It's the end of the year and time to look back at what I made in 2024.  The first few months on the year were spent finishing my Kokomo quilt (Stars Upon Stars).  Our guild's exhibition in May was the motivation I needed to get going and finish it.  I started it at the beginning of 2020, so it deserved to be finished, but going from a bunch of blocks to a finished hand pieced and hand quilted quilt in just five months took a lot of dedication.   During that time I also hand quilted Last Christmas: And managed to finish up Faith: And Purple Zone: After our exh ..read more

I'm squeezing in one more finish before the end of the year and then my next blog post will be my annual wrap up.  This quilt was designed and made for friend and work colleague. We gave it to her this week and she was thrilled.   It possibly looks a bit washed out in these photos but it's bright!! It's all 6" finished half square triangles but the placement works so well with these strong colours.   I had this one long arm quilted at Busy Bee Quilt shop in Wellington.  The backing is a Kaffe Fassett wideback.   I showed it at Capital Quilt ..read more

And I have another finish to share with you.  I'm calling this one "Crazy" because it sends your eyes a bit crazy as you try to pick out the pattern.  However, I chose a very clever motif for the long arm quilting and that may help you to see the blocks.  (Garden Trellis 4 by House of Creations) I purchased this Kaffe Fassett Marquee Stripe fabric at one of our guild sales days and I didn't have a lot to play with. this is all of the blocks I could make from what I had.  And it's long out of print now. I couldn't find a fabric in my stash to compleme ..read more

I'm on a roll with finishes at the moment. I asked my long arm quilter to do some very simple quilting on my Symposium piece while she was quilting a couple of other quilts for me recently.   Then I added some facings because the quilt is only 27" x 27" and I didn't want  binding that could appear bulky on such a small piece.   I love the backing because it looks like deep blue water.   I've called my quilt "Tekapo" because as soon as I saw the design I thought of Lake Tekapo in the South Island of New Zealand.  I've stayed there twice and I lo ..read more

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