October 2012 archive
What a month! What a year really, but that’s a whole different story LOL
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| Links for each blog post are in the caption of each photo below. |
I started October by joining up with Blogtoberfest and the intention to post everyday. I made it to the 26th before life got insanely hectic and I made a sensible decision to put life ahead of blogging.
I finished two quilts this month!! One was all finished and just needed the binding.
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A quilt for Mr 4
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One was pretty much started, finished and sold in the first two weeks of October. Yeah baby!
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Triangle Quilt
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I finished two secret squirrel items for upcoming bloghops (make sure you pop back on the 13th of November for the Sew Seasonal Blog Hop and the 17th for the Travellin’ Pic Stitch Blog Hop). Just a sneak peak until then 
I made significant progress on my I Spy Quilt.
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I Spy quilt top
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Well, maybe not significant, but I spent a lot of time pondering it and pieced most of the back (which was also used as party decorations LOL).
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I Spy quilt back WIP
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I had a lot of fun designing and piecing a paper pieced Nouméan House for Queen Bee Jane as part of Wombat Stew.
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Paper Pieced Wombat Stew bee block.
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I made a Birthday Cake 
It was awesome I would love to take credit for the idea, but it is a Pinata cake from one of the Woman’s Weekly cookbooks (all Aussie kids grow up with a Woman’s Weekly Birthday Cake book to ponder for 364 days every year).
I actually thought October was very productive, but I guess I did a couple of big things but not many little things in between. I will be travelling for half of November so I don’t expect to be overly productive sewing wise but am looking forward to spending time with family and friends! I do anticipate quilting withdrawal.
Did you get your sewjo on in October? How do you cope with sewing/quilting withdrawal when on ‘holidays’ (surely it’s not a holiday if I’m not taking my best friend sewing machine).
I will be linking up with Fresh Sewing Day at Lily’s Quilts.
You may have noticed that I blogged a lot this month. Every day until yesterday in fact! On a whim I decided to participate in Blogtoberfest. I struggled for the first week or two and then I found my stride.
I’m glad that I participated in Blogtoberfest but I won’t do it again. Blogging every day just isn’t my style. Squeezing in a post every day meant that I really struggled to keep up with replying to comments, keeping in touch with my regular family and friends, sewing (which is what this blog is about!). More than once I found myself at the computer at 11pm and I definitely spent more time online than I normally do.
I did however get some positives out of the month. Big ones.
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| Cake is always a positive
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My motivation to blog increased. I signed up for two blog hops, finished two quilt and really just flamed my creative fire. I had lots of positive feedback on the blog, had some “favourites” in flickr and was contacted by a potential sponsor for the first time. I thought a lot about where this blog is headed and how to continue my creative journey. I realised that being creative is part of me that I cannot give up, but that’s a whole other post.
All in all October was a great month blog wise but I think I can continue that without the need to post ever day Posting 2-3 times a week is more my style. I need days where I’m not online at all. Days when I have time to respond to people who interact with me on my blog. I also need time to build up some stock and actually open an etsy store rather than just think about it.
I’m going to have to say farewell to Blogtoberfest at this point. I found out on Friday that our house is going to have some major works beginning in a little over a week, so along with my existing commitments and preparing for a vacation, I need to pack everything into boxes. That definitely does not leave any time for blogging. It barely leaves time to finish off my existing commitments and I am actually feeling very stressed about the whole thing. But I don’t want to leave you on a bad note
Last night we celebrated my big boy turning 6. We hosted a party for about a dozen kids and some parents in the evening. It was complete insanity and one boy left unable to locate his shoes or t-shirt. But the kids had a blast and I loved every minute of it (not so much the preparations LOL).
We had a pinata cake.
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The birthday boy smashed the cake which had a chocolate dome and hollow
centre filled with chocolate coins. |
I used my WiP rainbow quilt back as decorations.
We had a glow in the dark treasure hunt which was a huge hit, but you’ll have to believe me as the photographs are terrible. Along with a favourite DVD, face painting (I’m getting much better at it), tattoos, pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey.
