Brilliant - second quilt finish of 2020

An invitation to my friend Kath's 50th birthday dinner (held last week) meant a frantic scramble through my stash to find the perfect fabrics to create a gift for her. I had about eight days' notice but am on summer holidays (and the weather has been yucky) so was able to get busy putting it together.

This fat quarter pack of Elizabeth Hartman's Rhoda Ruth fabric has been in my stash for a few years from when I was a member of the Moda Modern FQ club for a year; I thought the colours and prints of this set were lots of fun, just like Kath!

 I have had Christa Watson's free Beaded Lanterns pattern in my to-do folder for a while too, and although it is a jelly-roll pattern, I was able to make four lanterns from each fat quarter.  I chose to show up the prints by using a dark charcoal grey solid as the background (which was the only thing I had to buy).

Auditioning backgrounds

I added an extra column of lanterns to the side of the quilt to make it a wider lap quilt (and have still got about 8 lanterns to use for a smaller second quilt at some stage).

Laid out ready for sewing into rows...

I adore this print with the white leopards!

The prints had a good range of animals, florals and geometrics - can you spot the foxes?

This rich crimson/red has giraffe motifs.

I free-motion quilted this 64" x 75" lap quilt/double quilt as per the suggestions Christa makes in the pattern: echo straight lines and large pebbles/bubbles in the background; zigzag loops down the column of lanterns.

The backing is also pieced from my stash - a really cool landmarks of major cities print and a stripe.

The binding is an aqua tone-on-tone print.

I called the quilt 'Brilliant!' as it is so colourful and vibrant - again, just like Kath!

Ready to go!

Otag-O Highlanders - first quilt finish of 2020

My first quilt finish for 2020 was this 'Mirage' pattern (by Yvonne Fuchs aka Quilting Jetgirl).

I made the large lap quilt (60" x 84") in Highlanders rugby team colours for the son of one of my best friends; it easily covers a single bed.

Billy's older siblings have had their quilts so he was waiting patiently for his to turn up before he also heads off to college.

He requested Highlanders colours - the franchise team for the Otago/Southland region in the Super Rugby competition.  Blue is the main colour (Otago is traditionally blue and gold), maroon is an accent colour (Southland is traditionally maroon and gold) and lime is the team's away jersey colour - which I thought would be good for the fourth ring to give a bit of pizazz.

While the original pattern using graduating colours for the triangles within each circle, I instead used just the five solid colours (all from Spotlight) - so it took a bit of maths to work out the pieces I had to cut and where to place them.  The pattern Yvonne has written has about five size versions, so I am definitely keen to try it again with the suggested range of colours.

I had the top pieced before Christmas and so only had to baste and quilt it - I stuck to simple

straight-line walking foot quilting, using a variety of line widths (using the seam lines as guides), and switching between navy, maroon, gold and lime threads.

The backing is a light grey linen-look print (quilt backing width) 

and I used the maroon as a binding (I am a proud Southlander after all!)

The Highlanders were originally called the Otago Highlanders when the super rugby competition started up, but the province names were dropped a few years back.

I simple HAD to have Otago in the quilt name as my friends and I had so many wonderful 

afternoons (and evenings) attending Otago provincial contest rugby games while we were 

studying in Dunedin in the early '90s and the catch-cry for supporting that team is a long, 

drawn-out cry of "Ooooo-taaaaaa-gooooo!!!"

Great memories for me every time I hear it!

First finish of 2020

With our New Year camping holiday cut short (hubby + e- scooter + collision = face + asphalt = ouch!) I was home from the 30th Dec instead of at the holiday park in Te Anau.

