Take a Positive Direction

 

This is a 53"sq lap quilt, made from the Positive Direction pattern by Christa Watson at Christa Quilts.

I made it as a gift for a teaching work-mate, Kim Nicol, with the initial plan to make it at the end of  2021 to celebrate her success in being awarded a permanent position at our school; however, a few life circumstances meant I did not get around to making it until November, and it then has also become a farewell gift as Kim has moved on from our school.

Last year I heard Kim say how much she loves orange, so I made a note of it, and when I found this pattern in my collection, I grabbed what I could from my stash to create it.

When it came time to quilt it, I followed Christa's suggestion to do diagonal lines in the feature pluses, with pebbles in the grey background pluses...as I usually quickly regret deciding to do pebbles, I made sure to create quite large ones to fill the spaces more quickly.

The backing is made from leftovers of the front fabrics:

How is it that cats can sense when you have just laid out a quilt for basting?!?  Gizmo was nowhere to be seen when I first put this down, and then she turned up within seconds...

Leo's African Safari

Now that it has finally been gifted, I can share one of my finishes from a couple of months ago...

Leo's African Safari is a large cot quilt/small lap quilt for Leoden, the newborn son of our nephew Louis and his partner Ren.

The pattern is 'Looking Glass' by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs and the quilt finishes at about 36" x 40".

I used an 'In the Wild' charm pack that I had purchased recently from Quilter's Lane, along with a beige linen-look background fabric from my stash.

For the quilting I did loops across the horizontal strips.

New Adventures

This is a baby quilt created for the new baby son of my hairdresser, Rochelle Finnegan and her partner Rangi. (Raiden was born in September - I finally got time to gift it last weekend!)

It was made with my own design from leftovers from my Little Critters baby quilt; I really wanted to make use of the last bits of the camping/woodland creatures prints, and had to come up with a design that would allow for a mix of large blocks, strips and squares to make the most of the pieces of fabric that I had.

I used simple echo straight line quilting around the shapes.

Measures 27.5"sq and has a foxy fleece backing, with a black and white print binding.

Megabytes for Meg

A young lady who we have known since she was born, Miss Meg Kenny (nicknamed 'Megabyte' by my hubby when she was a baby) turned 21 in August this year - the lockdown NZ was in at the time meant she couldn't have the 21st celebration that she had planned, and then it has taken me and her mum this long to coordinate ourselves to get my gift delivered to her (all three of us live in different towns).

I used a jelly roll that I had purchased from Donna's Quilt Studio here in NZ and I used Michelle Cain's 'Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt' pattern from her Bolt to Beauty website.

And yes, it was a super-easy quilt to put together (I actually made this in February and finished it April, before realising Meg's birthday wasn't until August, so I was well ahead of myself for once!)

For quilting (it measures 57" x 68") I did straight line echos of the coloured strip blocks, and free-motioned simple up and down loops across the white background strips.

The backing is a blue print that has been in my stash for a while too, so it is good to be using some of that up!

Meg Kenny, we wish you all the very best for your next 21 years!  xx Jenny, Brian and Kieran

And, how coincidental, I am linking up with Michelle's Beauties Pageant linky party, with one of her own designs (wonder if she'll notice LOL!?!)

Also linking up with Wendy's Peacock Party - so great to finally be able to share this one!

2020 Temperature Quilt

 

Towards the end of 2019 I was seeing posts, on social media quilting sites that I follow, of the temperature quilts that people were completing for the year; I decided I would like to have a go at making one during 2020.  

First I looked at different block formats that others had used and decided to go with a rectangle block for the daily high, with a triangle at one end to represent the daily low.  The biggest headache was working out a temperature scale; I then selected and bought a range of Moda Grunge colours to use.

I also bought a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer that would show the daily high and low (and double-checked these temps for accuracy against local weather reports).  I recorded the high/low numbers on a calendar and during our school holidays throughout the year I would construct the blocks and columns for the previous months, so was doing two or three months at a time.  

You can see we had a fairly consistent, mild climate through the year. The months run across the top (being in New Zealand, Dec/Jan/Feb are summer months so they are on the outside sections, with winter months being in the middle of the quilt).  Sadly, we had such miserable weather that I had to use my 'cooler' colours a lot more than I had hoped in the summer month columns. And from a distance, two of the blues look very similar so don't show some differences in days as much as I had hoped. 

When putting the blocks together, I decided I wouldn't worry about having the blocks always facing the same way, as would have it looking a bit more random (but now that it is all finished, my orderly quilting brain is telling me it would have probably preferred each block/triangle to be in the same place! #nexttimeifthereisanexttime)

The quilt measures 60" x 64" and I used a pink print from my stash for the backing. 

I was a bit busy during the January holidays of this year, so didn't get the final months finished, and the whole quilt completed, until May or June.  It has taken me this long to finally get the photos done for sharing.  

Linking up to share with Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday.

Starry Surprise

 This was a Donna Ward mystery quilt that I made in 2020 with a jelly roll kit that was purchased from Donna (she gives a range of colour options for her mystery projects)...I have had it lying on the spare bed and realised the other day that I haven't shared it yet (though I had taken photos of it)!

The twin-size quilt measures 60" x 64" and the backing is a cute woodland creatures print that was in my stash and had the perfect colours.

I used a simple wavy stitch on my sewing machine to quilt across the horizontal lines of the main body of the quilt; and thin side to side lines in the outer sashing/border.

It was nice to be using a dark solid for the background as something different for a change; the binding is an aqua tone-on-tone.

Sharing with Michelle's linky party - have a good week everyone!

Update: January 2022; gifted to great-nephew Alex Coyle.