WIP Wednesday - Tigerlily Baby Swoon

Still swooning along here:)  Yesterday I made a practice swoon block firstly to see if I could actually sew one as I haven't made flying geese before! And secondly I want to cut the squares for the HST's out at 4 inches then trim them back to 3.5 inch once sewn so I needed to check that I could cut all of the pieces out of a FQ - which seemed fine.

I needed to make a baby quilt for some friends who are expecting early this year, and had just enough of this very cute Michale Miller Zoology print to make the centre square. I teamed it with some Prima Tigerlily and dark grey solids, then added a 4 inch border to the finished block.

 I wasn't sure how I was going to quilt it but remembered a mini swoon made by my friend Deb! She just did a big "X" though the centre and then echo quilted using the walking foot as a guide.
So I got started last night and got one quarter quilted before we watched the 4th Pirates movie -  love Captain Jack:)

 And I may have finally decided on fabrics for my Big Swoon now that I feel "safe" using FQ - I swapped some Aussie DSQ fabrics with a US friend last year and she sent me an 18 FQ set of Daisy Mae in return which I think will be perfect. I really seem to be on an orange kick so far this year:)

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Kirsten.

Tangerine Table Topper

This stack of fabrics has now become my first finished project for the Tangerine Tango challenge:

 I went with the modern "Plus" design as I love how it looks with a mix of fabrics. We were allowed to use one "other" colour so I chose the light aqua/minty shade which was in both the Joel Dewberry Heirloom Tile Flourish in Amber and the Amy Butler Love aqua and orange spots .

 The table runner is 14.5" wide x 29" inches long and I quilted just on the inside of each of the plusses so this is what it looks like on the back. 

 There are quite a few fabrics in this runner - Joel Dewberry, Amy Butler, organic solids, Sandi Henderson, Denyse Schmidt, honeycomb dots to name a few -  but my favourite part is the square of Daiwabo elephants in the bottom right corner:)

I took lots of photos as I made this so I hope to have a tutorial coming up some time this week so check back soon.
Linking to Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations,LIttle quilt Monday at Pieceful Life,
 and to Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory.

Kirsten.

WIP Wednesday - Zig Zagging and Swooning

I made a start on a quilt using some of the Tangerine/orange fabrics for the Tangerine Tango challenge. I have wanted to make the Zig Zag quilt by Crazy Mom Quilts for a while now so this seemed the perfect time as I had a few 1/4 m pieces of orange fabric rather than FQ.

I have used a dark grey solid as the "neutral"  fabric and am still trying to work out what  to use as the backing.

And I decided to join in the Swoon-along organised by Katy at I'm A Ginger Monkey. I have had the Swoon pattern here for a while but have not been able to decide on what fabrics to use. I have enough FQ of Dolce, Peacock Lane, Meadowsweet and some Echo on the way, and 10 FQ of Heirloom (Citrine) so I could just add some solids. The Peacock Lane would be great to fussy cut the centre squares and I have 5 yards for the backing too. But I really should use up some of the mountains of Denyse Schmidt fabrics that I have here as I have seen a few Swoons made from them and they all look lovely, and at least if I muck the blocks up I still have plenty more to cut from as the pattern cutting is quite a tight squeeze from the FQ! I really need to do a practice block to see how I go first anyway.....




Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.
Kirsten.

First finish of 2012 - Blushing quilt

A friend of mine was back visiting over the holidays and I had said that I would make her a quilt when she moved away to a much cooler part of Australia last year. I met V about 10 years ago when she had moved here from another country and was expecting twins. As I was involved in the Multiple Birth group here at the time, I met up with her and we have been friends ever since.

 I chose some pretty Basic Grey Blush fabrics as I loved the colours and V will recognize the fabrics as she likes scrapbooking. I used the Abracadabra pattern from Bloom in the smaller size 44" x 57" (112cm x 145cm).

 Also, as V lives in a household of 4 males, I think she needs a bit of pink in her life:)

 I backed it in a coordinating light brown spot  - all of these colours remind me of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate Neapolitan ice cream.

Linking to Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations and Fabric Tuesday @ Quiltstory (buttons in sidebar).

Kirsten.

WIP Wednesday

Well, it is Thursday now here in Australia but anyway:)   These are just a couple of the swaps/challenges that have caught my eye so far this year........

Following on from my last post about the Tangerine Tango challenge, I have gone through my stash and surprisingly, found quite a few tangerine/orange fabrics:

(solids, spots,Denyse Schmidt,Amy Butler,Joel Dewberry,Sandi Henderson)

Along with these, we can use one other colour and one neutral solid (shades of white, cream, beige, brown, gray, and black). I have a few ideas of what I would like to make so will hopefully get started this weekend.

I have just gone through my my flickr favourites and saved photos to make a new mosaic for the Love of Solids (2) swap - this was such a fun swap last year and I can't wait to do it again!!.

 

Whilst I was looking for images, I kept going back to this one which I think would be stunning  made into a quilt. It is the cover of Gotye's album "MakingMirrors"  -  lots of little HST's in neutral tones. You may be familiar with this amazing song from the album - the video is very visually inspiring too:

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced:

Kirsten.

Mango Tango

There is a competition going on at Quokka Quilts where you can go to The Fat Quarter Shop and make up your own bundle of FQ from all of the wonderful fabrics that they have to choose from. There is the chance of winning a half yard bundle of your choice of fabrics:)

 The fabrics in the bundle are:

1. Pure elements Burnt orange solid

2. American Jane poppy pindot

3. Flora Tangerine Garden damask

4.  Terrain bloom lichen

5. Fruit ala carte orange bubble dots

6.  Bella solids Betty' s orange solid

7. Indian summer orange mini dots

8. Timeless treasure sketch nectar screen texture

9. Treasure and tidbits orange tiny floral

10. Riley Blake Tangerine blender

11. Riley Blake Sweet carrot solid

12. Heirloom amber ribbon lattice

13.Floral folio dark orange allover leaves

14.Sweet on NYC orange swirl

15. Super orange playful pindots

The bundle I have designed is inspired by the Pantone colour of the year 2012 which is "tangerine".  I actually first saw this on Erins blog "Two more Seconds" where she is holding a

 Tangerine Tango quilt challenge along with Ali of asquared(w)  on flickr which looks like fun.

 Kirsten.

etzcetera magazine

The beginning of the month (and a new year!) brings another source of wonderful crafty and inspirational goodness. The lovely Kim Archer (whom I first met a few years ago through scrapbooking) has released a fabulous online magazine called Etzcetera. 

The magazine is filled with articles and tutorials for many types of crafts from her very talented creative team – from jewelry making to scrapbooking and of course, stitching. This is a “Little Houses on the Hillside” mixed media canvas my sister-in-law made using the tutorial by Kate Mason in issue 2: 

 Although it released every second month, there are plenty of projects to keep you going between issues!! The first issue is free, and you can also download the previous issues here.
I am to have a cuppa whilst I browse through Issue 4 ..........
Kirsten.