brilliant Cluster- July One Block Wonder

This month's One Block Wonder  on Upstairs Hobby Room was a star block- Brilliant Cluster.
I love stars and so was very drawn to this block.
Unfortunately this month was very busy quilting-wise so I didn't have time for a full quilt.  I don't want to leave the work from the One Block Wonder finished at the end of each month, so always try to finish it on time, whatever I have decided to make.  I decided to  make a table mat for my mother from the block. She asked for bright and colourful.
This was the result. It is deliberately scrappy, with the fabrics coming from my scrap bins or stash fat quarters. The red star points were bonus triangles from stitch and flip corners on a quilt I made a couple of years ago.

Last month I was the lucky winner of the zips from zipit.  Jenny was really lovely to deal with as well as generous, and she has a great zip offering. I highly recommend her if you are looking for zips and friendly service. I asked for a selection of 22 inch zips, which is the size I use most often. Jenny sent me a wonderful rainbow of colour.

I am linking up to the monthly round-up of projects at Upstairs Hobby Room

Summer Solstice

The lovely Melissa from Happy Quilting is holding a quilt along. The first part (cutting) has been posted so there is still plenty  of time to join in.
I have chosen to do a 4 by 4 layout of 20 inch blocks.

I am currently trying to use some of my collection of fabrics, so chose to use  the lovely Eden line by Tula Pink. The hardest part was choosing 16 of the fabrics to use.

After 2 days of cutting I am finally finished. I know I will be pleased it is all done as we go along, but there was an awful lot to do.

Here are my cut piles. The squares of fabric in the front are one of each of the fabrics used.

I am linking up to Happy Quilting

Topographical-June One Block Wonder

I loved the quilt that Sandy from Upstairs Hobby Room made using this month's block. The colours were gorgeous and I had been wanting to make a blue and green quilt for a while.  I shamelessly copied Sandy's colours when it came time to make it. I like big quilts which are big enough for a bed, so needed to make 9  of the 24 inch blocks.

This quilt didn't really need a border but I admit to being partial to them, and prefer the way a quilt with a border looks on the bed. I went ahead and added 4.
The quilt ended up being 87 inches square.
Quilting-I decided to do a simple stipple for this.

I had made some aqua blocks which I decided to replace. I instead made some blue-green blocks and some green-blue. The original blocks were perfect for making up the extra backing needed. The quilt was too wide for just 2 widths of fabric.  I think they look great in a line.

Please take the time to make a quick comment before you leave the page. You don't know how much they mean. 

I am linking up for the Linky Party at Upstairs Hobby Room

Kaffe Challenge Quilt

The little Facebook Quilting group I belong to has been doing a challenge quilt. We did a block swap of the Woven block which had to be made with at least 2 Kaffe Collective fabrics, up to 2 blenders with a white tone on tone background. We then had to make a quilt using our blocks.

I decided to combine the challenge with the idea of circles. Several of the group are doing a circle quilt, inspired by the 365 Circles that is running this year.

I joined and sashed the woven blocks and treated it as a large square, then just made a giant Square in a Square block. I liked the centre diamond floating rather than touching at the edges.
The sashing is bright pink Aboriginal Dots and the border is Kaffe's Dahlia Blooms. The binding is Ribbon Stripe

The backing features a row of spare woven blocks down the centre.

Quilting-each of the elements is quilted differently.  The centre is cross hatched, following the lines created by the blocks. The Circle triangles have organic wavy lines  and the border has a scroll design.

Size is 85 inches square

Following a suggestion from Korrinna  and based on  our group name,  the quilt is called Sew Let's Kaffe.

This is finish No 10 this year

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.

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.