Saturday 29 December 2012

....couldn't resist a new project :-)

I've always wanted to do a Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt....her site has inspired me to be more organized, use my leftovers and introduced me to usable leaders/enders.  When she posted on her blog and face book page that this one would be smaller than the previous projects and posted the colours, I jumped in with a couple friends from my Quilt guild.  It is called "Easy Street". 

We had a great time raiding our stashes and drawers of scraps and pre cut strips and buying a few new FQ's and trading black on white 2" strips.  I got a little behind during the two weeks before Christmas as I was finishing Christmas gifts, but this week has been very relaxed and my husband has been restoring some more sewing machines and, of course, I need to try them out :-).  As of this morning, I'm all caught up!  Here's the little Featherweight machine that I got to try out...it's a 1955 version and has the marked throatplate for 1/4" seams and more modern decals.  It sews like a little champ.


 It has a few scratches and small chips in the paint, but overall a pretty machine:


All the units done for 6 steps and the fabrics in the back:


Part 1 - four patches

 

Part 2 - flying geese - and cut bricks


Part 3 - shaded 4 patches and cut two green squares :-)


Part 4 - more flying geese and cut green squares


Part 5 - sitting turkeys


Part 6 bricks and cut green triangles


Looking forward to next week's clue!  I'm enjoying this mystery very much.  While doing the "sitting turkey" blocks, I saved the cut offs and will use them as leaders/enders to make half square triangles.  Wonder what I can do with those :-)


Back to working on UFO's :-)

Tuesday 11 December 2012

Jenn and Dietrich's Quilt

This quilt has been finished for quite a long time, but we wanted to connect and visit with Jenn and Dietrich to bring the quilt, which was not finished on time for their June wedding.  I did get it completed in July, but with our schedules, we finally had a chance to have that lovely coffee visit last Friday evening.  We enjoyed seeing their home, chatting and having yummy apple crisp done in the crockpot.

I used the same pattern, Split Decision, that I used for another wedding quilt in black and white, but added purple to it.  Jenn painted one wall in her living room a lovely light Easter Egg mauvy colour. I raided my 2 1/2" drawer and retrieved all the leftover blacks and whites that I used for the other quilt and added any purples that I could find.  There are even Kaffe Fassett fabrics in here :-).   The final layout of the blocks:

  
The finished quilt:


 I took a workshop with Elaine Quehl in May, though the London Friendship Quilt Guild and stretched myself on free motion quilting and decided to get brave and try some swirly flowers on this quilt.  I was very happy with the way it turned out:



I was very excited to find this lovely dark purple backing in the sale bin at a local fabric shop :-).  The binding and the quilting on the back:


I think this is a pattern that I will use often!! (Click on the photos for a larger view.)