The Big Day

This large lap quilt is made with the 'Cabin Fever' pattern (by Amanda of Jedi Craft Girl, and Amber of Gigi's Thimble), using a fat quarter pack of 'Bedtime Stories' by Elizabeth Chappell for Art Gallery Fabrics.

The fabric has lovely soft colours and cute garden motifs - my favourite is the little mice on the gold/tan print.

The quilt measures 55"x56" as I made it bigger than the pattern version by using more than five fat quarters and making extra blocks to enlarge the quilt size.

I quilted it on my Bernina Q20 longarm (10ft frame) with channel locks to help me make straight lines.

It was completed in October and gifted to my work colleague, Sarah Botting, to mark the occasion of her September wedding to Matt Mclean.

As with many of my quilts, if I don't use a black and white strip for the binding, I use a black and white polka dot. The backing is a sky-blue gingham.

The quilt was given cat-approval by Gizmo...

Ocean Squared

 This is a 60"sq lap quilt that I made in June for my cousin Helen Burgess on the occasion of her 60th birthday.  She and her hubby frequently stay at their crib (aka bach/holiday house) at Riverton on our southern coast so I thought the beach words print fabric that has been in my stash for a number of years was a good starting point for selecting the colours/fabrics.

The pattern was a Courthouse Steps block design in my to-do folder,
originally called 'Christmas Lights' by Linda Douglas
(ripped out of an Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine,
so I am not sure of the year but it could be as long as ten years ago).

I used my Bernina Q20 longarm machine (on 10' studio frame)
 do some simple line quilting in the courthouse steps blocks,
and did a ribbon loop motif in the outside border.

The backing was made with the leftover solids and the beach words print.
We drove to Oreti Beach (about three minutes from home) for the photos.
If you walk around the entire bay you will eventually make it to Riverton!

It was a lovely Southland winter day, very mild, and Bess enjoyed a bit of a stroll too.

Hopping bassinet quilts

Some catch-ups from earlier in the year - these bassinet quilts were created in the April school holidays after I had a big tidy-up of my fabric stash, and decided to use up a heap of off-cuts/leftovers of flannel by making backings for neonatal unit bassinet quilts, then creating tops for them out of scraps or other leftovers or stash fabrics.

'Hopping Around' - 19" x 23"

Free-motion quilting done using my trusty domestic Elna 720 sewing machine.

Cute bunny rabbit flannel backing and a polka dot binding.

'Hop To It' - 19" x 23"

Round Trip V.1 quilt

 In January I was very keen to join in with Emma Jean Jansen's sewalong for her Round Trip quilt pattern and I decided to create a quilt to donate for auction at the Clash For Cancer charity bowls tournament being held by my lawn-bowls club at Easter.

I had this Serendipity (by Artisan Batiks by Lunn for Robert Kaufman) fat quarter bundle that had been in my stash for a while and decided to make the large throw, using the 6" blocks for Version A (coloured fabrics in centre strip and corners, with the sashing being the two inner panels of each block).

I used a blue batik (from Spotlight) for the background/sashing fabric.

With 110 blocks to create, there was a LOT of cutting to do first!

When it came to quilting it, I was able to make use of the new channel locks that I had purchased from Bernina (the Sewing With Passion girls in Invercargill) which meant I could do straight lines on my Bernina Q20 longarm - so it only took me about 90 minutes to do.

I used the same dark blue batik for the binding.

Finished at 56" x 64.5"

Emma Jean's pattern has variations for all sizes of quilts, and for variations of colour placement/layout, so I can see myself using the pattern again in the future (hence the title, V.1)

PS: Was sold at auction for $255 to one of our bowling club members, Beth Campbell - overall the entire tournament raised almost $15,500 for breast cancer support in Southland - a fantastic result for the organising team that put it all together.

Happy Campers

 

This was a panel quilt kit that created a lap quilt of 41" x 59.5".  The kit had the panel and the fabric for the borders and binding.  It was quick to piece together and then I was able to use it as a practice piece for some free-motion and ruler work quilting on my Bernina Q20 longarm machine (aka Heidi, my Swiss Miss!)

I used same-colour threads to do echo quilting, or stippling inside the picture and word panels, and black thread to do thread sketching on some of the motifs, and as outlines on the picture panels and word panels.

A family friend, Joanne Shanks, asked me to create the quilt for her to send to a friend who is overseas and has recently bought a caravan. As a teen/young adult I was a tenor drummer in the Mataura Kilties Pipe Band with Joanne and her husband Jeff. 

After I left the band, a lovely young Canadian woman, Janet, joined the band and became firm friends with Jo and Jeff (and also had a lot to do with my late mum, who was a committee member and supporter of the band).  Janet now lives in Scotland.

The band has since amalgamated with the Gore Pipe Band to become the Hokonui Celtic Pipe Band, and so we are all ex-Kilties now).

The backing was from my stash and is a print with drawings of insects and flowers all over it - including dragonflies to match the ones on the front - so I thought it was an appropriate choice (and a chance to use up some stash fabric).

Sharing with Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday linky party - hi everyone! Happy 2024!

PS: here is Janet, showing off her new quilt from Fyfe in Scotland, and it already has cat-approval, with her world-travelled cat Felix, making quick use of it!