Quilt 144: Oriental Purple Flowers - DONE!

I'm still working on using up the squares from the oriental layer cake sets I bought in America a couple of years ago.  I did a quilt with the teal/blue squares and one with the red/gold/black squares.  Now here's one with the lavender and purple squares (and a couple of gold/black and gold/cream ones thrown in):

52" x 64" - Quilted on the Q-Matic - bamboo batting

I've started working through my stash of batting scraps.  I have a tub for scrap bamboo batting and one for cotton.  As I have sizeable off-cuts after finishing a quilt, I've been tossing them into the tubs and have accumulated quite a lot.  There's no point in wasting it.  This quilt used four wide-but-short strips.  I just slipped them in between the top and backing as I advanced the quilt.  It was easy and you really can't tell where the batting scraps overlap slightly.

Here's a closeup of one of the blocks.  The fabric in these layer cake sets has metallic gold highlighting, which unfortunately doesn't show up in the photo.  But you can see the light lavender thread I used.

I chose the "China grove 2" stitch pattern for this quilt.

The backing looks terrific with this pattern, and is dense enough to hide the seam in the backing.

There are still a handful of layer cake blocks left, but not enough to make much of a quilt.  I'll have to give some thought about what to do with them.  They're certainly too beautiful to waste!

Quilt 143: Moda "Sonnet Collection" Charm Squares - DONE!

Another charm square quilt!  This one is done with Moda's "Sonnet Collection" charm squares.  I love the rich tones, the creams, deep peachy orange, turquoise, green and browns.

I know I make a lot of these, but I so enjoy tossing them together.  The outer borders are from my scrap stash - how cool is that?!?!

48" x 62" - quilted on the Q-Matic - bamboo batting

Here's a closeup of some of the squares:

The quilting is done with soft grey thread.  I'm surprised, really, at how often grey is such a great choice.  It disappears in the print squares but shows up beautifully in the solid borders.

The stitch pattern is "Leafarama2" - one of the patterns which came with the Q-Matic.

The stitching shows up much better on the backing.

So there you are - another classic "simple squares" quilt.
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Ooops! Missed a post!

My quilting guru Pauline messaged me on Facebook last Wednesday, pointing out I didn't have a post.  Woops!  She was right. Unfortunately I just got side tracked and didn't find the time to organize it. 

But I do have a couple more quilts done, so will get myself back on track starting Sunday...

Quilt 142: Sunflowers of Provence Charm Square - DONE!

Here's another charm square quilt, this time with Moda's "Sunflowers of Provence" collection:

(doublclick any photo on this page to see a larger image)

It's bright, cheery and loaded with flowers.  I do have to laugh, however - as I didn't spend enough time arranging the squares, and do you see the goofs here?  I've got all the stripes on the left, the whites and reds aren't evenly distributed.

46" x 57" - quilted on the Q-Matic ("Leafarama2" stitch design) - bamboo batting

Even so, it's still a very pretty quilt.

Here's the stitch pattern I selected:

I decided to be bold and opt for dark green thread, with a solid mustard backing.  I tend to go with light threads, but just wanted to see what it would look like with a bold dark colour.  It looks fine on the front - but the back is stunning!  Best of all, with the dense, dark quilting, the seam in the backing (a problem with solid backings that are pieced) pretty much fades from view.

What a great picnic quilt!

Quilt 141: Gembrook - DONE!

Last year Elle Blue Fabrics - an Australian fabric manufacturer - announced it was shutting down production.  My favorite quilt shop - Patchwork With Gail B - decided to have a special sale of their stock, focusing on Elle Blue line.  Of course I always love a bargain, so I picked up a few bits and pieces, including this jelly roll called "Gembrook".

Gembrook is very special to me because my lovely friend Sharon - who passed away from ovarian cancer a couple of years ago - lived in a small town called Gembrook.  I miss Sharon a lot - but whenever I hear her name, or the name "Gembrook", I always smile.

