What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I love banksia shrubs, and so do our native birds, and I am loving playing with the banksia blocks.

I would love to have a garden big enough to plant heaps of Banksias, along with lots of other Aussie native plants, but at least I can design virtual quilts with masses of Aussie plants.

Weather has been hot and muggy for a few days … feels a bit tropical!

Mmm … should have left the circle in the middle when I added four more pineapples.

The first design could be made as just a Log Cabin quilt, but with a lot of washed out colours in the light part of the Courthouse Steps blocks and a lot of all light blocks it makes a great background for some applique.

The second design would work with plain background applique blocks surrounded by all dark Log Cabin blocks.

I love the design above … most of the Log blocks are Courthouse Steps, with four Curved Logs in the corners.

Looks like a secret garden hidden behind some shrubs.

In the last one the garden is not so hidden ...

Pale and pretty!

The colours in these designs are more like an English country garden than the colours found in much of the Australian bush.

The shapes are based on Australian native flowers, but the colours have been softened to pretty pastels. A lot of our native flora are bright red, orange and yellow and often have very dark green or rather grey foliage, but there are some with pretty colour variations in contrast to the bright strong colours.

Oh, so pretty!

I think I have made that comment many times, often about designs in this project file.

I think I love the second one just a little bit more than the second.

New month, new project file, which started when I was drawing the leaves and added the outer leaves flopping down a bit and meeting when I repeated four of them around the centre.

I like the second design, and like the floppy leaves alone to fill an otherwise empty space.

Only one border, and the whole quilt has only a few applique blocks, and the other blocks are quilted. I think i would applique the whole of the outer row of blocks leaving just four blocks to be just quilted.

Only parts of one border are applique, the rest of the two borders are quilted only. With all the designs in this project file the quilt only areas could be appliqued, but I like to see some areas of any quilt with quilting designs which are based on both pieced and applique designs filling some of the blank spaces.

I love fiddling with fabric, making clothes, rag dolls, Christmas tree decorations, even a Christmas tree or two, as well as fiddling with designs for all of the above, and beads and buttons …. a fiddling addict!

Sometimes I actually finish a real quilt, but as I prefer hand work that is not an every day occurrence!

Very dark, but very interesting.

I wonder if these designs would be as interesting if they faded a lot.

Even darker, but I like it!

A mix of applique block designs. I usually use just one floral design, but in this project file I have mixed up the floral designs and all their variations.

I am even mixing up the colours of threads used in the quilting motifs, which are based on applique designs.

I decided I should start mixing up more pieced blocks with applique blocks.

The first design in this project file is all pieced blocks with some applique on four of them. Doesn’t need a lot of applique to make an impression!

In the second design the blocks are either pieced or applique, and now there is some quilting lines.

Lot s and lots of room for quilting!

This project file was started in 2018, and looking at it now I must have been busy doing other things, and didn’t take time to add some quilting designs.

The second design also has room for quilting to shine, but if it was under construction on the wedding day those empty spaces could be filled with signatures of wedding guests, or wedding photos could be printed on the fabric, … or a mixture of the two!

Very interesting.

Another very interesting design. Very different too.

Pieced blocks for the background spaces, with Bottlebrush designs on plain blocks … I like it.

I like the first design, but the second one is my favourite today.

Two shapes arranged and rearranged to create two different block designs, add a simple quilting motif and the design above is what you get.

Simplify the more complex block design and add a dozen of them around the outer row of blocks leaving just four of the simpler block.

Interesting mix of pieced and applique blocks in the first design for today.

The second looks like a plan for a neat and tidy formal garden.

Interesting.

I like the second one best, but both need some more play time.

Love the first design for today!

The second is way to busy, but it gives me a great reason to come back to this project file and make some changes.

I don’t mind doing applique, but I think I would be tempted to use an embroidery machine to do the applique on this one! Using my machine that would mean the finished blocks would only make a knee rug instead of a king size quilt.

Perhaps my challenge for the year ahead should be to sit down at the embroidery machine and practice making small blocks, then learning to reposition the fabric to do large blocks. (Note that I didn’t say what year ahead.) In the meantime I should practice turning the whole block into an embroidered coaster ...

The first design looks rather old fashioned, and would fit in an old fashioned bedroom in an old fashioned house.

The second is not quite so old fashioned but would still look nice in the old fashioned bedroom.