Sophie's Garden Row Three Quilting

I am so pleased with the way my hand quilting is progressing on my Sophie's 

Garden Quilt. It is quite relaxing quilting as I have no marking to do.

Quilted the same as the previous star blocks.

Outlined applique and down the ditch and the middle of each background piece.

Star as usual, outline the reels and down the ditch of the centre unit of each reel.

Down two of the vertical lines on the two  lines side panels of the star.

Across two line son the top fabric and down the centre of the dark 

plaid section. Ditched between the star and the reels.

Outline the applique and go down the vertical lines of the fabric.

Add a cross stitch for the bird's eye in embroidery thread.

Down the light side of the half square triangle units.

Row 4 is coming along well, so I should have that for you next weekend 

and maybe even some more fussy cut hexies mid-week.

More Shop Hop Hexies

I have been busy making more fussy cut hexagons in a variety of sizes 

for our 2016 Shop Hop Quilt.

Have you saved the date in your next year's diary?

20 May - 28 May 2016

Our new Shop Hop Blog will be full of information soon.

Quilting Sophie's Garden 2

My quilting of Sophie's Garden is progressing well with another row completed.

Maybe I will be done by Christmas or soon after.

Block 5 I quilted down the dark diagonals on the two side borders, around all the

applique including the two circles up on the flowers, across the middle of the top border and down the middle of the dark band, just out from the diagonal lines of the bottom triangle border on the light fabrics and down each tan row of squares on the background fabric.

I embroidered the antennae of the butterfly in backstitch.

Block 6 - the house. I outlined quilted the house first, embroidered the outline of the window

and the cross, added a French Knot for the door handle, quilted across the top of the grass,

lines down the background 3/4" apart. Then on the house I quilted just out from the edge around each window, around the door, down the dark lines of the side house fabric and across the seam above the windows on the front of the house. On the roof down the diagonal lines joining up the tan squares.

Block 7 - my favourite. Outlined all the applique as usual. Quilted down the 

lengthwise centre of each background piece and in the ditch between each piece.

The birds have three French Knots close together to make their eyes.

Block 8 I did all these units the same as the similar on in Row 1.

It is pouring down with rain here in Auckland so what better thing to do than 

get on to quilting the next of Sophie's blocks.

Back soon with the next installment of Shop Hop Blocks.

2016 Northern Shop Hop

Yes we are having the Shop Hop again next year.

Save the dates as it is a shorter time frame next year.

20 - 28 May 2016.

These are my first one and a half blocks. 

As you can see we are still addicted to fussy cutting, hexagons and 

1800 Reproduction fabric. So we thought you might like to join our addiction.

Quilting Sophie's Garden

I have been busy quilting my Sophie's Garden Quilt so there 

hasn't been a lot to show you for a while. But now that I have made some 

progress I can show it.

I have machine quilted in the ditch of all the blocks and the borders which has 

stabilized it nicely for hand quilting. I really do not like hand quilting in the 

ditch - you can't see where you have been or where you are going, so 

I might as well machine it - it is so much easier and quicker when you can't 

even see it - so long as you can keep in the ditch!

Then I spent some time outlining as much as the applique as I could. I wanted to 

take it to Festival of Quilts last weekend so I figured if I got some of the hand quilting 

down on most of the blocks I could take out the safety pins. Didn't quite make 

that target so it went to the Show with pins in place! 

I do stitch around the applique pieces, the large pieced stars and down 
some internal seam lines. I like to see my hand quilting so I stitch about 1/8" out.

I figure there is no point hand quilting if you can't see the stitches hence the 

distance from the applique or seam edges.

Block one large star background is quilted with lines radiating out from the 

star points and the V points to the edge of the background.

The small star blocks are outlined with a square on point in the centre.

All the small squares have a line down the middle of the two borders and a 

diagonal cross in the centre.

Block two is outline quilted and on the left and bottom borders I quilted down some of the lines on the fabric. I plan to use the fabric as inspiration all across the quilt. I went across the middle of the top border, left teh blue border on the right as it had flowers already quilted on it and did a lien down the middle of the taupe on the right.

I embroidered some stamen on the flowers but I am not sure I like it. 

I think the simple quilting around the centre circle below is probably enough.

Block three was treated the same as Block 1.

Block 4 bascially followed the same idea as the previous blocks.

Embroidery on the star to drop back the boldness of the cream fabric.

All my embroidery is done with two strands of Cosmo Embroidery thread.

Same for the centre of the flowers - a French knot in the middle with 

long stitches radiating out to the edge.

Quilting on the blue following lines printed on the fabric.

I hope this is helpful. I am quilting with two colours of Wonderfil Konfetti -

brown KT803 and light taupe KT903.

I like the fineness of this thread for hand quilting.

I am aiming to quilt four blocks each week so watch this space!!!!!