Kiwi quilt done

Kiwi quilt done
I unexpectedly had  a bit of free time this week, so got on with the quilting of the Kiwi quilt. The quilt was made with New Zealand fabrics depicting New Zealand fauna and flora.
My son requested that I outline the birds and not quilt over them and that I use an eco-friendly batting, so I decided to try bamboo.

 

The birds were outlined with black Glide thread, then I followed the lines of the flowers and grasses, before micro quilting the background to make the birds pop up more

The lizards and tuatara were outlined in green Glide thread, I added some highlights to the plants and grasses and the used brown Glide thread in the background to make it recede.  The rocks were not quilted as that made them seem more three dimensional

The design in the sashing is a simplified Maori design, which I stitched free hand in Flax Glide thread. I just love the little slices of kiwi fruit.

Another simplified Maori design

Silver ferns stitched in Light Grey Glide thread on the outer borders



















I have used bamboo batting in this quilt, and had some problems with bearding.  It has however turned out incredibly soft despite some very dense quilting in places. Not sure I would use it again though.

The back of the quilt, the backing fabric is green Ponga Koru, although in the photo it looks more beige

Henley Arts Trail
It is that time of year again, and this time, I was actually at home and could go to see the lovely quilts on display. I have three quilts in the exhibition, "Lovesong", "Vintage Sewing machines" and "Tonight it rains".  I spent all day on Saturday as a volunteer at the  event and loved introducing some newcomers to the art of quilting, even helped someone who asked for advise on a quilt that she is making for a grandchild who lives in Australia and another one with fabric choices for a baby quilt.

Tonight it rains

Loch Lomond Quilt show
This year is the last year that this show will be on, and it is my first visit to the show. I have entered "Sea urchins'' into the show, and am really looking forward to getting some feedback on this.  Again, I will be a marshall at the show on the Friday, and I am looking forward to meeting some quilting friends that I have not seen in a while. Watch this space, as I am going to post loads of photos of lovely quilts here.
  Then on Saturday, we are setting off early to go to Malvern show, we (my husband and me) will only be there for Sunday, but on this occasion, I will not be buying, so am only interested in seeing the quilts on display.  I have of course, also entered my quilt "Kutch diamonds" into this show, so it will be nice to see my quilt hanging amongst the others and I'm looking forward to getting some feedback on my quilt.

Kiwi quilt

Kiwi quilt
My eldest son and other half have recently been on a "birding" trip to New Zealand and on my trip to India, I met a lovely lady from New Zealand, Margaret, who runs a patchwork shop in Christchurch.  As we spent many hours together, we worked out a plan, so that on their trip through Christchurch, they could stop by the shop and pick up some New Zealand fabrics to bring home for me. Margaret very kindly chose all the fabrics for me, and purchased the necessary luggage to carry it in too and then her and her lovely husband Gary met my other half and took him on a tour around Christchurch! My husband could not believe how nice they were and kept telling me when he got home, that if all my quilting friends are as nice as Margaret and Gary, that he would really like to meet them. Well … off course all my quilting friends are as nice, but I am not about to start sharing them around!

So far, I have sewn the quilt top together, this is what it looks like:

I have posted this picture on Facebook and one of my friends asked if I could describe each block, I will try

Tuatara

Fantails

Kereru - wood pigeons

Various native wildlife

Now extinct moa

Kiwi birds

Tui and flax

Pukeko Posse

Kaka beak

Kowhai blossom

Ti-kouka

Kiwi fruit

Bugs in undergrowth

Kiwi bird, tuatara and toad

Toi toi

Mamaku

New Zealand fern

Shells

Kiwiana

Pebbles

Saddleback

Riporipo with Ponga Koru around it

My son is very keen for this quilt to be finished, so when the one currently on the frame is finished, this one is next in line.  Fabric for the back is on its way now from New Zealand, so this will be finished shortly.

