Rainbow quilt

My Mum lives on a few acres outside of a small country town and a few years ago she painted her front fence in rainbow colours. People either love it or hate it, but it certainly suits my Mum and her extroverted personality!
I've been wanting to make her a quilt for ages and it had to be a rainbow one. I started to make her the Wavelength quilt out of Modern Quilting but after I started it, I just didn't like it so did some panic googling to find another idea to use the fabric for.
I found this awesome quilt by buttontree lane. I had enough different shades of fabric and already had the dark charcoal for the background.

I wanted it to end up nice and big so used fairly big hst (6.5"). The quilt is 96" x 96" (240cmx240cm) finished. I didn't get any photos but the backing is the left over grey and the binding is a black and white stripe.

I had help basting it from our new kitten!

Its kind of huge, I free motion quilting the grey sections but left the colours unquilted. I found it tends to dull out the colours a bit when they are quilted and I wanted it as bright as possible, plus the effect it has looks cool, lol.





All in all, I'm really happy how it truned out and Mum loves it!

Geekly Chic triangle quilt

I have been hoarding this fabric range for a few months now, its one of my favourites for when I want to go all Gollum by stroking my stash and calling it my pretties.......
I finally caved and decided to make my daughter a quilt. I let her pick the design and the contrasting fabric and binding.
The main are from the Geekly Chic range and I bought them from lilybellafabric.com. The contrast is from Lincraft's quilting cotton, in Lilac and binding is from the stash.

 

It turned out to be a reasonable size quilt, 175cmx220cm. It fits really well on her king-single bed with a decent overhang. I like doing half square triangles, they go together really quickly and you get to see a nice big piece of the fabric. The only downfall of hst is if you are using a directional print which is why I decided to do them facing side to side rather than up and down, makes it a little less obvious that half are facing the opposite direction.
I pieced her name in the back, using the Refrigerator Magnets pattern again but I sized it up by nearly double to get it to fit the size of the back.

 

Its quilted all over in a stipple pattern using polyester thread. I have been having constant trouble with thread breakage, skipped stitches and tension troubles until I switched over from cotton thread. I read a great post about free motion quilting with poly thread and was a revolution, my machine has never run this smooth and its really sped up the process, took about 1.5hrs to quilt this entire quilt! I'm still using cotton thread to piece with so I can iron my seams open without it melting the thread. 

Folk Tale Bunting Quilt

My cousin has just had a baby so it quilting time again!
I got a small selection of this fabric (Folk Tale by Natalie Lymer) when I was last in Victoria at the Ballarat patchwork. Its really cute, has little hedgehogs and birds all over it.

I pieced her name into the back of the quilt, I've been freehand piecing names which has been working ok but I downloaded the Refrigerator Magnets from Oh, Fransson! and it is so much quicker! (I found the freezer paper at Spotlight)

I freemotion stippled again, I like how crinkly the quilt gets after washing and drying with free motion quilting. Anyway, not much else to say, I posted it up to my cousin and she's really happy with it!

Ivy's bunting quilt

 

I've seen a few of these bunting quilts lately, I really like them and after making this one I'm sold! I used the Melly & Me Bunting Quilt pattern and the fabrics are from the Little Kukla range by Robert Kaufmann.

I made it for my friends daughter so pieced her name in the back, it adds a nice personal touch that I really like.

I made the templates for the triangles up out of template plastic from spotlight and the purple background is a Prima cotton from Spotlight as well.

 

It went together really quickly and is a really good use of fabric, I only got 1/2 yard cuts of the 5 fabrics and I have enough leftover for a cot quilt and scraps.

I borrowed my next door neighbours clothesline for the pics, thanks Sheree! (and gee I need to put a hairdye through my hair, lol!)

Robert Kaufman: I am Ninja quilt

I have a family who loves Karate, we all train each week and love it!  When I first saw this pattern I was planning on making it for my daughter until my husband saw it and really liked it (I have a blue colourway version planned for her!).

