"A Merry Christmas Garden"

I have finished quilting my BOM sample for the shop. This is a lovely design, it was a delight to make with simple straight forward instructions. Gail Pan is the designer of this Christmas quilt.
I gave myself one week to attach the last two blocks, two borders, quilt, label, hanging sleeve & bind.................remind me next time to give myself more time please! Never mind a few day & night shifts got this finished, it has now gone to it temporary home at The Country Yard.

My new fav thing at the moment is boxed feathers. You see there is a touch of stitchery in this quilt, the odd 'Christmasy' word...........'Love'..........'Believe'............'Blessings'.......................

I set about ditch stitching, orange peel, echos, dense background fillers of 'Mctavishing', pebbles & swirls. Did I say ditch stitching?? lol!!

Are you loving this quilt so far? We still have a few spaces available, pop over to The Country Yard website & sign up!

            I took the following photo as the light was fading, but it is probably my fav photo.

So there you go, a bit of Christmas as the month of March drifts away from us for another year. H I am off to work in our temporary shop at the Whangarei Quilt show at the Forum North tomorrow, if you are in my neck of the woods I'd love you to stop by & say hi.

Wishing you a happy weekend!

two for the children

Do you remember the story of the Hungry Caterpillar? I remember reading this story to my children, as I turned the pages we were amazed at the hole punched pages! Anyway Christine has put a Hungry Caterpiller panel together with some  coordinating fabrics that has resulted in a sweet quilt for one of her soon to be born grandchildren.

You can see I double looped, meandered, organic cross hatched, straight lines & leafed my way over this quilt! For good measure, I threw in a spot of ditch stitching too! And sandwiched in the middle is cotton batting. What a vibrant happy quilt for a child.

Next is another childs quilt, only a completely different style..................I happily receive a large variety of quilts in my studio!

Inthia bought this quilt kit several years ago & doing what so many do, started & stopped work on this quilt, to pursue other quilts.  This pattern is a "Kids Quilts" design, called 'Teddy's Playhouse'. Inthia chose cotton batting also & asked for soft quilting, nothing too dense & for some stipple.

Simple cute designs, sure to delight any child. I quilted a whimsically feather on the border & 'grass' & the odd flower on the green border intended to be 'grass'.

Of course I threw in some more ditch stitching & took a photo of the back!

Speaking of ditch stitching, the quilt I am working on at the moment has HEAPS of ditch stitching! Here is a peek of one of the blocks.

I hope you are all happy & well, thanks so much for stopping by.

some like it fancy, some like it simple

Hi there! This is an interesting post from the point of view I will show you some examples of the different quilting tastes of my customers. Some of my customers like full on custom quilting, others like simple.
First up is Pauline's three quilts that she was very specific on very simple quilting.

These two quilts are both a feature fabric, in both cases roses, then Pauline has attach two borders. Pauline only wanted ditch stitching on the borders, then to quilt some of the outlines of the flowers. Pauline is fairly new to quilting, so had a few issues with attaching borders, hence some pulling in issues, but over all these are both very pretty quilts.

Next up is a panel fabric that Pauline has attached two rounds of borders. Again simple out line quilting.

I added some gold metallic thread for some bling! Next is a photo so you can see the outline quilting I did & for you backing lovers!

Next for an example of a customer who wanted a bit more quilting, this too is a panel that has been bordered.

Jill wanted me accentuate the features on this Whimsical panel as well as 'something fancy on the border'.

Isn't this a marvelous saying? I love it.

You may remember I quilted this same panel last year for Megan. It is the same panel, just a few more details, such as pieced flowers. See here for the post relating to this quilt.

So after all those examples, what do you like? Simple or custom?

Quilts, quilts & more quilts part three!!!

Ok, ok.............this IS a quilting blog, so I guess you are going to get lots of quilts! A few posts back I gave you the above sneak peek, a bit mean of me wasn't it! Well it's nice to have a few surprises. I have been working away in secret on a new BOM for The Shop . Now I can show you where I am up to so far.

This lovely design by Gail Pan called "A Merry Christmas Garden".
 It is a six month BOM. Here you see four months, I have finished month five & nearly month six, then I can piece the six blocks together & put the borders on & find someone to quilt it for me LOL!!
Kerryn & I had a fun trip to a couple of fabric warehouses to choose fabrics. I used the Apliquick needle turn tools & appliqué paper endorsed & given to me by Lynette Anderson for all the appliqué. See here for my blog post about these tools.
Another secret I nearly forgot about was the Lynette Anderson "Sewing Friends Cushion".

We have made several kits up of this cute cushion using the fabrics shown called "Mending Fences" by Lynette.

Right that is all The Country Yard quilts, cushions & quilting I had part in for now! I am up to date with all of them..............................well there is another that has just come through the doors to be quilted, but it isn't a secret, so when it's done I can show you!

Now here is one I finished for Cat a couple of weeks ago, this too was a secret for a wee bit until Cat had put the binding on & given to a special friend. See Cat's blog post about this lovely gift here.

Cat asked to please have an all over design on the scrappy star then, her words "work your magic on the white".

So using gunold poly thread I quilted loops & stars in the scrappy Star. The for the white I let the feathers take over! All this over cotton batting.
Some straight lines on the border & I was done.

  

That's one for you quilt back lovers!
Next time I have caterpillars, butterflies, flowers, geisha girls, a thought provoking panel quilt & teddy bears! but maybe not all in the same post! OR the same quilt!

The last photo, just cause......................................

quilts, quilts & more quilts part two

First up.........
 A class sample. This is one of those wonderful Buggy Barn 'whack n' stack' quilts. Kerryn made her sample using reproduction fabrics. I had fun quilting this one. (August 2013, is how long this one was in hiding for our New Years launch!) A few different quilting things this time..........................

                                                   A few echoing swirls & boxy feathers.

Raewyn made the other class sample, if you fancy, pop over to her blog to see that one too!

Next up...............................................

A block of the month, a Birdhouse design called 'My Garden'. A combination of piecing, English paper piecing (hexagons) & stitcheries.

 

You will notice I have pinned the attached binding back to the carpet so you can see the border. Once again the bindings were kindling stitched down by some of The Country Yard fairies.
Kerryn used Aurifil 12 weight threads for the stitcheries. If you haven't tried these threads you don't know what you are missing! Scrumolishous!

The second photo shows the centre of the quilt, stars. I simply 'orange peeled' them & some cross-hatching.

The last one of this quilt is for you back lovers.

The last few weeks at the shop, we have sold the last of some older BOM's, so this meant for me I could bring some of my quilts home!

This one, 'Homecoming Lane' is a Gail Pan design was made as a BOM for the shop back here. Looks quite nice on my bed.
But then yesterday after four years I got to bring this beauty home! Seemed like a changing of the guard was called for!

This is a Sue Daley design called 'Under the Southern Stars'. English paper piecing & applique. I made this quilt in only eight months, amazing what a self induced deadline will get accomplished! See my blog post about this one.
Lots of photo's in this post I know. Next time I will show you the another new BOM I have been working on.

 Until then, be kind to yourself, for you are your own best friend!