I just love that quilts can remind us of places we have been to in such a tactile and visual way and remind us of friends too.  I will forever think of Margaret when I look at this quilt and hopefully I will one day see all these lovely plants and animals for myself and visit Margaret in New Zealand :-)

Spring Fling

Spring Fling
The Win a quilt competition has ended on 21st February and the winner was Helen Groenewald. I handed the quilt over to Helen 2 weeks later and was so excited to meet her and her daughter, Chantelle, who was equally excited to receive the quilt.

I had so much fun quilting Spring Fling, doing a lot of free motion quilting, also using some of Judy Madsen's designs on some of the blocks and designing some of my own blocks to match and fit in with Judy's designs.

Thank you to every one who has entered into the competition, it is heart warming to see so many people enjoying seeing my quilts.  I hope Helen will have many years to enjoy this quilt and that it will become a heirloom in her family.

Want to win a quilt, final reminder

Win a quilt reminder
This is a final reminder that if you would like me to make you a quilt, you will need to leave a comment on this blog. I originally stated that I would do the draw when I have reached 10,000 views, and I now have only 29 views to go before the draw, so get those comments in :-)  I will post the name of the winner in next week.  Fabric that I will use in the winning quilt is here:

Winning quilt will be made from these 10 fabrics

Kutch Diamonds
When we were in India, we saw diamonds everywhere, 60 degree diamonds to be more specific.  Jinny had asked us before the trip to cut at least 500 of these little diamonds for a hand stitching project,  and great was our surprise when everywhere we went, they were popping up.  They were on walls, on floors, on doors, on fabric, on jewellery, on purses and especially on trucks.

My first few diamonds hand sewn together

I came back desperately wanting to make a quilt (not hand stitched) that would remind me of these diamonds, so I started Kutch Diamonds.  It took two and a half days just to cut out all the pieces and get them organised in a way that would make sewing them together easier and I grew increasingly more desperate and impatient to start sewing.  Imagine then my disappointment when I realised that I did not have quite enough of the dark brown fabric to do the binding.  And it needed that dark brown, no other colour would do!

Not enough of this brown fabric

I decided to just start sewing anyway and spent a lot of time in the evenings online trying to locate some more of said fabric. Unfortunately the only information I had was that it was produced by Moda and is in the Basic Blenders range. This specific one must have been produced a few years back because I could not find it anywhere.  Of course I could not remember where I had bought it, so I turned to a Facebook group I belong to, they came up with some great ideas but still no fabric.
At this point a friend saw the quilt and convinced me it was worth entering into a show, so I looked up the show and the Rules for entering a quilt.

Kutch diamonds

This quilt is a biggie at 100" square but the rules stated maximum size of quilt to be no more than 96".  What to do?  I would clearly need to loose 4" of the side but was not sure it would still look right with the outer border taken off, but it did seem like fate that I now would not need the extra brown fabric.
After 5 days solid stitching, it was a relieve to know I did not have to unpick the pieced border as well (that I was so proud of as it fitted together just perfectly).

Initial ideas for quilting

The quilt was loaded onto HQ yesterday and I started the SID with my new Linetamer ruler (I love this, only wish I bought it before), all the SID now done, which meant I could start having fun with the rest of the quilting.   This is a peek into what I have done today

Applique quilt
I got some really rather nifty tools called Apliquick tools recently and have been itching to use them.  I have now decided what applique project I would like to do next and has copied all the pattern pieces onto applique paper and cutting them out.  O boy, is that going to take time. Thirteen blocks will make up the quilt, each one with a HUGE applique motif, each motif consisting of between 20 and 50 intricate pieces. Something to do when listening to and not watching television. My efforts so far:

Pieces for 1 block cut out so far 

Update on Dutch Treat
I know it is not quite the end of February yet, but I do know that I will be spending my evenings cutting out applique shapes and not stitching, so for February my total is 8, which means 94 to go

Reverse applique blocks for February

I will be in Sunny South Africa in March (yay!) as my mum has a very special birthday and we have planned a lovely SURPRISE party for her, so I will escape all the floods and rain that we have here in southern England for a little while, so looking forward to some sunny weather or at least an end to all this WET.