Floral Fancy

Colour Co-ordinated

When Jean S bought my last piece of this gorgeous blue fabric from the Autumn Lily range from Blackbird Designs for Moda, I could hardly bear to part with it. But when I saw what she did with it, I was delighted! As it turned out, it was just the inspiration she needed for the border to finish piecing this gorgeous top for a quilt intended for her daughter. 
How pretty is this?!



Not all of the fabrics came from my collection, as Jean thought, but certainly the majority had. Many were by 3 Sisters or French General, both absolute favourites of mine, so it was an inspiration for me to quilt it. Technically, this piece was second in line to be done, but as I had to order thread for the first one, it happily jumped to the head of the queue!

This one needed to be quilted with my most feminine curled ribbon with petals motif and it showed up beautifully on my plain calico backing .

Now it is finished and perched prettily on the end of my chaise longue, I'm not sure I will ever be able to let her have it back!!!

While I wait for the thread for Rose's massive hexie quilt to arrive, I have plenty to keep me busy. My friend Mary, whose health is not too good, has asked me to finish off her paper pieced hexie project for her. In return she has given me her substantial stash!




Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Jamestown Landing

Good Housekeeping

I've resisted all other distractions over the last two days and have completed the Jamestown Landing project. Mind you, I was up 'til midnight yesterday and spent four hours hand stitching the binding today.



The thing with Bonnie Hunter's quilts (like a lot of American quilts, I suppose) is that they come out really big! I can't get far enough away from it to take a good photo!

 
  
The original design had a six inch border of blue strips in a piano key layout. I changed it to this three inch border using my little stash of one and half inch blue and neutral twosies and half square triangles. It has shaved off a few inches and I like it better, I think.

 It still finished about 84" x 96".

And I have done my house keeping too! 

These bits I sliced off to make the binding strip are all trimmed down to one and half inches ready to start replenishing that leader/ender stash.

Now I've just got home from Connecting Threads tonight with a bundle of part pieced scraps that were going begging. For some reason the triangles were all cut as quarter squares and the biases are on the outside. 

I've got my seam ripper out already ...watch this space!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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Push Me - Pull You!

On Ringo Lake

Lovely teals, browns and pinks in this busy design - On Ringo Lake - the latest mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter. This looks like a complicated quilt to piece, even when you know what it is supposed to look like when it's finished. 










Karen made such a great job of it and it was a pleasure to help her finish it off. I gave it the 'hearts and flowers' treatment, (I knew she liked that design), in a teal thread which showed up best.






And talking of tricky piecing I have made huge strides with my own Bonnie Hunter project - Jamestown Landing. It has gone from a pile of small units to a large quilt top, in the space of two days, with only the outer border to add. What fun tearing off the backing papers!  (I even took all the shreds to the paper bank for recycling!)

I was careful not to stretch all the strip squares, but there was still a bit of pulling and pushing needed to get everything to line up nicely. It took a while for my poor flu-addled brain to work out the direction of the swirling background. I had nearly finished it before the penny dropped! Fortunately, the instructions and diagrams were really clear.








I prefer to assemble quilts in sections, rather than rows, as I think it is easier to align it accurately, and you only have one final full width seam to sew. In between each section I used 'leaders and enders' to start piecing the border (which will be different from the original design). 










This little stash of 1 1/2" twosies started off as leaders and enders and now they will make a nice little dotted border. 

I love it when a plan comes together!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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