So it was a fine opportunity to rearrange my sewing room to get a better flow from machine to ironing board etc, and I decided to make a new cover for my ironing board (which will now stand against the wall when not being used, so I can easily get into the walk-in robe/fabric collection storage facility 😏)

I used some furnishing fabric with a Paris theme (to remind me to save up for my trip to Europe in 2022) that has been in my stash for a couple of years #smashthatstash

Gypsy Mama for My Mum

This is a pattern by Judi Madsen which is called 'Mama Gypsy' (I got it the wrong way around when I wrote my label, sigh) and Judi ran a quilt-along during 2019 for people to join in with, so I thought I would join in as I bought the pattern a year or two ago and this was good motivation to use it.

An inside photo  - I only got this finished on Sunday 22nd Dec, which was cutting it extremely fine
as I needed it washed, dried and wrapped up before Mum came to stay on Christmas Eve evening!

I decided to make this 81" square quilt for my mum to have on her bed as hadn't yet made a large quilt for her. She is a fan of purple, and when I found the purple/teal batik, I decided to run with those two colours and a white background - so that all took a bit of working out as the pattern is designed for using with a larger range of colours.

As mentioned in my previous post, the weather here has been terrible (not summer-like at all) and I was lucky that the 23rd of Dec was not raining and I was able to hang it up on the line for a couple of hours to help dry it out.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but every time I walked past the back door, 

the colours of the quilt looked simply stunning in the light of the overcast sky.

For the quilting, I used a range of different free motion designs - simple 1 1/2" cross-hatching inside the outer ring of batik sections, wiggly straight lines on the centre batik blocks (using a set stitch on the machine), some FMQ side to side lines inside the purple or teal borders of the small white squares, some FMQ squiggly line 'stars' inside the small white squares, straight lines inside the large solid squares, an FMQ pebbled-leaf motif inside the large white centre border and then an FMQ double-bubble style of motif in the outer white triangles. 

Phew! It was a big job on a domestic machine!

The backing is a purple minky (for which I just use flannel as the 'batting' as the quilt is massive and was heavy enough just with the minky backing).

Merry Christmas!

The great thing about Judi's pattern, is that it also gives you a smaller pattern to use up the off-cuts from making this quilt. I didn't follow that but have got two small lap quilt tops made from the off-cuts, waiting to be quilted...adding to the to-do list!

Great to be sharing with my quilting friends via Wendy's Peacock Party , Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday and Michelle's Beauties Pageant - make sure you check out the great work everyone 

has been doing by visiting those links too!

Here is a photo of the quilt on mum's bed - a king single:

Sing in the Sun

'Sing in the Sun' is a 41" square lap quilt that I made in November/December of 2019 

as a good luck gift for one of my work-mates who is leaving us as (an awesome) Teacher Aide and heading off to teacher training in 2020.

(Yes, I am wearing a xmas-present headband - this photo was taken in the last week of school)

Belinda Knapp (on the left, me on the right) has such a beautiful, bubbly personality and has been teacher aiding for our school for the past few years. I first met Belinda through playgroup and netball club (our eldest children are the same age) and she has a heart of gold; I am sure she will be a brilliant teacher.

Because of her sunny personality, I thought a charm pack of 'Sing Your Song' by Annie Rowan, that had been in my stash for a few years, would be an ideal match as it has a range of pretty colours and floral or insect-themed prints.

I wanted to make a small lap quilt that Belinda can put over her legs when sitting up late at night doing her assignments, ha ha! The pattern is the same one that I used for the Hi There cot quilt (and when I find out what pattern it is, I will update the post!)

I used a rich blue marbled fabric for the border and a soft blue flannel on the backing, with a lemon yellow pinstripe for the binding... #smashthatstash 

I kept the quilting nice and simple through the centre blocks, just using in the ditch, but for the border I free-motioned some large flowers and echoed around them to fill the space.

The weather down here has been terrible for getting out for photos...it is supposed to be summer but I think since the start of November we've only had a handful of sunny, hot days (good excuse to be inside sewing though!)

Great to be sharing with my quilting friends via Wendy's Peacock Party , Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday and Michelle's Beauties Pageant - make sure you check out the great work everyone 

has been doing by visiting those links too!