Blue Crossroads.
Posted on June 14, 2024 | 7 Comments
This is the last of the quilts made with the blue bundles purchased at the end of last year. I had to add in a little from my stash, but I managed to use up the last of the bundles. It is about 60 X 60 inches.
I must admit that I did not find this easy to make. I had a lot of hiccups trying to get each corner to match. Glad I didn’t want to make a larger one.
I stuck with it, and did a lot of unsewing.
I really like the fabrics and had a play with different combinations.
I kept the quilting basic. Straight lines alongside each seam and them a straight line through all the crosses.
The backing was a lovely blue line print on white.
The binding was a blue/green print.
So there it goes – the last of the special fabric bundles.
Since returning home I have been working on some different quilts. Three of them are easy square and rectangle combos. I needed that when we came back while my body was sorting out time zones. Nothing too taxing. Hopefully soon I will want to find something more challenging.
I hope you have a great weekend planned. I am catching up with quite a few family members. Can’t wait.
Cheers, Karen
Getting Back To Normal.
Posted on June 6, 2024 | 6 Comments
We are back at home and trying hard to adjust to our own time zone. The cold is also a huge shock!
We have spent the last month in South Carolina where the temps have been in the 80s and 90s (F). Back home and we are lucky to get to 55F (13C). Takes a bit of adjusting.
The reason we were in SC, apart from enjoying our family, was to attend our granddaughter’s high school graduation. For the last 3 years she has been in a residential school in Greenville, attending the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and Humanities. SCGSAH. She has been playing the double bass.
After the Summer break our granddaughter will be heading to university to study Music Therapy.
Before leaving I had completed a quilt that just needed the binding finished.
I had a lot of trouble with the colours for this one. The close up pics are more true to the colours. It is a quilt that had been started many years ago. The blocks, log cabin style, were completed and then for some reason I put it away.And, to be honest, I forgot it was there. When I rediscovered it , I realised how little needed to be done to complete it. I already have a friend who wants it and can’t understand how I forgot it. Neither can I!
Much better representation of the colours. I even considered using it as a tablecloth.
The quilting is mostly straight lines and some meandering.
The backing is a lovely green and the binding is a green with a cream spot.
The fabrics come from an older range by April Cornell for Moda.
When we arrived home we had a lovely surprise. The citrus trees had been enjoying the weather and a lot of the fruit has ripened. A beautiful sight. Oranges, mandarins and lemons.
Plenty of Vitamin C for the next few months.
Okay, now it is time for me to start catching up on your posts and seeing what has been happening.
Cheers, Karen
A May Break.
Posted on May 5, 2024 | 4 Comments
Time for me to take a blog break. No posts or making comments for the month of May.
I will jump back in with lots of enthusiasm in June.
Maybe these will be ripe by then?
Blue Snowflakes And Grey Bunnies.
Posted on April 27, 2024 | 9 Comments
A smaller quilt finish for today. Over the years I have collected smaller pieces of flannel fabric, but have not often sewn with them. When I was doing a tidy up I realised that pile of flannel fabrics had grown and needed to be used. We need a couple of warm quilts to have as extras in the caravan, so it was time to use those fabrics.
I didn’t want to cut the snowflake fabric into small pieces, so I kept them as 6 inch squares.
Then I framed each block with a selection of the blues that I had.
I used another blue in the border and then found a blue stripe for the binding. Definitely a blue theme again.
I found a large piece of flannel tucked away – grey rabbits! Why not?
Unfortunately this picture gives the illusion of blue. The next one is far more accurate.
I used very simple straight line quilting along the seams, then more lines across the diagonal of each block and through the centres.
Another finish, done and dusted. A very quick and easy quilt. Warm and snuggly.
Enjoy your weekend. Cheers, Karen
Not Blue, But Many Colours.
Posted on April 19, 2024 | 10 Comments
Time to make a break from the blue quilts. This is one that had been started a while back, then was put aside. But I was able to get back to it and have a LAQ do the quilting for me. It gives the impression of being a Christmas quilt, although I didn’t plan it that way.
It is made from a fabric range by Jacquelynne Steves called Joy, Love, Peace, Noel. So I suppose it is a Christmas fabric. You need a close look to see how lovely the fabrics are.
I used a spot fabric for an inner border, and then a lovely floral for the outer.
The quilting design is swirls and holly berries. It shows up well on the red and green backgrounds.
Because I had bought quite a few fabrics from the range I decided to cobble a backing together and this is the result.
I used a lovely blue floral to finish off in the binding.
There we go. Another quilt done and dusted. And the best part is that I have finally caught up on all the projects that were put aside when I had both machines in for repair last year. That doesn’t mean there are no projects waiting. That would be silly! Of course there is a pile, but at least they are not from last year.
Cheers for now, Karen.
Even More Blue And White.
Posted on April 13, 2024 | 8 Comments
I have used up nearly all the leftovers from the last few blue quilts and am now reaching into my stash. Not that it is making a dent, but it is good to use it.
I wasn’t expecting to have this quilt ready so soon, as my LAQ was busy with show preparations, but she called me after 10 days to say it was ready. Time to get binding. Here’s the back as well.
If I go in closer you can see the quilting design.
The blocks in this quilt are great stash busters. I have seen this layout in a lot of quilts but this one was inspired by SewCanShe. The pieces are cut 2in by 31/2in.
The sections go together to make one block. Each sectioned is turned to make the pattern work.
By doing this the blue parts come together to create the large sections and the white parts surround it..
As you can see, I have had a bit of fun with the fabrics – bears, mushrooms, text, and much more.
The swirl pattern was quilted in a soft blue.
