What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Last week I told you about Cyclone Gabrielle that has devastated parts of Hawke's Bay in New Zealand.  

I'm working on quite a few mystery projects this year that I just can't share on my blog.  I know a lot of you come here each week for inspiration, so from time to time I'm going to share some of my earlier quilts that you might have missed.  

This is my sashiko quilt that I made 10 years ago when my son went to Japan on a school exchange trip.  

I started with a pattern from Nancy's Stitch Studio, but then I used library books and the internet to research sashiko patterns. I found lots ...

 Day 23 of my Christmas Countdown and it's my "Oh! Christmas Tree" quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  

I loved choosing all the bright colours for this quilt, and then ...

Day 21 of my Christmas Countdown and it's my Flocks by Night quilt - pattern by Wendy Williams.

 Day 13 of my Christmas Countdown and it's my Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt. 

This quilt still makes me smile because it started out as just a few test blocks from scraps in my stash.  I didn't have an overall colour plan before I started, but I really like how it's turned out.  

I did some basic machine quilting on it, but then accentuated the trees with hand quilting. Both Kaffe Fassett borders were from my stash, and the thin red strip border adds a finishing Christmas touch. 

It's another small lap type quilt that I can ...

Day 10 and it's my Tula Pink Holiday Homies quilt.  

I made this cute quilt back in 2017 when Tula's Holiday Homies range was first released.

I didn't want to lose any of the motifs so I designed my own pattern which you can find here in my original blog post. 

Tula Pink has re-released Holiday Homes in flannel, but I was fortunate enough to get the original cotton version. 

We got a lovely surprise when we walked in to the Festival of Quilts and saw mum's Lucy Boston quilt had a ribbon it!

I was so pleased for mum because it really is a beautiful quilt and deserved something I thought.  

We met lots of friends at the quilt show, and made some new friends too.  Everyone was so nice, and I felt very relaxed because I wasn't involved in organising it.  

We even went to the prize giving on Saturday evening and mum received a monetary prize for her efforts.  We weren't expecting that!

I'm writing this post in advance because I'm going to Auckland Festival of Quilts on Friday with my mum, Joy Hill. 

Mum has two quilts in the exhibition so we're going along to see them hanging, plus everything else of course.   

Here's mum's first entry - her blue and white Lucy Boston, all English Paper Pieced and hand quilted.

Mum loved making her Lucy Boston quilt and was naturally a bit sad when it was finished! 

Mum's other entry is a wool felt applique design by Wendy Williams called "Over the Hill".  I've only ...

I chose to use some gorgeous fabrics called "Neptune and the Mermaid" by Tokyo Milk for Free Spirit Fabrics.  And some Tula Pink too as required.  

I finished the ...

 I've made it through winter and we're officially in Spring now.  My work conference is over for another year and I finally have some headspace to think about quilting again.  

The US Open tennis started earlier this week and I've been enjoying watching that on TV.  The timings work really well for someone with a flexible part time job like me.  The night session starts at 7pm in New York, but that is 11am here in New Zealand.  I try to do my work in the mornings and then watch a lot of the night session during ...

 It's Friday again, and what have I got to show for this week? 

I've embroidered one more block for my Licorice Allsorts quilt.  There's just one more block to embroider now, and I'll be sad when they're all finished.  

My wool felt applique class at Coastal Quilters went well last Saturday.  The ladies all came with different ideas, so it was fun to see their designs emerging.  Coastal Quilters owns a Sizzix machine so we experimented with all the templates and cut lots of different shapes.

I came home with some snow flakes that I ...

Firstly - thank you for all the answers to the question I posed last week.  How do you follow blogs in 2022?  I haven't had time to digest all the answers yet, but I will.  

This week I've been busy finishing up this piece so I can take it to Coastal Quilters tomorrow.  

It's something that I started when I came back from Dunedin all inspired by the local's use of woollen fabrics.  The maroons in the centre are from a small bundle of Sue Spargo woollen fabrics, and the borders on the side are flannel that ...

Here's my latest finish, Trans-Tasman Bubbles.  

This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted by me.  The pattern is by Willyne Hammerstein from her book Millefiori Quilts 4.  In the book it's called "Dancing Cheek to Cheek", but I called my quilt trans-Tasman Bubbles, because the circles keep disappearing and re-emerging as you look at it.  

The trans-Tasman bubble is an agreement between the New Zealand and Australian governments that lets citizens of those countries travel between the two countries without having to stay 14 days in managed isolation/hotel quarantine on arrival.  

However, as soon as ...

You guys, I made a quilt!

I used to make many, many quilts when I first started sewing 9 years ago, but lately I haven't been in any kind of quilting mood at all. So, having this quilt all finished feels like a huge accomplishment. Especially since it was over 1 year in the making :).

I started making this quilt in October 2019 as a way of using up some of my ever growing mountain of scraps. I cut my fabric to 2.5'' squares and just started piecing them together into these lovely, scrappy 20-patch blocks. I wasn ...

This week I've been hand quilting my Neptune and the Mermaid quilt.  I usually use a hera marker to mark my quilting lines, but this time I've used a blue washout pen because it was hard to see the marked lines on the highly patterned fabrics. 

I always use a hoop when I hand quilt, but I must have taken it off before I took the photo above.  Here it is on another section of the quilt.  

Aurifil 12wt is my favourite thread for hand quilting

I like to experiment with my quilting, so I'm going to ...

My Glitter quilt is finished! And it won a prize in our guild's exhibition. 

Yes, I won Best Hand Pieced and I was thrilled. Glitter is designed by Jen Kingwell from Australia.  I started my Glitter quilt in a hand piecing class with Jen Kingwell at the Christchurch Symposium in October 2017.  I did promise Jen that it would be finished by October 2019, and the top was finished by then, but I didn't start hand quilting it until January 2020.

Now it's finished, and it will look just right on our bed. I chose the greens ...

What a thrill it was to see my quilt hanging in our guild's exhibition last weekend.  It really glowed in the dark exhibition space. And the rosette on it matched the colours in my quilt perfectly!

I'm just writing this very brief blog post to let you know that won some awards at the Capital Quilters show this weekend.

Next is my "We Built This City" quilt and it won a Merit in the Build It Up challenge, and also the Joanne Johnson Colour Award.  This quilt was ...