Sunday 29 January 2012

Jo's Spiky Flower

This is the second block in my Jo Morton Quilt.



I haven't worked with these stronger murky backgrounds from the 1800s before, 
but I do like them. This block will also be 6" finished.

Now I have two blocks to display to promote the Jo Morton Club starting at the shop soon.

And I am back working on the Yoko Saito Quilt. The block coming has lots of work 
on it - is a bigger, longer block with an appliqued strawberry plant on it. It also has 
lots of embroidery.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Another New Project

Oh dear another new project - just one of the pleasures of owning a Quilt Shop.

I have started working on another applique project - can you believe it! But I just had to.
My new group at work - the Jo Morton Club is starting soon, so I thought I had to be one
step ahead of my participants - how's that for an excuse. Altho' several people have already  picked up their books over Christmas, so I may actually be behind some of them!



Anyhow this is the first block and my favourite - well it is now - I did this one first because 
I loved it - there are lots more to come - well not that many - probably 12.



This is taken form Jo Morton's Book "Prairie Flowers Encore". All the blocks are 6" finished 
for this little quilt and they are 1800s Reproduction fabrics. Jo has presented five different settings for these quilt blocks. This is the setting I think I will do.



Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday 19 January 2012

Wonky Houses

Sorry it has been such a long time since I last added a post - I lost the cord that 
connects my camera to the computer so couldn't upload any photos. I always regret 
having a big tidy up!!!! But lucky we finally found another cord that would fit.

So here is the next block - what fun it was to make.



It did have a ghost coming out of the top window but I left that off.

And I have finished the quilting on my Amish Bear's Pay quilt. I just have to add the 
hanging sleeve and it is ready for the Craft and Sewing Exhibition in the middle of March. 
I wonder if my Japanese Quilt Block Quilt will make that exhibition too!

Thursday 12 January 2012

Olive Branch

This is the next small block - well actually the small blocks for the wedding quilt are 
not that small - 10". After all it is going to be a King sized quilt, so the blocks 
need to be big!



I love the background fabric and think Kate will too.


Some of these woven fabrics from Japan are able to be used on the back side as well, 
but not this one - the loops are just too big and would get caught in things. But I do always check and do use the reverse side quite often.




I think this is the fastest block I have made in a long time. It is quite simple but 
some of the blocks in the original inspirational quilt from Hitomi's "Quilt House" 
book were too. But of course it was much small in the Yoko Saito book 
that it came from. Nothing like a bit of space! So Japanese.

Thanks to all those who are commenting - there is nothing like a quick comment 
to keep a blogger going.


Wednesday 11 January 2012

Finished1800s Quilt Top

This is the border on the 1800s quilt top - I have appliqued these tongues along each side 
of the border strip. 


This quilt is designed by Sue Daly and will be our new Block of the Month starting
in February 2012.



Next is the quilting - I am going to machine quilt in the ditch around the blocks and then 
hand quilt around the motifs and circles.



This is the backing fabric I have chosen. I think I will hand quilt with two colours - muddy 
ecru King Tut #974 and the cream King Tut. For the machine quilting I will use red on
the top and muddy ecru on the bobbin.

Thursday 5 January 2012

French Lavender


This is the first of the three large blocks that I plan to make – it is called 
French Lavender and is 20” square.



The feature flower has a row of French knots around it.  I added the two buds – in the 
original there were leaves on the end of these stems. But I needed to extend this block 
out a wee bit, so this was one way to fill the space. I also added a few of blue circles down
 the left hand side to fill that side up a bit.

I enlarged all the blocks for this quilt on the photocopier as they were all quite small 
in Yoko Saito’s book. But Kate and Paul want a King sized quilt, so big blocks were t
he order of the day.

Sunday 1 January 2012

Owl Block


This is block three – another 10” one. A set of four 10” blocks go together without 
any sashing to equal the size of the 20” big blocks.



As you can see some are on light backgrounds while others are on dark.

Now it is onto a big block, but yeah the sun is shining here,  so there will be less sewing.

Happy New Year everyone.