Sue's grandmothers garden quilt.

Hello and a warm welcome quilt lovers,  I have a lovely treat for you today, Sue's eight-years-in-the-making-grandmothers-garden-quilt!

A few months back Sue contacted me to ask if I would quilt her beloved batik grandmothers garden quilt............of course I said yes, I had been watching her progress reports on her blog. So it was all arranged on her recent visit to New Zealand that we meet up for the first time. Even though I have already quilted another one of Sue's quilts - see here,  we had never met, only through our blogs and emails.
Sue was keen to have a New Zealand feel to the quilt, the black fabric is a Kiwiana fabric called "Moko", think swirls, punga fronds and ferns.

The 'Moko'-fern-feather is all free hand quilting, I did mark with chalk the spine to get nice curvature.
I used Glide thread in black. The 'pathways' around the flowers have been left un quilted as Sue didn't want dense quilting.

I thought of all my lovely readers and followers as I was quilting the last few flowers and got to thinking you might like to see how I quilted these flowers...........hubby to the rescue! Women are known for multi-tasking, but I haven't mastered quilting and videoing at the same time :-)

For the flowers I used a Gunold Variegated thread, this colour worked well over the rainbow of colours. The singular red toned hexagons I also used a variegated Gunold thread but this time in pinks and reds.

With a black/grey backing fabric and lots of black on the front, Sue wisely chose black batting.
Thank you Sue for letting me loose on your quilt!

Next a few photo's of my recent trip as a helper with a school Duke of Edinburgh  - sliver medals group in training for tramping Cape Reinga - Te Paki next year. A great bunch of kids learning life long skills.

A mock patient with a 'broken leg' being stretchered out!

Hunkering down in the long grass as the rain does it's thing! The lessons don't stop because it's raining.

Blindfolded -lesson you must know where everything is in your pack!

A fun few days away, now back to quilting...............lots of variety in the quilting pile! Thanks for stopping by.

Cat's, the alphabet, chickens - lots of chickens!

One of the fabulous things about moving (or maybe not so fabulous?) is the stuff you find. You know somehow discarded in the back of cupboard only to be found like a long lost friend! Shannon recently had this experience when she was moving house and found not one but 6 quilt tops! She asked me if I could please quilt them.........of course!

First a scrappy cats quilt. Shannon tells me these quilts were all made from her scraps and are intended for the kids to use as floor quilts, or make huts etc.
Second is a scrappy fish/water themed quilt.

Next, scrappy alphabets...................all these quilts have Matilda's Own polyester batting and have free hand edge to edge quilting using a variety of colours of Glide threads

This next quilt was such a hoot to quilt! These three hardcase chooks looking back at me, which by the way do have eyes, they just couldn't be attached until after the quilting!

Each have their own little story to tell, but what is it? I had fun just 'doodling' some funky/wacky feathers on the border.

What are these three talking about?? perhaps they are singing: "The Hill's are Alive with the Sound of C Next blog post will be Shannon other two quilts, they are next to go on the machine.

Next is another Chicken quilt! This one is made by Lesley, it's called "Chicken Soup" designed by Mary Lou & Company.

These girls were also characters! Once again, eyes to be attached after quilting- these ladies must love their quilter!

Lesley supplied her own batting and backing. I enjoyed the texture created from the fine 'picket fence' quilting on the gold sashings as well as the feathered border.

I'm sure you have seen quite enough chickens for one day. Thanks so much to Shannon and Lesley for once again letting me loose on their quilts!

Until next time, I will share with this delightful treat I had while out on my morning walk yesterday.