Jelly roll race - part one!

Bright Jewels Sushi Roll - (Bali Fabrics, Inc) - 44 inch long strips

This batik 'sushi roll' (as it is titled) has been in my stash since I got it last year as a birthday present; I decided to have a go of a jelly roll race quilt, following this tutorial, on Saturday.  It took about 90 minutes to put the strips together (not counting the stoppage to head to Invercargill to watch the Southern Steel beat the Waikato Magic in the ANZ netball competition - WAY TO GO STEEL!!, followed by a delicious meal at Waxy O'Shea's with Broni and Buck and Maria).

Sew each strip together, end to end on a 45 angle, until all the strips are joined. Trim the corners (no need to press), cut about 18 inches off one end of the strip (so that when you sew everything together there will be staggered joins).  Then fold the strip end to end and sew along the length of the strip. Cut at the end where the fold is.

I pressed the seam up, then folded the strip end to end again to sew along the length (so now the piece is two strips wide).

Keep repeating the fold-over and stitching; the piece will keep doubling in width, while getting shorter in length.

Getting wider...loving the colour combo's!

This is what I ended up with! I decided I would unpick it in the middle and make it into two lap quilts. I think they will be an ideal size for practising my free motion quilting skills.

 

Sunday meant a trip into town to take advantage of the 30% off sale at Spotlight (and my wonderful $100 gift card that my co-workers gave me to celebrate my ten years of working at the school!) - I bought some deep purple solid to use as backing and binding, as well as a navy based batik to border one of the quilts, and a purple/blue batik to border the other quilt.

May's tote bag

Number three in the set, made from a layer cake of Sandy Gervais (for Moda) 'Frolic', using a pattern called 'On the Move':

The full panel - the complete outer layer is patched and then quilted before assembling the bag.

Close up of the straight line stitching on one end panel.

Close up of the double stipple free-motion quilting (thanks Leah Day!) on some of the  panels.

Mrs Perkins giraffe #9

Right! I said I would get these giraffes finished in April and this one was! The other three...not quite.

I can only put the legs on one giraffe a day as gripping the doll making needle and getting it through the thicknesses of stuffed limbs results in quite sore fingers (so have been also working on quilting another bag).

Pattern is Mrs Perkins from Melly & Me. Height approx 18"

In 2014 this was given to Bex Brown, our te reo Maori teacher, to await the arrival of her new baby daughter.