 

The pattern is a free download from the Robert Kaufman website and I got the fabric from etsy, though Hawthorne threads is stocking it all now too. The amounts given in the pattern are quite generous, I have about half of the kanji and red ninja print leftover. Also, the pattern doesn't differentiate between directions for cutting out the red ninja and black kanji print so if you want the background all to run the same way keep an eye on it, I only cut as I needed it to help me get it all going the same direction.

 

Its a very easy quilt to make, I used basting spray because I find straight line quilting shifts a bit on me and the spray helps keep it all together. I quilted 1/4" on either side of the seamlines around most of the shapes, changing threads colours to help blend it into the background.

 

I hung the quilt using this tutorial and really like it, it gives the wall a real texture compared to just hanging a painting.

Joel Dewberry Avairy Stars Quilt

These photos don't do the quilt justice, its a lovely rich mix of purples and mint green with the light grey sashing.

The fabric is mostly Avairy 2 by Joel Dewberry. I got it from lilybellafabrics on etsy last year and the grey is Prima fabric from Spotlight.

Pattern is from Moda Bakeshop - The Charming Stars quilt

I'm really happy how it turned out, I've held onto this fabric for the last year and not really been sure of what to make with it. I love all the colours and the little squares with the birds on them. The quilt itself was really easy to sew, its all straight lines and came together really quickly.

The back is pieced out of all the leftover fabric, I had just enough to piece the year and a couple strips.

I quilted it with a free motion stippling design on my new machine.

Let me introduce my new baby; Janome 1600p-qc.

 

She's an absolute beauty, its a straight stitch only machine, no bells or whistles but it does a beautiful straight stitch and is so fast - 1600 stitches per minute! I had a bit of trouble with it skipping stitches when I free motion but it was the Guttermann thread I was using, once I switched to Mettler its been fine.

We picked up the desk for $10 at St Vinnies and inset the machine into it plus I gave it a good coat of paint. I've been having some shoulder and neck pain when sewing lately and as far as I can tell its been because the machines been too high plus its so much easier to quilt with a flat smooth bed.

 

To inset it we traced around the machine and used a jigsaw to cut out a hole then screwed together the little shelf for it to sit in. Didn't take very long and its the ultimate quilting table now!

 

And finally a couple kitten pics. What is it about cats and newly made quilts/clothes or even just clean fabric, I can never get them off mine!



 

Rag Quilt: Moda Coquette

 

After a big run of wadders lately (a skirt, couple of tops, a dress, kids boxer shorts and another MakeBra........) I needed a palette cleanser so made this little cot/lap quilt.

Its a rag quilt made from this tutorial. If you've ever had any interest in making a quilt this would be a fantastic one for a beginner. No binding, no hand sewing and you quilt as you go so there is no basting and no free motion quilting.

I used a charm pack from Moda's Coquette line which was not enough fabric so there's some plain and spotted fabric added that I had in my stash. The colours remind me of cupcake sprinkles :)
The back loveheart wasn't planned ahead, I just ran out of the raspberry backing fabric and had to make do!

Its turned out so soft and cuddly that my daughters put in an order and I want one in the lounge room too!

Christmas Quilt: Joy by Moda

I've been itching to try a zig zag quilt for ages, I love the chevrons and colour grouping plus they are so freaking easy!

This is half a layer cake (so the equivilant of 2 charm packs) and the grey fabric is a Prima cotton from Spotlight.

First time doing straight line quilting, I like the effect of it on this quilt but it uses a lot more thread than I thought and takes longer than free motion quilting too! (the marks on the quilt are water spots from the wet seat, I thought I wiped it dry but must have missed some!)

Super Mario QAL: finished!

All finished!

The details;

• All material is Prima quilting cotton from Spotlight and the wadding is low loft Bamboo also from Spotlight.
• The blocks are from Cut to Pieces Mario quilt-along and I constructed them using a thin interfacing method from here .
• Quilting is an allover loopy free motion stitch using a light grey cotton thread.

I found it pretty painstaking, cutting the interfacing apart so I could iron the seams open and flat took forever! But I am really happy with how it looks and I have all the materials to make another one for me.....maybe next year sometime!

Its an early Christmas present for my son who is a huge Mario fan (gets it from me, I still have the original Super Nintendo and games from the 1990's and the only computer game I play now is the Mario galaxy games :)