I hope that you enjoyed reading my blog during Blogtoberfest. I hope that I didn’t bore you, I tried really hard to post with a purpose, not just because I “had” to. Posting for the next little while will probably be a little erratic. There is a lot to get through. I will be joining in two bloghops during November, Sew Seasonal and Travelling PicStitch Blog Hop, so I’d love you to stick around And of course I have shared my triangle quilt as part of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival which is a bit exciting I’ll still be here, just not every day
I recently heard about the Blogger’s Quilt Festival and wow, it looks like a lot of fun! I encourage you to pop over and check out all of the gorgeous quilts on display total quilt candy overload! Today my reader is full of posts featuring beautiful quilts that bloggers are entering in the festival. I have decided to join in with my triangle quilt. I wish I’d thought of a better name for it than that, but I think all of the creativity went into the quilt with little left for selecting a name LOL
Although I only blogged about this quilt last week the festival requires a current post, so please bear with me if this feels like a rehash And for anyone who is visiting for the first time as part of the festival, thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy looking around. I recently added a photo gallery with some of my favourite finishes from the last year or so. You should find the tab up top there ^
This quilt started life as a bloggers bundle. I wanted to mix in some grey and yellow and I was aiming for a single/twin size quilt so I added about as many fat quarters from my stash as there were in the bundle. I stuck to yellows, oranges, pinks and a few that blended two or all three of these in a single print.
I dithered for a fair while deciding what to do and worrying about that first cut. In the end I broke our my new triangle ruler and tackle triangles for the first time. I had a little helper It definitely enhanced the experience having Little Miss cry “Pwetty! Pwetty!” as I was pinning rows together.
I’m not one for pinning but I wanted perfect points and it was worth the effort
I love pieced backs and I wanted to design something that provided a calm alternative to the energy of the quilt top whilst incorporating the same prints.
I originally planned to straight line quilt on both sides of every seam, but I fell in love with the look of the diamond quilting on the quilt back. I used Aurifil 50wt and machine quilted it myself on my Bernina 440QE. It is the largest piece I have quilted and I am so happy with how it came out.
It almost had a deep pink binding, but I love the yellow and I’m so glad with the choice I made
I actually waited four days to photograph this quilt after I’d made it. I finished it on a Saturday and we had a run of windy, rainy, grey days. As I worked on the quilt I had imagined photographing it finished against the backdrop of the bright blue lagoon here in Nouméa. I’m so glad I waited for that backdrop
- Quilt Measurements: 65″ x 85″
- Quilted by: me (Gemma Jackson)
- Best category: Bed quilt, Quilt photographer
Today I have been over thinking my I Spy quilt. I’ve bored friends silly with my talk of it. Every person who entered the house today was asked for an opinion. I’ll probably end up doing what I originally intended. Or maybe I won’t. I’m rendered incompetent by indecision…
I did complete the rainbow section for the back.
Most of my time was spent auditioning fabrics.
I find it helps to take photos and look at them a little while later.
Or set it up on the design wall, walk away for half an hour and then come back with fresh eyes. Well, I don’t know if it helps, today it didn’t LOL
How long do you spend thinking through your work? Do you fly by the seat of your pants, draw up a plan and stick with it or dither at every decision. Today I can safely say I’m in dithering mode.
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Terrible pic… There is a table right next to my design
wall so getting a good photo is hard. Sorry! |
I’m sorry if you’re bored of this Work in Progress, but it is what I am focusing on right now. There are about 6 other WiPs but two are secret squirrel for the time being, two are in my head, and… Maybe that’s it actually.
