Wednesday 31 August 2011

Bold Quilt with Simple Quilting

I love the strong visual impact of this quilt made by Pricilla. It was quilted with a freehand curl pattern.


Visit Esther's Blog to see what other quilters are working on this Wednesday.

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Funky Oval Spirals


This quilt belongs to Jill.  She asked me to make my usual spiral allover pattern more oval in shape.  I really like the funky modern effect.


Visit Esther's Blog to see what other quilters are working on this Wednesday.

Saturday 13 August 2011

Creating a Quilting Design - Tutorial

This is a close up of the fabric in Bronwyn’s quilt which I showed in my last post.


I used this fabric as inspiration for the quilting design in the setting triangles of this quilt.  You can see there is a mixture of flowers, swirls, leaves and paisley shapes.

I started by sketching some ideas that came to me from looking at this fabric.



Then I incorporated them into a triangle shape – a few pages of sketches were discarded before getting to this stage.



When I found something I liked, I was ready to load the quilt.  I marked the shapes and basic lines with chalk to see if I liked how it would fit into the area I was working with.

Once satisfied, I took a deep breath and started quilting.



It was a little intimidating to work with such a high contrasting thread as it shows every little wobble.  Once I got started though, it was a lot easier than I thought.  I even found that one line of stitching was not strong enough, so in some places I went over the stitching line twice to make it stand out even more.




Friday 12 August 2011

Challenge Quilt

This is Bronwyn’s challenge quilt.  The challenge was to use the brown/tan fabric in a quilt (it was all one fabric that graduated from light to dark).  Bronwyn decided that instead of using this fabric as one of many, that it would be the primary fabric.  To achieve this, she had to obtain as many pieces as possible of the challenge fabric from members of the group.

Bronwyn asked me to quilt something special in the cream setting triangles, and she requested a high contrast thread.  She decided on an allover leaf and swirl pattern in the centre, and a simple leaf design in the border.


I used the patterns in the challenge fabric to inspire the quilting design I created for the setting triangles.  I will discuss how I did this in more detail in my next post.



And the back.


Visit Sarah's Blog to see what other quilts have been working on this week.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Mariner’s Compass in Purples and Reds


I love the colours in this quilt made by Irena.  She made almost the entire quilt out of her stash, and many of the fabrics have special meaning for her.  I think it has come together beautifully.

Irena didn’t want the quilting to dominate in her quilt, so I did a lot of ditch stitching.  I broke the large red setting triangles up with some straight lines as well as feathers to create a bit more interest, and I think the effect worked well.





Tuesday 9 August 2011

Feeding the Kangaroos – Part 2


I don’t think this video of my nephew feeding a kangaroo is as cute as the one I posted a couple of months back (click here to view it).

But this still is pretty cute (yes I know I am a very biased Aunty).  I can see how much he has grown in the five months between the two videos - kids change so fast.  

He is having a sleep over with us this weekend.  I can’t wait. Hopefully the weather will be nice so we can go to the park, or maybe the zoo.


Friday 5 August 2011

Queen Square Quilt

Anne-Marie made this gorgeous quilt for her mother.  The design is Sue Ambrose’s Queen Square Quilt.  Anne-Marie’s quilt is striking due to her fabric choices – I love the green background.

Anne-Marie didn’t want it too heavily quilted so that it would remain soft.  All the appliqué and seams are ditch stitched and outlined.  I used my curved cross hatching rulers to emphasise the curves of the appliqué, and I quilted some feathers in the shapes created.




Visit Sarah's Blog to see what other quilters have been up to this week.

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Floral Embroidery

Once again, another of Janet Sansom’s beautiful embroidery quilts.  We decided on a simpler quilting design in the sashing than what was quilted on Janet’s black embroidery quilt because the embroidery was lighter on this quilt.


I have posted a number of Janet's quilts on my blog.  You can see them all by clicking on the Embroidery label, or click - here.

Visit Esther's Blog to see what other people are working on this Wednesday.

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Celebration Cake


We had lunch on Sunday with Paul’s family.  My mother in law, Angela wanted to celebrate the success of my quilt Ruled by Chocolate at the quilt show.

This was the gorgeous cake she made.  She went to so much trouble to make the rosettes, and the lines of chocolate coated macadamia nuts symbolise the name of the quilt.  

I am so lucky to have married into such a caring family.