Quilt Retreat

I am away at Vaughan Park, Long Bay for a long weekend.

What a treat this is - three full days and nights of quilt making.

This is the view from the classroom - hard to beat.

Last night this was the first sewing task - getting the binding in this rather large quilt.

This quilt is started with the French General blue toile fabric.

But it did take a while to get over the fact that I was just going to cut squares 

out of it rather than fussy cutting scenes.

       

Now back to sewing the binding hand sewn on.

You can see the whole quilt at our Quilt Show in May at the Parnell 

Community Centre - Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May 2016.

Chevron Cot Quilt

Now for something different.

I have been busy making a cot quilt for my nieces newish baby.

She wanted a Woodland theme and I found this fabric collection.

Not all of it will work with her decor, so we have selected those that will.

The owls and the foxes were the key ones.

These colours have proved difficult to photograph at night - the colours 

of the range above are a lot more accurate.

As you can see I had better head off and finish sewing on the binding.

Then I can send it off to Archie - not that he will need it yet - it is way too hot 

for a quilt on us at night right now.

Lotus Flower Quilt

Yesterday we visited Wrights Water Gardens at Patumahoe - just a little south of Auckland.

They are amazing gardens, especially the Lotus Ponds.

They reminded me so much of my trips to Japan.

It was the perfect time of year to visit as the flowers were in full bloom.

    

They reminded me of a Japanese quilt that  I made many years ago.



And a beautiful silk stuffed dried lotus head given to me as a gift on
one trip. And customs were happy for me to bring it having once proved 
it had no seeds still within it.

           

Hexies in Flower Pots

Our 2016 Shop Hop Quilt, "Hexies in Flower Pots" is finished 

and ready for display. It has been such fun to make with all the 

fussy cutting within the hexies.

The fabric I have used are all 1800s' Reproduction prints.

Helen Harford has quilted it for me and I am thrilled with the effect 

that she has achieved. You can see it better in this photo.

Or this one - the top photo is more accurate for background fabric colour.

We will be taking bookings for the Shop Hop Kits just as soon as the Passports 

are printed - hopefully this week.

Carolina Lily

This quilt design has been on my list of quilts to make for so many years.

I was always going to make a big traditional version of this design.

But then I found a pattern for a 30" version of it.

What a great way to get a design out of my system.

I am now happy to have it ticked off my list and love the mini version.

This quilt has been foundation pieced on pre-printed tissue paper - some 

by hand and some by machine.

As the quilt is small it means that the pieces within each block are also

quite small so I hand pieced the individual small units and then 

jumped on the machine to join them together.

This system worked very well as you probably know I will hand piece

anything I can. But once it came to sewing the units together there was 

quite a bit of bulk in the seams so the machine was definitely a good option.

It was an interesting process as when I started I thought I was 

going to have a red outer border, as I am not really a great fan of green.

But then I auditioned each option - red or green?

And it became quite obvious for me - green.

Lesson learnt / reinforced - choose your borders once the

 central part of your quilt top is made. 

How many times have your purchased a border and then when the time

 came for it to go on you have changed your mind. I certainly have 

done this - but not recently. That lesson has been learnt!

Now it is ready to be pin basted ready for hand quilting.

And it is ready for me to teach in my "Stitched By Hand" class 

that starts this Friday at the shop

Shop Hop Hexie Quilt

I had a lovely day sewing with friends yesterday and made good progress 

with my hexie flower pot blocks for our 2016 Shop Hop Quilt.

Block One

  

                                     Block Two                                        Block Three

    

 Block Two                                          Block Four

          

                          Block Five                                                         Block  Six

Block Seven

No I didn't do all of these in en day - this is the collection so far.

I now have just three blocks to finish off and they are all started so that is good.

I will have the quilt finished by early February - well that is supposed to be the plan!!

Sophie is Finished

Happy New Year everyone.

I hope 2016 has started off well for you.

I finished off the hand quilting on my Sophie's Garden over the Christmas break.

The weather in Taupo was so nice that this is about all the stitching I achieved 

over the holiday period.

Now that we are back home it is on to our Shop Hop 2016 Quilt.

This is the one with the English Paper Pieced hexagon flowers in pots.

You can see some posts earlier on my Blog of the first blocks or watch here 

for new blocks or go to the Shop Hop Blog for photos.

northernquiltsshophop.blogspot.com