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| secret squirrel paper piecing
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This quilt is for Mr 6 (who turned 6 yesterday), for his birthday in fact. So it’s a little tardy… But that’s OK because it’s absolute AWESOMENESS is going to make up for that You may remember that I intended to sell this quilt. Turns out the amount of time spent on it and the fact that someone mentioned they love it translates into a gift for my birthday boy
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| let’s not discuss the green. I’m not happy with the green… |
Today the top will be finished and the back will be started. I’m crossing all my digits that my new Aurifil threads and batting arrive before our upcoming holiday or this quilt won’t be finished until the end of November…
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| rainbow border added |
The plan is to have a large white border outside of the rainbow border. Like about 6-8″ wide that is then quilted. I’m having doubts. I hope I’m going in the right direction… I won’t talk too much about the quilting because it is still floating around in my head. Suffice to say that I spent way too much buying new threads to allow me to both machine and hand quilt the large white border following the rainbow. I might completely change my mind though and keep it white. I just threw it on the bed to see how the sizing is going and it looks lovely as it is. The piecing just falls over the edge of the mattress so you don’t lose much of the I Spy which is great I do want the extra width and length though so I will keep going. I think.
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| Mr 4′s quilt with impractical white… |
I’m about to start on the back. After providing Mr 4 (who is the messiest child you have ever met, always comes home from school covered in food and paint and dirt and goodness knows what else!) with a quilt that has white sashing I am now rethinking white in kids quilts LOL We’re going OK so far (no stains yet!) but I have decided to use grey as the base for the back of Mr 6′s quilt. I’m worried it won’t go, that I should keep it white like the front. I’m having quite a stressful internal battle between my creative artist half and practical mother half… Aside from grey (or white…) I’ve pulled these pretties from my stash to piece the back.
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| Next to play with colour and piece the back |
I had a lot of fun pulling these out yesterday afternoon and drew about a dozen designs for the back. I’ve got it down to two. Maybe three finalists…
One of the fun things about selecting these fabrics was focusing on the tones and colours. This morning I woke up to read a great post by BadSkirt about colour. There is a fantastic quiltalong focusing on volume at the moment, if you haven’t heard about it I recommend you check it out and follow the posts (I would love to quiltalong but neither my travel and sewing schedule allows at this time).
On other news I have joined twitter. Just another thing that I need to learn how to use properly and spend some precious time on… I’d love you to tell me who you like to follow Facebook just isn’t working for me so I figured it’s time to jump on the twitter bandwagon.
Next up will be instagram but that is all dependent on a new phone. You see I lost my phone on Friday, it is either somewhere in the house or I drove off with it on the roof of the car. Either way I ended up spending 1 1/2 hours at the Post Office this morning getting a new SIM with the same number. As penance I am back to a 7 year old phone that is sans camera… I’m not too concerned as my phone was going to be replaced in a couple of weeks anyway (a few years old, cracked screen…) but I am going to be much more aware of where my new phone is. The point being that I’m planning on using the camera on the new phone. If I get one that is… At this stage I am grateful that I keep old phones for these kind of emergencies. Nothing like the realization that it does matter that you’ve lost your phone because 20 birthday invitations and the school emergency contacts list rely on that number… *sigh* Here’s hoping that more than two kids turn up to the party (but that’s a whole different story!)…
I will be linking up with Work In Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.
My baby turns six today. (Don’t tell him I call him a baby still.)
About this time six years ago we headed to the hospital, driven by a neighbour. I’d spent the night trying to sleep and by 8am decided it was time. Later that day our baby boy arrived. I remember hearing him cry for the first time and crying myself. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Neither of us did.
Fast forward 6 years. We have three kids. I could change a nappy upside down, backwards while running across a boat. Nappies are easy. Parenting. Well, I still have no idea about parenting.
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| My three babies |
I hope that love is enough. We do our best to raise happy, healthy, well mannered children. We try to teach them morals and manners and how to enjoy life. We try to find a balance between discovering new adventures and knowing your limits. It’s a never ending joy ride with moments of pure exhilaration and terror.
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| My baby |
Today I will reminisce. I will cry and I will smile. I will bake cupcakes and watch my kids decorate them and lick the icing off. I will try to be the best parent I can be but I will probably make some decisions that my kids don’t like (turning off the TV!).
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| We love decorating cupcakes! |
Happy Birthday Baby Boy. Watching you grow up makes growing old fun.
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| My baby cutting his 5th birthday cake with Daddy |
Thanks for humoring me, I love my babies xxx
OK, that title makes no sense and I’m blogging after my post lunch sneaky chocolate and coffee. This whole post might be a weird sugar and caffeine high if the title is anything to go by…
But back to Wombats. (if you’re here for the sewing and not the wombats, then scroll down for some paper piecing.)
