I've called my Lollie Wheels quilt "Houdini" because it's magic.  There's an optical illusion that make you think that there's a square in the middle of each pinwheel block.  But it's all due to fussy cutting! The fabric has printed lines of stitching on it, and if you cut it right way you can make this effect.  I made my quilt from some pieces of Lollies, Looking Forward and Remix that I had in my stash - along with contributions from 4 other sources.  Jen Kingwell has a whole new range of Lollies fabrics coming out right now and the Lollie Wheels pattern was rele ..read more

And now to Part D of my posts on Kokomo (Stars Upon Stars) D. Hand Quilting I always knew that I would hand quilt my Kokomo. I wanted to say that it was entirely made by me.  However, with so many tiny pieces in this quilt there are a lot of seam allowances to quilt through.  I used Aurifil 24wt because it's fine and strong and perfect for hand quilting.  I didn't want the quilting to stand out, so I used colours that blended into the fabrics.    You can read more about how I hand quilt on this page on my blog, but I always use a hoop and I always choose wool battin ..read more

And now to Part C of my posts on Kokomo (Stars Upon Stars) C. Assembly I chose to hand piece my quilt because I knew it would give the me level of accuracy and finishing that I was after.  And I won an award for "Best Piecing" in our guild's exhibition so it worked! I English Paper Pieced my La Passacaglia quilt, but now I much prefer hand piecing with no papers because it's easier on my hands.   I was fortunate to stumble across a rubber stamp set for hand piecing Stars Upon Stars made by Jeanneke.  The stamps result in each piece being slightly bigger th ..read more

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my Kokomo quilt.  As promised I'm going to explain more about how I made it - both for anyone thinking about making one themselves, and for my personal record, because after all, that's what blogs are for. A. Fabric selection I loved Tula Pink's Zuma range as soon as I saw it and I knew I wanted to use it for something special so I decided to use it for my version of Stars Upon Stars - Kokomo.  As soon as the block started coming together I knew I had made the right decision for me. Most people who make Stars Upon Stars quilts use tradi ..read more

This week I decided to start something new.  I saw a cute quilt in the background of Jen Kingwell's booth at Quilt Market and I thought about some of her fabrics that I had in my stash.   This clever version of a Pin Wheel quilt is made by cutting Jen Kingwell's Lollies fabric in a particular manner. Jen offers a free pattern to make in on her Amitie Textiles website - it's called Lollie Wheels. Fortunately I had a few pieces of the first run of Lollies in my stash so I decided to give it a try.    width of fabric of Lollies More of the colourw ..read more

I'm home from Symposium and I'm so glad that I decided to go.  I really would have had FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) if I'd stayed at home.   Here's what I've made: I took a 3 day class with Veruschka Zarate of Pride and Joy Quilting and it was great.  We worked on the New Zealand image from her Capturing Memories Landscape Quilt Pattern Series. This is one flat quilt designed to look like two Polaroids laid on top of each other.  You can't see the quilt underneath because it's doesn't exist! Veruschka developed the idea of creating scenes for the locations she ..read more

A few weeks ago my niece had a baby girl.  So of course I just had to make a quilt for the new baby.     I decided to cut into a special piece of fabric I'd bought two years ago at our Symposium in Lower Hutt.  It was Homeward by Monika Forsberg for Anna Maria Horner Conservatory by Freespirit Fabrics. But I didn't really do the maths first and I ended up with left over squares.  So I decided to make a little dolly quilt for the baby's almost two year old big sister.  But then I still had more feature blocks left over, so I made a whole n ..read more

This is Part B of a series of posts explaining how I make my version of Stars Upon Stars.   B. Planning the colours  1. External stars in the blocks.  A key design feature of the original Stars Upon Stars quilt is that each block is unique.  I decided replicate that idea by using different fabrics and colours for the external stars of each block. I opted for tone on tone fabrics in most cases, and tried to use every colour within my limited colour range - blue, aqua, green, pink, orange and yellow.  If I repeated a colour I used a different fabric which was always ..read more

I'm back!  I haven't been away, but I've been super busy with work, cricket admin and quilt guild admin.  I've hardly had any time for sewing lately, but I decided to fix that this week and I finally made time to pick up my rotary cutter.   I'd been thinking about using some of my Kaffe Fassett stripes so I browsed through some of my older Kaffe books and came upon this pattern from Kaffe Quilts Again (2012): I only had the Marquee fabric in the lighter shades so mine looked like this: random some diamonds forming Diamonds! and ev ..read more

Where do I even begin to describe my happiness with how this quilt has turned out? I'm thrilled with it and I'm not going to let it out of my sight.  I've even considered sewing an Apple AirTag into it so if it goes missing I can track it down! I've spent so many hours making this quilt but I've enjoyed them all.  I started this quilt back in January 2020.  I've spent four years working on it in the background.  I haven't once put it on social media or even shown my friends.  I knew it was going to take a long time and I just wanted to enjoy the process and take my t ..read more