Scrappy Birthday Cards

 At my school, our senior leadership team (I am the Deputy Principal) likes to acknowledge staff on their birthdays, and I am in charge of organising the cards.

I saw this style of card on a social media post and wanted to make them for our staff.

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)

Was sold at auction for $255 to club-member 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.

Rachael's French General Sampler Quilt

At the start of this year I had the privilege of quilting this 56"x78" twin bed sampler quilt for one of my most long-time friends, Rachael Chalmers (from Dunedin), who gave me free-range to do whatever I liked!

Although I've had my Bernina Q20 longarm since late 2022, I had only re-erected it a couple of months before Christmas (after having moved house in June), so have not completed a lot of projects on it yet.

With this quilt I was able to do a mixture of free-motion quilting and ruler-work, trying out different designs in the different blocks - gosh, I had so much fun!  The blocks are a mix of pieced and appliqued patterns, so it was fun coming up with quilting designs that would enhance those patterns.

Altogether it took about 12 hours of quilting time, and used x6 250m reels of thread (and x7 bobbins).

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!