According to my Wombat buddy Fiona, today is World Wombat day. If you’re not Australian you may not have heard of wombats. They are a marsupial (marsupials are a group of mammals unique to Australia. I’m going on memory here, high school science…), kind of look like a wooden wine barrel on short legs but about the size of a small esky/ice cooler. You couldn’t really call them cute, although I did once get to cuddle a baby wombat and that was definitely cute!
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| Oh, to have my post 2nd child body back! |
Why am I blogging about Wombats you ask. Because I am in a super cool paper piecing bee called Wombat Stew along with Kristy, Fiona, Alyce, Jane, Marieka and Lara. We are into our second month. Last month Alyce was Queen Wombat and we made Japanese cuisine block. This month Jane is Queen Wombat and we’re making house blocks.
Jane asked for a 10″ block that has realistic colours. I am totally in love with the other blocks I’ve seen so far. I decided to design a house based on the colonial New Caledonia houses. This was my second time using Quilt Assistant. I think I have a lot to learn still and I wonder how much easier EQ7 is. Quilt Assistant is definitely finicky and whilst the help PDF document is good, I find myself getting very frustrated as there is some logic missing. Probably on my behalf, and I’m not seriously complaining because it is free and I have loved the two blocks that I designed with it. However, both times I have felt that both patterns were a form of torture. Again, that is probably user error. I should be designing simple blocks, not ones with over 100 pieces!
I based my house on the house on the right in this photo.
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| Source |
But also had this rickety old house in mind.
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| Source |
What I really wanted to do was this doorway and leafy canopy, but I figured that might not be enough house for Jane
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| Source |
I love my block! It isn’t perfect and I’m worried that it isn’t good enough for Jane (the other blocks are genius!), but I love it and I would more than happily keep it. I figure that is a good litmus test; do I want to keep it and turn it into a mini? Yes. Ok, it’s good enough for the Queen Wombat
I also used some super favourite fabrics. Jane asked for each house to be number 34 from a selvedge (she has a thing for selvedges). My selvedge is from Washi which Alyce loves, I used some sketch and herringbone like Kristy and Lara. I used some Heather Ross for the weedy garden (for Fiona who has a thing for Far Far Away) I did have a print picked out to put a ghost in the window, but I really, really, really wanted to make the typical colonial coloured glass windows. Can I tell you how insane I am?? Those windows were very challenging. I don’t think I can replicate them. At least not for a little while I love them, not so much my seam ripper!
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To give you some perspective… Small. Very, very small pieces.
Seam Ripper was involved. |
Here are a few of the other house blocks from this month. Kristy is the queen of paper piecing, wombat related or not, she made this beauty!
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| Image courtesy of Quiet Play, pattern available here. |
Lara made this cute block!
Fiona made this beauty and it has an awesome story with it!
Getting back to Wombats, I had a quick look through my children’s book collection and found quite a few books that feature wombats. It turns out that we Australians definitely have a soft spot for the wombat. Possibly my all time favourite kids book, purely for the illustrations (but it also has a great story line and won a few prizes back in the day) is Possum Magic. I read it as a child and I love reading it to my kids.
It’s all about Australian food and animals and it turns out wombats like cake.
Another all time favourite is The Magic Pudding which was first published in 1918! I thought my 1977 copy was vintage LOL This is the first book that I read to my eldest child. He was a newborn, or only a few months old but I loved cuddling him and doing all of the voices for this book. There are rascals and heroes and adventurers and a really naughty pudding who is also magical.
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| Sitting on the Magic Pudding so he doesn’t run away |
I remember loving the illustrations, I love the gusto with which Barnacle Bill is striding towards the villians (above). It turns out the wombat is a villain in this book…
A recent favourite is Diary of A Wombat.
