Quilt 142: 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 141: 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 140: 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!