Another Fabulous Friday!

Howdie, howdie all, the summery weather sure is setting sail here in New Zealand. It's indeed a fabulous Friday, but that is also the name of today's featured quilt. Made by Lois as a Mystery sampler through The Country Yard

Lois liked how I had quilted Noeline's Fabulous Friday (see this post) but wanted her's to be a little different. You will notice some similar quilting designs but with a few different features, which makes it more interesting for me when I get three quilts the same design.

Over the years I have quilted many times for Lois and there is always a common theme either in the quilting requests and /or the fabric and it is cat's.............she LOVES them!

Abother common feature in Lois' quilts is her love of Lynette Anderson Fabrics. This quilt fits that section nicely.

                            Lois chose a swagged border which frames her quilt beautifully.

Here is a before and after photo and to echo Lois' words when she picked her quilt up: "Quilting really does make the quilt"......thank you Lois!

The 'before quilting'

The 'after quilting"

Fabulous Friday.....................

Happy Fabulous Friday.............oh no wait it's still Thursday here in New Zealand! Haha, for a moment there I thought it was Friday! I think it's because I have two lovely quilts by the same design and name, "Fabulous Friday".............lets just blame it on the quilts and not my mind!
First up is Esme's Fabulous Friday quilt, designed by Raewyn for a mystery sew-along at the local quilt shop we both work at: The Country Yard.

Esme decided this was good quilt to pull out all her treasured fabrics and use some of them up. She asked for very simple quilting, straight lines mainly. But butterfly's need antenna don't they?

A photo of the back?

Thank you Esme, enjoy your quilt.

Next the same quilt but different, this time made by Noeline. Noeline also gave me a brief of simple quilting but as I have already quilted several other quilts for her in the past, I have bit of feel for what she likes, so Noeline got not just straight lines but some curvy ones too! Spot all the differences.........

Apart from a feature fabric for their borders and a few fat 1/8ths everyone's fabrics were different. Noeline is very fond of hand embroidery so any blank area was creatively embellished with her lovely stitching.

 There are those butterfly antenna................ see the difference in the flowers?

Noeline's border was treated to some swirls and a connecting feather.

Not to forget a photo of the back................................

Thank you Noeline, I am looking forward to seeing that fancy binding when you have completed it.

I do have another Fabulous Friday waiting in the quilting pile, so please come back to see how I quilt that one too.

This week when I popped out to the garden to water some plants I spotted 'the supervisor' filling his familiar roll........................King Sleeper! This a is photo of me outside our garage window looking in at him in his blanket filled box palace!

A mystery quilt revealed and a new life for a vintage linen...............................

Hi there quilt watchers and makers, thanks for taking the time to stop by. Today I am sharing a lovely quilt made by Kerryn owner /operator of The Country Yard who ran a mystery quilt evening last Friday. Kerryn had me quilt the sample up that was shown well into the 'mystery' evening.

Made using dark and light 5" squares this is a gem of a scrap buster quilt! Kerryn asked for an all over quilting design and chose "Resplendent" and I used Warm Grey Glide thread which blended nicely over all the jewel box of country colours.

With the sashing and borders this quilt measures 73" square. The batting is a Matilda's Own polyester. Isn't it a lovely quilting pattern! Below is a photo of the back.

I decided upon finding an over flowing shoe box full of 5" squares I should and NEED to participate in the class...................it wasn't a mystery for me but still most enjoyable. I have made one quarter of the quilt so far.

A friend had a birthday recently and I like to give her a gift every year only this year I wasn't sure what to give. Then one day when I was having a play date at my machine something quite nice was evolving that I thought would make a nice present.

I used two layers of batting, one a polyester the other wool and my nice fine thread and really got stuck in with some heavy background fills and feathers. Then I topped the edge of the pretty tray cloth with a few tiny beads to hold the edges in place.

                                      A photo of the pretty back....................................

While out on one of my walks last week I spotted this lot lined up at the waters edge.................

 See you next time!

Time fly's when you have quilting to do and family commitments.............

One week has passed since my last confession blog post but much has happened, the quilts keep coming (so very lucky and grateful am I) the rain keeps coming also, although we did get a small replenishment of sunshine today, but alas more rain is hunkering down! Time with family has been a must as my dear old Mum is not 100%. That has had me away from home.
I have several quilts finished that are waiting for their trip home. Facebook followers will see snippets from time to time. There is the ninepatch, the shappy chic quilts and the much watched and asked about Crinoline Ladies................wow I have been so amazed at how many views there has been on Facebook for that quilt.
One quilt I can show you is Rachel's ABC quilt, quilted and handed back!

 
Rachel usually hand quilts her quilts, but every now and then she hands one over to me. This little cutie was made for her classroom. Rachel asked me quilt simply with stipple but no ditch stitching around the applique's. The backing is a lovely soft red flannel.

Yesterday and today I played with and managed to complete my next 'round' of The Country Yards Tuesday Mystery Medallion. I have been thoroughly enjoying timeout to just play. Here's a peek of what I did..........not all of it mind you!

                           Just to prove we had some sunshine here is Simon soaking it all up.

                                              And just because....................................

an end to the mystery

The Country Yard had another mystery stitchery this year and I did the quilting. I used a stencil & some of my favourite threads, Madeira Polyneon's & Gunold

Mmmmm winter my favourite time of the year!!

 The stitcheries where done with Aurifil 12 weight variegated thread and Nancy Halvorsen range of fabrics. The design is exclusive to The Country Yard.

This is the stencil design I used for the large squares, then I modified the design to fit the triangles next to the season stitcheries.

look at the cute mittens! see the nice variegation in the thread?

The vines have sweet little YoYo's that were added after I quilted.