This is one of those kids book that has a story line that entertains the adults too. It is about a silly old wombat who it turns out isn’t so silly after all. It’s a great book and I’ve included a page to give you a taste
Wombat Goes Walkabout is also a new book. It is about the bush, the real Australian bush and it teaches a lesson that I grew up knowing but not all kids do. If you ever get caught in a bush fire and you are completely stuck, find a wombat hole and crawl into it. Wombat burrows are big and have multiple entries so you are unlikely to meet the grumpy inhabitant and even if you do it is better than being in the open in a fire. The wombat saves the day in this book by digging a burrow for everyone to shelter in.
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| Apologies for the worst photo ever! |
A few other wombat books we have on our shelves are:
Wombat Divine, this baby Jesus is a real cutie
One Woolly Wombat, a very Australian counting book.
Bush Nativity, I’m not all that familiar with this book but it has a great illustration that probably gives you the best idea of what wombats really look like. Like I said, not overly cute!
Happy World Wombat Day!
Today I’m hosting Sunday Stash for Fiona, my online quilting buddy from Finding Fifth. Fiona and I are really looking forward to meeting each other in a couple of weeks here in Nouméa! It will be the first time I meet an online friend in real life but I’ll wear a red feather in my hair so she recognises me And I owe her some pastries after she just walked me through the inlinkz tool!
I’ve done a *little* online shopping this week (what’s with the constant sales online?!) but those goodies will take a few weeks to arrive. I did have one lovely parcel arrive this week from Pink Castle Fabrics.
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| September Stash Stack Club from Pink Castle Fabrics |
This is my monthly subscription to their Stash Stack Club. Due to my location and shipping times I seem to get my packages quite late, but it’s worth the wait! I’ve already cut into this one
Another recent addition to my stash was courtesy of my crafting buddy Angelique. Living on a small Pacific island means that our access to supplies is somewhat limited. We can get most things but there is little variety, especially when it comes to fabrics. Angelique was back in Australia for a holiday recently and picked up some goodies for me in exchange for some tulle that I had given her.
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| I’m not sure what these are but the flowers are from Riley Blake |
I never would have picked these prints but I love them! I’ve had a few opportunities to use the blue flowers but I’m trying to save them both for something really girly. Aren’t they cute?
And finally I thought that seeing as I’m hosting I would share two prints that I am stashing away until the right rainy day. I LOVE this fairy print, it reminds me of my childhood and it will stay in the stash until the right project for my Little Miss presents itself.
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| Flower Fairies, Estate of Cicely Mary Barker, Michael Miller Fabrics |
This piece is a linen blend that I bought last year some time, I love the colours. I’m not normally one for bird prints, but I would love to use this to make something for me. Until the right project appears it will stay safely hidden in my stash
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| Floral Birds by Valori Wells |
Thanks for letting me host Sunday Stash Fiona! The linky will remain open all week so please feel free to pop back and link up. Your post does not need to be written on Sunday, you can read all the details about what you can share here.
OK, this is a little embarrassing but to tell this story I need to admit that pretty much the last thing I do at night and the first thing I do in the morning is check my emails on the iPad. I usually don’t respond until a reasonable hour, but because we live a long way from family (and because I am a total iPad junkie) I like to just scan emails to see that all is well in my world.
So, getting back to the story…
This morning I startled Mr Husband by gasping in complete and utter excitement at about 6am. Normally I’m not properly awake until after a coffee, this morning I was instantly awake because my lovely friend Alyce had let me know that I had been featured on Jeni’s weekly favourites over at In Color Order!!!! Eeeeek! She had included the triangle quilt that I made in her weekly favourites and I am just so excited! I love her blog, if you haven’t heard of it, make sure you pop over and definitely check out her pages about colour selection. I often reread her advice when selecting fabrics. Plus, who doesn’t like looking at pretty fabrics?
I also received lots of lovely comments on my blog and a couple on Flickr over night, thanks so much everyone! I love that quilt and I am so pleased that others do too! I try not to be on the computer too much over the weekend so I haven’t responded to everyone yet, but I will
Apart from being totally over the moon, the whole experience made me laugh because only a few days ago I was asking for advice on how to use Flickr effectively So a big thank you to the advice that a few of you gave me, it paid off LOL I still have lots to figure out though, I don’t get the way that contacts work and I’m not sure about adding photos to groups or tagging them. So please keep the advice coming
Other than being really excited about my triangle quilt, I started a new paper pieced bock today for Wombat Stew, the Paper Piecing Bee that I am part of. I just finished it up but it’s late and I need decent light so I’ll just share some in progress pics from before the sun went down today.
