Blogger's Quilt Festival

Thank you so much to Amy for hosting the quilt festival. Its a wonderful way to meet lots of fabulous talented bloggers, and sometimes leads to newfound friendships.

Today I would like to show you a quilt I made for my daughter.

I bought a fat quarter bundle of Plume by Tula Pink early 2010 after my daughter had said how much she loved the colours and the prints.
It took me ages to decide on a pattern, I finally chose a pattern by Atkinson Designs, Between Friends which called for 14 1/2 inch blocks. I thought this would showcase the larger prints in the range.

After looking at all the prints and wanting to make a queen sized quilt I added some Kona and Bella solids to the mix to break it up a bit.

The first blocks, I love these colours

I started putting it together in November 2010. It was so big that to work out how I wanted the layout of the blocks, I had to take it over to my parents house as I didn't have a large enough floor space.

The quilt top finally finished

It was too big, 87 inches by 87 inches, for me to tackle the quilting so I sent it off to my favourite long arm quilter, Fiona. She did a wonderful job, the all over pattern echoes some of the prints.

The binding and backing is Kona Bright Pink. I also used one of the feather designs in the backing.

A not very good photo of part of the back.

My daughter loves it and I'm really happy I've made something that she loves! 

It's called Paradise because of the Birds of Paradise on the fabric and my blog name!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2011

WIP Wednesday

It wasn't a particularly productive week for me, I was hoping to find my mojo, it's still missing, maybe someone else is having fun with it.

Although I finally finished something.


The binding is all done and dusted on the Plume quilt.

This is all I can show you though as I need Bitchypoo to clean her room and take the tons of crap off her bed so that I can put it on there to photograph. I promise a full length photo next week.
The stats:
Plume fat quarters plus Kona and Bella solids
Pattern - Between Friends by Atkinson Designs
Quilt - 87 inches by 87 inches
Backing - Kona Bright Pink and Plume
Binding - Kona Bright Pink
Quilted by Fiona the Quilting Fairy.


Meanwhile I'm very slowly adding to the starflowers. Sorry it's a little crumpled, it's getting quite big now so tends to be folded when I'm not working on it.





On the crocheting side of things. I finally posted a tutorial yesterday on how to make a crochet back with button closures for a crochet pillow. Something I had been thinking of doing for a very long time.


Worked On This Week
Plume quilt - finished
Starflowers
Crochet tutorial

Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Interest
Mystery Quilt
Material Obsession BOM
Floral Bouquet quilt - borders to be adde
HST project - finish backing
McFlurry - start making the backing
Circle Game BOM
Monochromatic Challenge
Hexagon Cushion

Weeks Statistics
New Projects - 0
Worked On - 3
Ignored - 8
Finished Projects -1

Pop on over to Lee's blog to see lots of creativity this week.

Another Finish - WIP Wednesday

I can't believe I've finished two quilts in two weeks. It's unheard of at Chez Sunshine.  Thanks to Lee at Freshly Pieced it's the linking up to WIP Wednesday that is giving me the momentum to finally finish these.

This is the quilt from the French Roses pattern. I changed it a little and rather than having borders I made extra blocks.  There are two off white squares on the back as the original plan was to make the blocks with the off white as the background and the pink floral was to be the backing, but after making two blocks one of the girls at Patchwork Angel and I decided to use the pink floral as the bakground and use the off white as the backing. Unfortunately the off white as backing shows up any imperfections in the positioning of the batting, so the blue floral was plan C. I left the original two in the quilt as a reminder of my change of plans because I was too lazy to use the seam ripper. I'm so glad I didn't use the off white as I love the way this has turned out. It really has that shabby feel to it and the lovely aged quality of the raw edge flowers is enhanced by the old fashioned feel of the fabric.

An extra flower hand sewn to the back.

The other off white block just off to the left of the photo is going to be used as the label.

Close up of one of the flower blocks.

A few loose threads need to be trimmed, this is only the first wash and tumble dry.

Flower Sugar 2 with some Tanya Whelan which is also used as the backing fabric and binding. Bias binding used for the sashing.
I'm still trying to think of a name for this quilt.



Two more starflower blocks

I really really love how the Soul Blossoms fabric is working in these.

The statistics this week:

Worked On This Week

French Roses - finished

English Paper Piecing

Plume quilt - backing finished (no photo)

Sitting On The Sidelines

Floral Bouquet Quilt

Circle Game BOM

Mystery Quilt

Waiting Patiently For Me To Show Some Interest

Same as the last few weeks (How long is it before they are officially UFO's?)