And the binding was a royal blue, maybe shadowplay.
So, another blue quilt completed.
Other than that, there is plenty to do. The Australasian Quilt Convention is on, and we also have to get organised for some time away.
I hope your weekend is going well, too.
Cheers, Karen
Some Houses, And Some Inspiration!
Posted on March 15, 2024 | 5 Comments
I have shown my Sue Spargo houses before, when I had only appliqued the background. I am now steadily working through them to get each one embroidered. Slow and steady. I am working through the book in numerical order, so these are 1 to 8.
You can see the different wool backgrounds, but a lot of the small embroidery doesn’t always show up in blog pics.
On to the inspiration part of this post. We have spent several days staying in Sale, about 2 hours from home. The reason was to see Annemieke Mein’s retrospective at the gallery in Sale.. This year is her 80th birthday and the exhibition is a celebration of her work, from childhood to the present day.
I have to say that is was a stunning exhibition.
This photo was taken from the floor above the gallery and is looking down onto only one of the gallery spaces showing her work. Lots of information and even a section set up to show what her workshop/studio looks like. Many of the exhibits had the original artwork and the test pieces made before the final work.
I think the thing that stayed with me was the amount of preparation that goes into each piece. All the trial and error. And all the pieces left out. I would love to make things as good as those that didn’t meet Annemieke’s standards.
I treated myself to a special gift – her newest book celebrating this exhibition.
If you live close enough, or are prepared to travel, it is well worth a visit.
That’s it for me. I have a book to read.
Cheers, Karen
Some Leap Day Quilts.
Posted on February 29, 2024 | 8 Comments
I had to write the date a couple of times today and it felt a bit different. Only another 4 years before I can do it again.
And Happy Birthday to all those Leap Year babies!!!
I have strayed from my blue quilts to make a collection of donation quilts – baby size.
I realised I have several sets of these panels and was able to make a start on some quilts.
The first one was easy. Just cut out the 4 panels, add sashing and a border.
With the next one, I started with the single panel, which is a square. I wanted to turn it into a rectangle. I found a free pattern on the Birch blog site called In The Woods by Plum and June. It has a guide for adding borders that gradually increase the length of the piece, while still looking balanced in each border round.
I was happy with this one, so went back for seconds.
I only had a few pieces from the original fabric range but I had plenty to add to the mix.
I picked up some backing fabrics in a recent sale.
Most of the quilting was straight lines or loops, but I did have a little play in some sections.
I will keep these until I have a few more, then I can donate them.
I also found another distraction. It has been a while since I have played with any book making. I found one book that I had started so made the effort to get it finished.
I found an old atlas that was falling apart and used the paper to make new pages. Once they were stitched together I made a cover using another find, an old map poster.
I will use it to collect travel memorabilia.
That’s it for me. Back to more stitching.
Cheers, Karen
Looks Like I Have The Blues, Again.
Posted on February 22, 2024 | 10 Comments
More blue fabric. More blue quilts.
This is one where the top was finished last year, then my machine stopped working. It was added to the pile waiting for a turn to be quilted. I am nearly caught up!
This was another exercise in using fabric from my stash. I had enough to make the small post and rail blocks which I then turned into nine large blocks. I then used one of the fabrics to run sashing between them and also create a border. By that stage I had used all of those fabrics up.
I didn’t have enough of any one particular fabric for the backing, so I chose two to go together. Instead of simply sewing them together in strips as I have done before, I chose to centre one and use the other as a border. It kept me on my toes making sure it sat evenly on the back of the quilt.
The picture above shows clearly how the centre fabric was framed, but the photo below is a better indication of the colours.
Bit tricky to take photos with all the plants in the way. Never mind.
I used the striped fabric from the backing for the binding as well.
The quilt has ended up at 70 X 70 inches. Definitely ready to go on a bed.
Lots of strange weather here at the moment. We had windstorms last week with the power off for 20 hours. But that was nothing compared to other areas and the damage that has occurred. And some still do not have power back more than a week later.
Today instead is really hot and I am glad to stay indoors for all of it. Tomorrow our temp is half what it is today. It never gets boring here.
Back to work and more blue quilts, maybe. Cheers, Karen.
More Blue And White.
Posted on February 3, 2024 | 8 Comments
There have been plenty of these Plus quilts around, but until now I didn’t have fabrics I wanted to use in one. Then I had a visit to Cutting Cloth and came home with a bundle. I combined it with the left overs from the previous blue quilt I had made with another bundle from Cutting Cloth.
And, yes, there are still some Christmas decorations on the fence. I always think I have put everything away, and then something like this is staring me in the face.
I made many of the blocks in one fabric each.
But then I also had a bit of fun with the centres of others.
That just shows that sometimes it is worth holding onto those smaller pieces.
I was able to use a lot of the lighter coloured pieces to make a small patchy border.
I had a piece of Tilda backing left over from another quilt. So two backings from one piece is a bonus.
I then found another piece from my stash for the binding.
I quilted a flower motif in each cross then did a looping meander in the white blocks.
I do like seeing quilts on beds. It ended up at just over 60 inches square.
Now that this one is done I am continuing on the scrappy blue and white blocks. I think I am at the halfway mark. I couldn’t resist having a play with the ones that are finished.
Unlike the rest of our country, we have had a very mild Summer. We are only getting a few hot days. It has meant that the garden and trees are doing extremely well, and the grass is still green. That is unheard of for us in February. We usually have brown grass and dirt.
Photos of blues skies, flowering gum and sunflowers.
We are very lucky to have them in our own backyard.
That’s it for now. Off to pick tomatoes and corn.
Enjoy your weekend.
Cheers, Karen
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