Here's what the jelly roll had in it:

All the strips are soft pastels with a dove-grey tint to them.  I happened to already have some dove grey solid fabric - sent to me as a gift from the Missouri Star Quilt company with a fairly large fabric order I placed last year.

And here's what I did with that jelly roll:

51" x 67" - quilted on the Bernina G-Matic ("Smoke 2" stitch design) - Bamboo Batting

It's based on a sample quilt I saw hanging in Gail B's shop the day I bought the jelly roll.  Their sample, however, had four bars of jelly rolls, where I have 3.

Very simple, but quite effective, visually.  I just sewed the strips together and then split the top three ways, inserting that solid dove grey between and around them.  I really like the effect - and will, I'm sure, do more of this design.

The backing and binding are done with a coordinating print from the same manufacturer (and also on sale at the time):

Here's the stitch design I used for the quilting:

And here's a closeup of the top showing the quilting (the sides of the strip bar look crooked in this photo, but they're not - it's just the way the quilt was laying when I took the picture):

Quilt 140: Flight 1 - DONE!

As part of my New Years' resolutions, I vowed to make more quilts for boys (for donation to the charity "Inspirational Quilts").  I'm working on that now.

I found this set of charm squares at Gail B's not long ago.  All airplanes, stripes and dots:

 I decided to just do a plain rows-and-columns quilt for this one, wanting to whip it up fairly quickly.  Here I've got the squares laid out, ready to pin and start sewing.

And here's the finished quilt:

47" x 67" - quilted on the Bernina Q-Matic - bamboo batting

Here's the quilt stitch pattern I used:

 

And a closeup of the top showing the airplane prints:

 The backing is a soft navy - and I used light grey thread, which shows up beautifully on the back:

I really like this one - and when I was finishing it, my quilting guru Pauline sent me a message to let me know Gail B. had a sale on - so I ran out and grabbed a couple more packs of the same print while they were on sale.  Now I'm deciding whether to do another like this one or something different... hm....

Quilt 139: Red/Black/Gold Oriental Layer Cake - DONE!

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about a quilt I made using the teal/blue/green squares from a layer cake collection I bought in the US a little over a year ago.  I pulled out the cool colours from the pack for that quilt - and for this one, I pulled out the reds, blacks and golds.  Here's the finished quilt:

(doubleclick any photos on this page to see a larger image)

56" x 65" - quilted on the Bernina Q-Matic (bamboo stitch pattern), bamboo batting

It's a very simple quilt, nothing much done other than stitching the squares together, but oh my...  ...it's stunning.

Here is a closeup of some of the panels:

 And here's another:

The lovely oriental designs are highlighted with flecks of metallic gold here and there.  It really gleams in the sunshine.

The previous quilt (the teal one) had patterned fabric for the backing, so the stitch pattern doesn't show up especially well.  On this one, however, I opted for solid magenta homespun for the back and binding - and the quilting (done with  gold-tone thread) really pops!

And here's the stitch pattern from the quilt software:

It's "Bamboo" from Urban Elementz.




I've got enough leftover layer cake squares to make one more quilt, but haven't decided yet if I'll do another simple one like this or go a little further afield with my choice of blocks...

Quilt 138 - Rainbow Pinwheels - DONE!

I'd had two sets of this charm pack for about a year.  I love the colours, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them:

 Half-square triangles to the rescue!  I framed them in a lattice of solid black homespun and then got somewhat stuck, wanting a couple of borders to extend the size of the quilt, but not sure what to put there.  I ended up with 2 shades of green and am very pleased with how it turned out.

55" x 65" - quilted on the Bernina Q-Matic - bamboo batting

 The Q-Matic didn't come with a stipping pattern that I liked - but I found this one from Urban Elementz:

I opted for a medium grey thread - which displays the quilting nicely but doesn't overwhelm or clash with any of the colours in the blocks.

Stippling is a great quilting pattern - it's incredibly versatile

 And here's a closeup of a couple of the blocks.

It turned out really well - very cheery and colourful!