Liberty love

I have been ferreting away little scraps of Liberty which I buy from time to time on Esty. I'm not sure why I love Liberty the way I do - small busy florals are not usually my thing, but somehow I cannot resist this silk-like fabric. I decided that it was time to decide what to do with all the little pieces I have accrued (some of them are only around 1.5" square).

I finally settled on the block that Elizabeth Hartman made in Block Party—The Modern Quilting Bee. I figure it will give me the flexibility I will need in order to use up even the littlest pieces. I think it will work well. A bit like dark chocolate, a little Liberty goes a long way!

Are you a paper piecer? Kristy over at Quiet Play is organising the Practically Paper Piecing blog hop. The idea is that during August you will be able to go blog hopping and get some great ideas about practical ways to use paper pieced blocks. Read more about it (including prizes up for grabs) here. 

Hope you join us! 

1 Kristy from Quiet Play

2 Kate from Kate Quilts

3 Diane from From Blank Pages

4 Lara from LuellaBella

5 Sunday – Day off

6 Charise from Charise Creates

7 Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts

8 Kiera from Kizzie’s Korner

9 Marieka from Bespoke Bites

10 Sally from Sally Bally Creations

11 Jane from QuiltJane

12 Sunday – Day off

13 Taryn from Pixels To Patchwork

14 Jane from Where Jane Creates

15 Laura from Quokka Quilts

16 Emily from Emily the Enabler

17 McKenna from Textile Diva

18 Sat Lauren from Renrad Craft Studio

19 Sunday – Day off

20 Fiona from Finding Fifth  

21 Beth from Plum and June

22 Megan from Jaffa quilts

23 Juliet from Tartan Kiwi

24 Katy from The Littlest Thistle

25 Sat Tracey from the Peony Teacup

26 Sunday – Day off

27 Fiona from Celtic Thistle Stitches

28 Anorina from Samelia’s Mum

29-31 Linky party to share projects - blog hoppers and readers all welcome!

Tradewinds finished

It is just rubbish weather for taking pics - winter in Auckland means a great many rainy days. This means I was forced to climb on a chair and take a picture of my Tradewinds quilt on the bed.

I love the bright colours in this quilt - I bought a fat quarter bundle and used all the fabric, but ideally I would have liked it to be one triangle wider. Never mind. And just because there can never be any show without Punch...

Polaroid mini quilt

It has been a busy week so I have been looking forward to some time at my sewing machine this weekend. I decided I would try and put my polaroids together for the mini-quilts our Monday night modern sewing group are making. Because we plan to donate these to the hospital for babies in NICU we decided to choose bright colours to set the polaroids in.

I cut yellow strips at 2.25 inches, thinking that would give me enough room to cut my blocks with some 'wonk' back to 7.5 x 8.5inches. In fact this was not quite enough leeway for as much wonk as I would have liked - 2.5 inches would have been better. My quilt top finished at 21x24 inches. Hopefully I get time through the week to quilt this, but the film festival has started so I predict not too much time at the sewing machine in the next wee while!

Binding

I ended up picking out some of the quilting on my Tradewinds quilt. I was going to stitch double echo lines along the seams but once I had done a few I didn't like the look of it -  I think because there is so much going on in this quilt as it is colour-wise. So I have stuck with the single echo lines:

Not all my points meet as neatly as this, but I am thankful that at least some of them stand up ok to the camera close-up! I had some difficulty choosing fabric to bind with, but in the end I settled on a nice turquoise. It is one of my favourite colours so I'm hoping it will work some colour-magic!

Quilting underway

I have begun quilting my Tradewinds quilt. I always find the first bit kind of daunting, but once I have got some long lines done and and don't have to fret about the quilt layers moving about so much I can settle into a bit of a rhythm. I'm stitching about a 1/4 inch out from either side of all my seam lines to start with and considering repeating this so there are double lines echoing the seam lines.

I also made another block sample for my Monday night modern quilt group bee that we are planning. At our last meeting we realised that coming up with a bee block is not quite a simple as it seems, especially if you want to give people a bit of a chance to be creative. I think I prefer the second colourway I have tried and will probably use Kristy's suggestion to sash each block as well.

Option A - solids only:

Option B - prints and solids:

Decisions, decisions! 

Miami Vice hexies

I got all enthused when I saw Katy's hexy quilt-along. I started out with big ideas - yes, I would use all the fabric I had, which would yield 60 hexies. After making 6, I downsized a little. Mmmm 40 should do...I reached 10 and decided the magic number should be 20...you get the picture right?

Here are the 12 I have made so far. I don't mind making them actually. I'm just not in love with my Miami Vice colour palette, especially after I saw Karyn's great ones today. I also got dismayed when I realised that I have never appliqued anything in my life, and I have no idea how to quilt hexies no matter how many I finish with - they don't seem to scream 'we're natural friends of straight line quilters'. Anyone like to guess how many hexies I will make before I give up??

Polaroids

Our recent homework for the Monday modern quilt group I belong to was make some little polaroid blocks. When we meet tonight we will see how many we have and then decide how to put them together.  The plan is to make a quilt we can donate. I think it would make a great child's quilt.

I realised when I went to make these last night that I don't have a lot of fabric with either animals or little scenes on it. I really like the blocks that Jacqui and Karen have made - can't wait to see everyone else's!