Allsorts For You

This one was actually finished in late 2023 but I didn't take photos until I had finished all three in 'the set' of quilts made from my licorice-allsorts-inspired fabric strips.

Measures at 38" x 46"

Licorice Allsorts and Rainbow Bars

I quilted this on my Elna 720 domestic machine, as I wanted to match up the thread colours with the fabrics and it was easier to do this on the domestic, plus the quilt is not too big to wrangle on the table-top.

I used a mixture of straight-lines, swirls, zigzags and diagonal lines, in various coloured strips, and a ribbon motif was used in the polka dot sashings.

A polka dot binding for this one!

My handy helper hubby! He's (usually) very patient...

You can check out my other quilts made with these bright strips by clicking on the 'allsort' label in the side bar.

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"

Home 'twin-set' lap quilts

 Finished projects #4 and #5 for 2024 were made from the same pattern and the same layer cake, with a variation in the colour layout, to create a 'twin' or 'sister' set of lap quilts for my cousin's two young grand-daughters.

Both quilts finished at 45"sq, and I used this Riley Blake layer cake 'A Little Sweetness' by Tasha Noel that has been waiting in my stash for just the right people to make quilts for - two sisters seemed ideal! 

The quilts were made with the 'No Place Like Home' pattern by Sue Pfau (aka Sweet Jane) in her book 'Quilts from Sweet Jane' (one of my favourite pattern books for using precuts, I think I've made nearly every pattern in it!)

With the two little girls relocating with their parents from NZ to Australia this month (we will miss them so much, but at least they are only 'over the ditch'), I thought the pattern name was very apt. 

I also liked the block design and could easily see how to switch it around to make two variations of the same design.

For Florence's quilt, 'No Place Like Home', I used the pattern as laid out in the book:

For the quilting I used Heidi (my Bernina Q20 longarm), and did a meandering loopy daisy chain:

This quilt has a backing of mostly aqua polka dots, with a strip of pink polka dots:

You know I LOVE a stripy or spotty binding!

For her big sister Lucia's quilt, 'Home is Where the Heart Is', I swapped the placement of the white sashing:

I quilted it on the longarm, this time using a loopy string of hearts design:

And the backing on this one is mostly pink polka dots, with a strip of the aqua polka dots:

The quilts were gifted last weekend, and winged their way to Queensland with the girls and their mum during the week.

Here's how they looked while waiting to be taken to their new owners...

Kia ora to all my quilting and crafting friends at Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday linky party!

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).