Second International Round Robin Finished

This is the second year that I have been involved in an International Round Robin with three other quilters - myself and Bronwyn are Australian and Kathy and Lori are Canadian.

We have just completed our final round and the quilts have all been mailed home to their owners.

In this Round Robin, in the first three rounds the members made blocks in sizes of their choice and in the final round, the quilt was put together however the person chose.

You can see photos of earlier rounds on Kathy’s blog –

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

This is my quilt, put together by Lori.  I love it!  Especially the border – thank you Lori.

This is Kathy’s quilt, put together by me.

This is Bronwyn’s quilt, put together by Kathy.

And this is Lori’s quilt put together by Bronwyn.

You can see the final quilts of our first Round Robin here.

Thank you ladies for another very enjoyable Round Robin, and I look forward to next year.

Quirky Circles

This striking quilt was made by Louise.  It is her original design.

I really like how the circles aren’t perfect and symmetrical as their quirkiness adds to the overall effect of the quilt.

I kept the quilting simple with an allover freehand meandering so as to not distract with the piecing and applique on the quilt.

New Fabric Purchases

Do you wash your fabric before using it?  I know a lot of people don’t, but I always wash my fabric as soon as I buy it.

Yesterday I went fabric shopping with a friend, and bought some beautiful fabric at Cutting Cloth in Fairfield.  It is a gorgeous shop and I was only planning to buy a few things, but I walked out with two bags of fabric, and a new quilt idea percolating. 

I have washed all my new purchases, and now they are waiting in a giant mound to be ironed.

So this is what my personal sewing area looks like.  I always have several projects on the go at once.  You can see on my design wall a young girl’s quilt I am making for a family member as a Christmas present.

My ironing board really needs a new cover.  It is so bad my husband commented on it recently.  I really would like a new ironing board as this one is very old and on the small side.  My iron is also very old, but I like a plain iron, and this one works perfectly.  

Applique Quilt

This gorgeous applique quilt was made by Coral.

It was drafted from a small picture in a book – Birds ‘n Roses by Margaret Docherty.   The picture was of the Garden Quilt by Josephine Craig 1933.  Coral enlarged the picture and from that made templates for the applique.

I quilted feathers in the larger plain areas, and McTavished the background.

I did small pebbles around the applique to make it stand out next to the McTavishing.

Wedding Quilt for my Sister

I finished this quilt towards the end of last year and gave it to my sister and her husband before two years had passed since their marriage.  So not too late.......

I wanted to make something more contemporary, and love the colours. They are able to put it on their bed in either direction depending on which way they want the stripes to go.

All the strips reminded me of layer cakes so I decided to call it Chocolate Layered Wedding Cake.

I custom quilted it by ditch stitching all the strips, feathers in the wider strips and setting triangles, a diamond pattern on some of the strips and CCing the small squares.

My sister and her husband love it, and it is now on their bed.

The Green Monster Quilt

This is my friend Bronwyn’s Quilt.  Bronwyn designed the quilt and showed me a copy of the design before the quilt was completed.  As a quilter, what I really liked about it was the interesting shapes that were the background, and I spent some time looking at the design drawing to work out how I should tackle quilting it.

As I have been quilting for Bronwyn for years I am comfortable having artistic freedom.  I decided to treat each three pronged area as a whole unit and designed a feather to fit this shape.  

I do not have a computerised machine so the entire quilt was done with rulers and the feathers are freehand.  I deliberately made the feathers all slightly different, and some have little curls in random places.

The centre star I emphasised with straight lines.

The little pieced stars around the centre star I emphasised with straight lines and a row of pebbles to make them stand out a little from the rest of the background.

This is a big quilt, and there is a lot of quilting.  Bronwyn called the quilt Chrysoberyl, which is a green gemstone.  But by the time I had finished this quilt I was calling it The Green Monster.

Bronwyn blocked the quilt at my house, as she didn’t have the available floor space.  I helped her, but all I did was hold the tape measure and Bronwyn was the one crawling around putting in all the pins.  Usually I am the one doing that, and my husband just holds the tape measure when I block a quilt, so it was nice to be just the helper for a change.

Bronwyn entered the quilt in the Victorian Quilters Showcase last year.  It received some lovely comments.

Pink and White Quilt

This gorgeous quilt was made by Sue.  This is the first quit that Sue had brought me, and she asked me to go to town with the quilting on the white borders.  I was very happy to oblige.

I quilted feathers, curved cross hatching and straight lines to break up the areas on the borders. 

A plain white fabric on the back was perfect for showing up all the quilting.