It is now autumn, with lovely cool morning and bright blue sky, and I like it very much. With no association to the weather, however, I have made this 'Summer Table Runner' when I saw a picture of it. I love the colours of watermelon although I hardly know what it tastes like (watermelon makes me sick, sadly). I had a few fat quarters in different shades of red, and off I went....There is also a free downloadable pattern but I chose not to follow it.! And so, it took me a little while to work out how I would like to finish it. I quilted it using 'grass b2b' pattern, by Anne Bright, on my wonderful Gammill Statler, and used the Gammill Statler to mark an arc for cutting out as well. I have also made these two cute coasters from the left over quilted pieces that I trimmed off.... Morag, one of my lovely clients, said to me that instead of saying 'I just made it up', I should be saying 'it's my own design'.!!! :-)
Marita's older sister is turning 50 in a couple of weeks. She made her version of the 'Colour Play' quilt top. I quilted it last night on my wonderful Gammill Statler. Marita chose the pattern, '2475 totally mod circles e2e', by Tammy Finkler, for her quilt. I picked the variegated Signature 100% cotton thread, Tie Dye, for the quilting. It quilted nicely and showed off the quilting pattern on the backing beautifully. Marita was around to help out where she could. I was telling her what to do, for a change. But, of course, I don't think she would agree with this.!!! We had fun, nevertheless. :-) I hope the quilt would be well received by Marita's sister.
My friend has just had a baby girl. I finished this cot size baby quilt in a record time (mine), 3 hours from start to finish.!! I chose the pattern named 'kid toys 2 e2e' by Deb Geissler for the quilt. It matched nicely with the front panel (quilt top). In the process, I have learnt to flip the pattern horizontally for alternate rows. I was also practicing using the 'relocate' function of Creative Studio to get things moving along smoothly during the quilting on my wonderful Gammill Statler. All fabrics were from my (full) cupboard. I didn't need to spend time searching further away from home.! It is my intention to try to use up what I have already had (way too much - but this is a relative term, depending on one's perception. :-) ). I have washed the quilt and it's in the post for Baby Prisha. I hope the blanket will keep her warm during the first winter of her life, and would be her play mat for the rest of the year.
I'm probably going through a phase of being curious.... It took 2 evenings and one afternoon to make this 'Colour Play' quilt. The quilt block was easy to calculate. I did it on the train to work one morning, last week. I used 2 sets of solids 1930s 10" Layer Cake for the 12 colours. While my DH and my 'Sunshine' were out and about, I took the chance and just dived in (head first, of course!), and didn't give myself much time to think and plan as I usually do (far too long!!). Because of all the squares in the quilt top, to balance that, I chose the backing fabric with circles pattern. Also, circles were chosen (by mE) for the quilting pattern. It's called 'double circles e2e', and designed by Karen Farnsworth. I'm one of her many club members. I quilted the quilt on my wonderful Gammill Statler, as I normally do these days. Funnily, it took longer to choose the colour of fabric for the binding. Eventually, I have decided to go with yellow-ish fabric for the binding, which I hope to get it done in this coming week. Hmmmm.... I kind of like the quilt, and a few of my friends do too. :-)
Here is part of my quilt top, 'Short Trips Around the World'. The pattern was from a tutorial by Katy Jones. I have entered it to the Sydney Quilt Show at Darling Harbour this year. Both the quilt design and colour scheme weren't what I would normally choose. But I was curious to see how I would feel when working on this kind of scrappy quilt - 'outside my comfort zone' was one way of looking at it. The experience was fun and I really enjoyed it. The process, in principle, was very similar to project management. It's probably why I enjoyed it so much.! I'm still deciding how I would like to quilt it.... I will find out in early May whether or not it will be accepted to be juried and hung at the Show, so fingers crossed.!
After finishing the Christmas table cloth for my dear friend, Marijke, during my stay in France in 2010, I would like to make a round table runner for myself using the same technique; English Paper Piecing. It was just the right project, for hand sewing, to start at the time when I joined the local ladies at the 'Fat Quarter' sewing group. After several stops and starts and 2 years on with my acquisition of the Gammill Statler Stitcher along the way, I have finished this blue hexagon table runner for the round table that I have got at home. I used 1 1/2 inch size hexagon, pieced the hexagons and appliqued the finished piece on the background fabric by hand. It was a good chance for me to have more practice on custom quilting, so I custom quilted it on my wonderful Gammill Statler Stitcher. The swirl pattern named 'cinnamonroll L107' was by Laurie Thomas. I also experimented with using Creative Studio to divide the pattern (for the little daisy in the centre), and to create a scallop edge, a few tips that I learnt from Karin while visiting her in Stange, Norway. It worked out really well. Thanks, Karin. :-) Although I was managing fine, I also learnt that shallower curves would be easier when it comes to doing the binding....something to keep in mind for the next scallop edge.!! Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable task, overall, during a restful weekend.
When I was at The Log Cabin patchwork shop in Germany with Marijke and Renee last year, I 'liked' and bought half a metre of this colourful fabric that was for making a bag. I, as usual, didn't really know what to use it for and had no plan for it. Just happened that, one night, I came across a picture of this particular quilt named 'Recipe Cards' in a catalogue from Keepsake Quilting (I'm one of the shop's on-line customers). I, then, started to calculate and scribble the measurements of the fabrics for the quilt in my notebook, working backward from the finished quilt size given. It's my 'relaxation' after work, and suddenly, there was a purpose for the piece of fabric from the trip. :-) At the same time, this would allow me to 'indulge' my love of sunny orange colour. Perfect.! ....Although the piecing wasn't difficult, I had to unpick a few sections when I wasn't checking the directions of the pieces with the pattern while sewing them together. The background fabric was soft and easily stretched as I don't normally use spray starch on my quilt tops. So, it was a good opportunity to 'float' the quilt top when quilting it on my wonderful Gammill Statler Stitcher. The quilted quilt was (and is) beautiful, and I had none of the problems anticipated even though it's the first time I utilised the technique. To match the feature fabric on the quilt top, I decided on the quilting pattern named '2394 Dogwood Flower E2E' by Tammy Finkler.
