Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time of year again - time to see lots of lovely quilts over at Amy's. Click on the button on the left to see the show.

Highland Dancing Fairy

I made this quilt for my niece just because I had given her brother a quilt. My nephew is mad keen on the Beatles and I found some Beatles fabric so I had to buy it. Then you can't give one a quilt and not give the sibling a quilt too. This was supposed to be a simple wallhanging. I didn't intend to make this as complicated as I did but as the idea grew, so did my excitement level. Funnily enough, this quilt is the one that more people find by searching the web. Who knew that highland dancing fairies were so popular! 

This is my niece with her quilt and showing her moves. 

 Our family is originally from Scotland. I moved to New Zealand 17 years ago and my brother moved to Australia more recently (I can't remember when but when the kids were small). My brother and his son are in the local pipe band and my niece has given up ballet and taken up Highland dancing. I guess they miss Scotland more than I do! I didn't even put tartan in this quilt! Mind you, I thought that a fairy would wear a tutu and not a kilt so I made her a tutu. It even sticks out from the wallhanging.

 She has a real pom-pom on her tam 'o shanter.

and gossamer wings.

 

School holidays

School holidays are over. What have I achieved? I cleaned my house, got sick (nasty virussy thing), made this cot quilt.

I also managed to go to a quilting class with Rosemary Rush. I had to leave early and I didn't really take advantage of the learning opportunities (that's teacher-speak for 'is lazy and didn't work') but it turned out it was a 5 day virussy thing and I thought I was better but I wasn't. I hope I wasn't contagious.

Angie Simmons made a video montage of her photos from Rosemary's class. You can see it here.

I tried out a quilting pattern of Rosemary's on the cot quilt. I hope you can see it. It's a spiral with a ring of spiky triangles and it fills the space quite quickly. There are a few leaves and simple teardrop flowers in there too. This quilt only took an hour to quilt, and that includes having to refill the bobbin. I'm hoping this will inspire a few more people in our guild to give free motion quilting a go and make some cot quilts for the neonatal unit.
Just in case you were worrying, I'm going to give this a good wash before donating it to a sick baby!

I made the hand-in time!

Last minute - as usual! I was manning one of the hand-in desks and sewing a velcro strip on the back of my quilt at the same time. I ended up being on the busiest desk too. I can tell you that in the amateur wallhangings section alone in Calico Christmas this year there are 60 quilts! Fortunately some of the other ladies wrote some of the receipts for me, one lady even did a bit of my sewing when I was inundated with quilts. What a lovely bunch of people!

Anyway, with all the last minute work, I never took a photo of the finished quilt! Sorry to those of you who were eagerly awaiting the unveiling (and thank you for the lovely comments). I didn't do this on purpose - honest! I can show you a couple of pieces joined together. The rest will have to wait until I can photograph the quilt in the show.
 

Details of the the quilt show here.

Other news, Leah has posted the winners of the Transformation Challenge. My little quilt wasn't a winner but I can see why. Mine was very different to the other quilts and would have stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't think of that when I designed it. Never mind, it means I get it back - and one of Leah's books too. I'm happy about that.

Celebrate Onehunga - Pukeko take 2

So, I'm running out of time to get this finished! I changed my plan and had to redo this panel so that it fits. I decided to make it slightly less pink and also you can see a bit of Cabbage tree has crept into this block too!

Melanie asked me what I meant by "blocking". Blocking is stretching out a piece of quilting or embroidery to make it lie flat. I dampen my wallhangings by pressing them with a very damp tea towel. I don't press hard with the iron, just enough to get the steam into the quilt. Then I pin the quilt to a bit of ceiling board with very sharp pins, smoothing the quilt as I go, and leave it to dry.  That makes them nice and flat.

Here is the detail on the bird.

Celebrate Onehunga - second Cabbage tree

A busy weekend in Hastings playing steelpan so no sewing done. I have managed to finish panel number 5 today. This is a continuation of the Cabbage tree panel, one of the first panels I made. I love the way that some Cabbage trees look like they are straight out of a Dr Seuss book.

I keep trying to do less intense quilting so that this goes a bit faster. As you can see, I'm failing!

Celebrate Onehunga - Onehunga Bay Reserve

Panel number 4. This is Onehunga Bay Reserve, a great place to go for a walk with the dog. This is an off-leash park, which may explain why I've never seen a Pukeko there. So a bit of artistic license here!
The colour is slightly less magenta than the picture above but not as orange as this one below.

Celebrate Onehunga - mosaic table and chair

I've been having fun making new quilting patterns. Probably not new to the world but new to me!




I love the back!


Three panels done! Only six more to go...