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| I used some favourite fabrics! |
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| can you guess what the block might be? |
I used Quilt Assistant again and it was definitely an easier and faster process having been through it before. I will say, however, that this pattern was a kind of torture and that I admire pattern designers who can produce great designs that are SIMPLE!
Some of these pieces are TINY. There was a lot of unpicking, but I LOVE the end result
I hope Jane does too!
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Yes those pieces are a little wonky, but it was hard work
with such tiny pieces!
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Tomorrow I will be hosting Sunday Stash for Finding Fifth, so please pop back and link up any recent additions to your stash. The linky will be up mid morning (I hope!) and will stay open all week so you can pop back any time
If you’re a regular reader you may have been waiting to see how my triangle quilt turned out I finished it last Saturday, just missing out on a Friday finish… Then we had 4 days of rain and wind. I knew where I wanted to photograph this beautiful quilt so I held out for a sunny and not too windy day. I’m glad I waited.
Isn’t it pretty?
It started life as a gorgeous bloggers bundle over at Pink Castle Fabrics (she currently has a 25% discount with the code MOVING so head on over!). I added approximately the same number of fat quarters from my stash, mostly yellows, a solid grey and some orange, pink and yellow prints. I LOVE it!
The backing is Kona (some fancy name for) white with a scrappy strip of the remaining prints and some appliqué triangles.
I wanted the back to provide a fun alternative to the front, using the same fabrics and be nice and keeping modern. I hope I achieved that.
The binding is a really fun, bright yellow dot (also from Pink Castle).
I quilted it using Aurifil 50wt which I LOVE. I used my favourite Aurifil colour (2000) which kind of glows golden but also blends really well with a range of colours. I panicked when I realised I didn’t have any yellow Aurifil to machine sew the binding down, but the Aurifil blended in perfectly I used white (again Aurifil 2024) thread in my bobbin as I wanted the back to be clean with just a pop of colour. I had originally planned to quilt on both sides of every seam but once I’d done two directions I actually really loved the diamonds.
I used bamboo wadding for the first time. I really wanted to try working with it as it is meant to have lots of anti-fungal/moisture/allergy properties. It felt kind of squeeky but it clung nicely to the quilt top and bottom when I was basting it and quilting was fine. I will definitely use bamboo wadding again (in fact I am right now for my son’s birthday quilt).
I love this quilt, when I lay it on my bed to take some photos the whole room glowed orange. This was the first blogger bundle that I’ve bought and I have since purchased a few more. I don’t have a LQS so all of my fabric shopping is done online and this is a great way of ensuring that fabrics match well.
I used a tri recs triangle ruler which speed up cutting and really helped with accuracy. Can I tell you a secret? This is my first time working with triangles… Well, I did a couple of HST sampler blocks a few years ago, but this is my first jaunt into the world of triangles on a quilt scale. I’m so glad I decided to try something new!
I actually made this quilt with the intention to sell it and I am so proud to tell you that sell it did Instantly! How exciting is that? I’ve had a few people tell me that I under priced it, but those four days that I waited for sunshine to take some photos, well I spent those days agonizing over the right price. Setting a price was harder than making the quilt and let me tell you, I spent a lot of time getting those points perfect and unpicked the binding twice as it just wasn’t working for me (but that’s a whole different story!). I won’t go on about it here, but I would love to hear any advice or suggestions you have on pricing quilts
And just in case you’re wondering about that quilt shoot location (because I think it’s pretty awesome!), it’s my local beach, Baie Des Citrons, Nouméa, New Caledonia.
I’m linking up with TGIFF at Echinops and Aster and holy moly, I am very happy that this baby is finished I am also keeping up with Blogtoberfest. I also want to remind you that I will be hosting Sunday Stash for Fiona from Finding Fifth this Sunday I’d love you to pop back and link up any new stash additions on Sunday!