Tiggly Winks

Jacobean Flower - quilting

Don't Look Now cushion - quilting

Monochromatic Block

Weeks Statistics

New Projects - 0

Completed - 1  yipppeeeeeeee again

Worked On - 3

Hyperventilating Over -  0 (Notice no hyperventilating this week)

Put to the Side This Week - 3

Ignoring - still the same 4

I really really really want to start something new, but I can't make a decision. I've never had that problem before, it feels a bit strange.
Thank you Lee at  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Calm

I've paid the US$5 fee to google and now I can post photos again. It's going to take me a very long time to fill the extra 20GB.

After my little meltdown yesterday,  I found my crafty mojo and it stayed all weekend.

Another pincushion.

Lots more crochet stars.

Putting together bitchypoo's quilt.

This morning after a de-clutter in the spare room/study, I have two bags of things to go to charity, and lots of stuff to go in the rubbish.

A productive weekend.

Progress.................. finally

I have had a week of absolute nothing, well, nothing crafty.  I stared at a computer screen for hours on end, tried to get some inspiration, looked at and maybe purchased fabric online as the exchange rate is so good, read blogs to see what everyone else was doing while I was doing nothing.
Then today, all of a sudden the funk lifted and I had a great day, both on the home front, cleaning, washing, ironing and sorting though clothes and taking the excess to the Salvation Army, and more importantly, working on the layout of two quilts.  The first one using Rural Jardin and the scruffily quilt tutorial  from Moda Bakehouse. Roughly and quickly laid out on the floor before the possibility probability of being re-arranged by cats, dogs or teenage daughters.

The second one, bitchypoo's quilt, I had to take the blocks over to my parents house as I don't have a "design floor" large enough to lay it out. Sorry no photos of this as I forgot to take my camera.  Both quilts are  ready to go now, and I've sewn the first row of bitchypoo's this evening. A couple of close ups.

I started pulling fabric for another project and this is a very tiny sneak peek.

I need to use up some Kona Solids fat quarters, as I accidentally ordered (and paid for 2) bundles of the same colour way. Hmmmmmmm

Organized - for today!

Somebody whose name starts with Q and ends in P, had a bet with me last night that I had lots more fabric than her. That was all the incentive I needed to clean up my fabric stash dumping ground, as I was positive I wouldn't have as much fabric as Mrs P. 

I don't! 

However I now have kind of neat/tidyish piles of fabric. Here it is in all it's glory. This will be the last time it is this tidy for another 6 months.

The top shelf, on the left are the solids, behind those are some Kaffe Fassett fat quarters I bought earlier in the year. I fondle these regularly but still haven't decided what to do with them. The solids are mainly half yards except for the two bags on top which are the Kona solids fat quarter bundles, pretty in pink and spice which just arrived this week. To the right of those are my charm squares, behind those, yardage (mostly 1/2 yd) of blue/green/greys.

On the left below are the 1/2 yds of orange/pinks/mauves/reds and black/white. To the right of that, all my layer cakes and on top left overs from layer cakes, and the Pure disappearing 9 patch quilt top. (And a mini iron)

The bottom shelf has the chenille and flannel quilt kit I bought earlier in the year, which I haven't started, and a box with all my Martinique fabric ready for when I make my next Martinique based quilt.
By the way, my mum loved her quilt and has asked me to make one for my dad, in the same fabric, so another quilt in Martinique but a more masculine feel,  no florals.  Even my sister liked it and has put in an order of a quilt for her **th birthday in 2 years.  I never ever thought they would want hand made quilts, so I feel pretty special this week!

On the right of the bottom shelf, yardage bought for backing.

My drawer stuffed full of jelly rolls. This is the only drawer with fabric in it, the top one has quilting books and the bottom one is empty.

An Ikea box full of fat quarters and some solids charm squares.

This box has been hiding the infamous snowball blocks and also the  scraps I used to make my first ever wonky log cabin block.

That's it. Even I was surprised how it all packed up nicely into this. I had visions of purchasing lots of storage boxes to hold it all once I had tidied up.  

So woo hoo now I can buy more fabric, yippeeeee. 

No not really, I have a couple of orders to come from the States, but I think I have more than enough to keep me going. It's just so tempting to keep on buying now that the good old Aussie dollar is so high against the U.S. dollar.

My latest sewing efforts have been using these lovely bright fabrics, Plume.

 A messy pile as I was sewing. This is the beginning of bitchypoo's quilt using 30 fat quarters, and the solids above.

. 

 I love the blocks, I am just hoping when it is all put together it won't be too overpowering.

These are the left overs from the blocks which will be made into matching pillows/cushions/something!