The Wonderful Half Square Triangle Quilt

My second UFO is finished.

 The Wonderful Half Square Triangle Quilt

71 x 90 inches

I love this Wonderful Half Square Triangle quilt with its Flea Market Fancy and Girlfriends toile fabrics set off by the natural Essex Linen blend (putty).

In the linen areas I decided to quilt it with freemotion quilting using 'sort of' straight lines. The difference between using the darning foot (for freemotion quilting) instead of the walking foot (for straight line quilting) is a bit of a wonky, homegrown look to the lines of quilting instead of perfectly straight lines.

To help get the lines 'sort of' straight and give myself something to aim for, I added a few lines with a blue washout pen just before I quilted each block.

 Using a bias bar as my ruler

 The quilting lines all filled in

In the coloured areas I simply quilted in the ditches.

The backing is a Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton in Lime. Kaffe's shot cottons are like quilting through butter and it has made the quilt feel so soft and cuddly. You can really see the quilting pattern from the back of the quilt...

Especially when I take the colour out of the photo...

The binding I chose has to be the most boring binding I have ever used....the same colour as the linen essex blend. As I had run out of the linen fabric, I used a Kona cotton in stone instead, luckily it matches perfectly.

Even though the binding is a little plain, I do think it complements the quilt admirably.

It is SUCH a wonderful feeling getting some of these UFO's finished off! One project I haven't touched for ages is my Jacobs Coat Quiltalong blocks.

Kellie from Don't Look Now has done an incredible job of running this huge quiltalong, however I have never been happy with my petals...my evil perfectionist side taking over again. I have been mulling over these blocks for a long time trying to find a way to finish them in a way I will be satisfied. Hopefully I will be able to come up with something good in the next few months. Have you had any UFO finishes this week? xo

 

Roseville Album block Four

Block Four is done.

These blocks are so enjoyable. This will be a 'slow and steady wins the race' quilt, it is going to take me quite a while to complete, so I am going to enjoy the journey rather than worry about the end result!

These four completed blocks make up the four corners of the quilt. I decided against working on the middle vase blocks yet, and will next start on the larger animal block....

 This photo is from Kim McLeans animal block

in her Roseville Album Quilt

Woohoo, check out all those delicious curves on my freezer paper drawn tree!

I'm still in applique heaven! xo

Fat Quarterly Quilalong Quilt Finished!

Been feeling a little off over the past week so I've been a little bit computer awol!! I do have a small finish to show though....my little Dream On quilt that I made with the Fat Quarterly Quiltalong is done.

I thought with all those squares that it could do with a freemotion circle-y pattern for the quilting.

The back uses up some of the leftover blocks I had made up.

Amy Butlers dots in orange make a wonderful binding.

Have a fabulously stitchy weekend!! xo

They say that imitation...

...is the sincerest form of flattery! I first saw Jane Brocket's beautiful Allotment quilt on her blog a few years ago. I fell in love with the colours and decided I would like to make one just like hers. When her allotment quilt was published in Kaffe Fassett's book Country Garden Quilts (published 2008), I fell in love with it again and began collecting my fabrics. In the book Jane had recoloured the quilt in beautiful reds and greens, but I went with her first colour choice of yellows, pinks and lots of vegetable prints!

A lot of the fabrics are designed by Kaffe, Philip Jacobs and Martha Negley, with a little green seeds flea market fancy thrown in!

Wow, this photo does your head in if you look at the quilt too long, but I couldn't resist a closeup of that gorgeous blossom!

Rows and rows of vegies on the back of the quilt. I love Martha Negleys vegetable prints...eggplants, turnips, brussels sprouts (am I the only one that loves Brussels sprouts? Especially nice with a little bacon, butter and black pepper!).

This quilt was all but finished early 2009, with only the binding to be hand stitched on. I decided to make this one my first UFO finish. It is a huge quilt (108 x 96 inches) and the binding is taking me awhile to get done, but I should have it all stitched up by tonight! It does feel very good to get a UFO completed. I think my next one might be my flea market fancy half square triangle quilt. Alas I have run out of wadding yet again, so it will firstly be a visit to my local quilt shop. Have you had any finishes lately? xo

Peas & Carrots

After two weeks of school holidays I don't have much stitching to show so I thought I would show a lovely bundle of fabrics I bought instead. Do you remember the old range of fabric from American Jane called Peas and Carrots (see pic below)? I had never purchased any when it had been available (due to available funds at the time), and was always sad to miss out on at least some of this delightful range. Recently I stumbled across a lovely Etsy shop called Claydeal and this lovely pile of yard cuts made its way to my home.

The lovely owner of Claydeal sent me a larger than ordered amount of the stunning red pez, and even threw in some gorgeous green and blue pez scrap!

I have no plans for this fabric yet, and do hope to find a little more pez fabric in the other colours. I have always particularly adored this sweet pea in blue and orange (below) and I'm thrilled to now own some.

And for something that rhymes with peas....while out walking this afternoon, DH and I came across a small bush that had been almost completely overtaken by...bees!!

This picture isn't fabulous (we only had a phone camera with us), however you may understand why I didn't want to get too close to this volatile, buzzing, dripping, swarm. I wandered back to the park later to get a better photo and they had disappeared, I do hope they don't come visiting my house!