Bliss pinwheels!

I finished hand sewing the binding on this quilt yesterday afternoon and took it outside for a quick photo shoot just in time to enter it in the Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy. For those of you who are regular readers you will know all about this quilt but for those who are are visiting from the  Bloggers Quilt Festival I will give you a run-down on its statistics :-) Oh and welcome if you are new here! You welcome to hang around and have a look at what I get up to.

So this quilt was started with a jellyroll of that pretty fabric collection called "Bliss by Bonnie and Camille". The framed 6 inch pinwheel blocks were originally going to be sewn together to make 12 inch blocks but I decided that they looked better framed individually with the coordinating solids. I also added yoyo flowers to each pinwheel.

I then added a wide border in one of the pretty red prints then machine appliqued a meandering vine with clusters of yoyo blossoms. 

Once I finished the top I was a little stuck on how I should quilt it. I love the look of hand quilting but also like simple straight line machine quilting so I did a bit of each. Another problem that stopped the progression of this quilt was trying to find the right shades of Pearl cotton to hand quilt it in but I finally found the right colours after a lot of searching every time I went out of town. (I live in a small coastal town 2 hours drive from any city with a decent amount of shops.) 

The pinwheels are hand quilted with circles of Pearle thread and quilting cotton to give the idea of a spinning pinwheel. 

The border is hand quilted using the Pearl thread in a meandering line with little loopy flowers to echo the clusters of yoyo blossoms.

Here's a photo of the back to give you a better idea of the border quilting.

For the straight line quilting I used a variegated thread in shades similar to the fabrics.

I used a solid red to bind it which I think frames it all nicely. I always use a double thickness of binding for better durability.

This quilt, which measures 50"x70", is special to me because it's the first quilt I've made specifically to sell in my shop and also it's the first quilt I've made using just one fabric collection. I love how it turned out and would be quite happy to keep it if it doesn't sell. When I made the initial pinwheel blocks I ended up with too many so have made another quilt top (crib size and waiting to be quilted) plus a bolster pillow to match the quilt. 

I do hope you enjoyed reading about the makings of this quilt and thanks to Amy for hosting this fun Bloggers Quilt Festival. I'm off to check everyone elses entries now!

Caitlin's quilt revisited......for the bloggers quilt festival

Since this is one of my favourite quilts I thought I'd bring it out again and re-introduce it. Before I go on I just want to welcome anyone who is a first time visitor and I hope you enjoy what you see here and are getting inspired by all the other wonderful quilts showcased in this bloggers quilt festival.

This quilt was made for my youngest daughter Caitlin when she was about 8 years I think and she is now 11. When I asked what she wanted on her quilt she wasn't totally sure but flowers and lots of hearts are 2 things she did want. So I put my thinking cap on and decided to make a sampler type quilt and sketched a few ideas and pulled out favourite patterns  that I'd always wanted to try. I had no idea how the final layout was going to look like but just kept making blocks as the ideas emerged. I included a few of Caitlin's favourite things and also some scraps of fabrics from dresses and skirts etc.. I had made her. It took me 6 months to complete including lots of freehand handquilting of mostly swirls and of course lots of hearts. I enjoyed every moment of designing and making this quilt even the recall of my maths skills when I had to figure out the final layout of the blocks.

Here are some close-up photos of some of my favourite parts of the quilt:

A mother and baby bird with covered button detail on their feathers.......

The house block with yo-yo flowers and beaded centres. This block is taken from a Piecemakers Calender and I had always wanted to make it.

Caitlin loved the Felicity Wishes books at the time so here is Felicity and her blue bird. I added beads to her wings to give them a little sparkle.

Caitlin's friends as she likes to have a lot of friends around her.

Another bird with little stuffed hearts. She's an animal lover so birds seemed appropriate and I had always wanted to do this block which is also from a Piecemakers calender.

I think I made this block when I was trying to work out the layout and needed something to fill in a space plus I had these little flowers leftover from the other garden blocks. The green gingham fabric has served me well as it started off as a pair of dungarees then when they got too small I made it into a pinafore dress and now bits of it are gracing her quilt.

Another block from a Piecemakers calender and one that stretched my skills as I had to hand applique it and I don't really enjoy hand applique but I love how this block turned out. Lots of echo handquilting which makes these pretty butterflies puff and stand out.

At one stage of making this quilt I raided my Mother's button tin and had fun making these precious old buttons into flowers with a little beading.  And I couldn't resist adding the little beaded spider.

And finished off with the perfect coloured striped bias binding. I hope you enjoyed seeing one of my favourite quilts and don't forget you can get more quilting inspiration over here at Amy's Creative side.

Caitlin's baby quilt!

This is my entry in Amy's Bloggers Quilt festival for 2010. It was made for my 2nd daughter Caitlin. I designed the simple layout myself and chose the fabrics before she was born.  The fabrics have lots of animals and insects on them and Caitlin has grown up ( she is now 10 years) to love all animals and quite happily lets insects crawl all over her. It's a bright and happy quilt which suits Caitlin's personality as well.

The hearts are machine appliqued with a small blanket stitch then hand quilted with echo lines. I hand quilted uppercase letters down the sides of the border.

Along the top and bottom of the border are hand quilted numbers. The outer border is made up of leftover pieces from the nine patch blocks.

You can visit more Quilt Festival quilts over here. Thank you Amy for organising this festival and giving us the opportunity to showcase our special quilts.

Bloggers Quilt Festival coming soon!

Hope you've all got a quilt ready to showcase in this great bloggers event organised by Amy. Can't wait to see the lovely quilt eye candy!!

Quilt Festival

I have decided to participate in the Quilt Festival that Amy from Park City Girl has organised for those of us that are unable to go to the Houston Quilt Market. I must say it was hard to choose a favourite quilt. I have made a few and they are all special to me in their own way. The quilt I have decided to showcase is my "Log Cabin Sampler " It was made the year I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter and I can remember trying to hand quilt it while our eldest daughter who was just over 2 years kept trying to sit on it. Hand quilting was a good way to get myself to sit down and rest especially in the last couple of months of pregnancy.

So here it is:

It's one of the biggest quilts I have made (85"x85") so it took a while to finish. Because its a sampler quilt I learnt a lot of different techniques and enjoyed every minute of making it plus its a scrappy quilt so I got to use and play with lots of different fabrics. The original pattern is from a 'Piecemakers calender' quilt pattern but I mixed the blocks around from a couple of their other calenders.

This block below is one of my favourite blocks. The square in squares are made up of strips sewn together then cut into triangles and then made into squares.

This cat block was also fun to make and one of my favourites just because it's cute!

For the quilting I used a quilting stencil for the border triangles and quilted all the blocks differently. This quilt is now 10 years old and includes lots of 'country' style fabrics that were popular back then. Soon after it was completed I displayed it at our local quilting groups bi-annual quilt show and then was asked to have it included at a much larger quilt show called "Calico Christmas" in Auckland.

Well I hope you enjoyed this quilts first blog outing! There are lots of other beautiful quilts for you to look at over at Amy's Quilt festival. Enjoy!