Wednesday 22 March 2017

March Block Round-up



This month’s queen in my Stash Bee hive is Ophelie (@quiltoph). She picked the Treasure Hunt block from Blossom Heart Quilts. Ophelie added colour dots to the template (her version here) and that made it extra easy to keep track of what colours went where. I’m a bit of a convert to mustard after making this block. Ophelie’s original request post with her colour choices is here. I was hoping for my prints to offer more variety in the way they matched up but it didn’t come together as I planned and I have a far less scrappy effect than I was hoping for.




Kate at Smiles from Kate is queen over in Bee Inspired for March and she’s chosen the  Gnomes and Trees block from Flying Parrots Quilts for her block. I spent a “too hot for housework” Sunday afternoon putting the trees and gnomes blocks together. It was a fun block to make, and great for a bee pick! The hot weather was followed by thunderstorms and I have learned a lesson in low light photography. This block is nowhere near as yellow as it appears.


I’m currently working on a quilt using some large scale hourglass blocks. It’s working title is “Dave, the Engineering Quilt”, a play on Dave the Quilt Engineer (husband of quilting buddy, Tish) because of the blueprint drawings on the fabric. When the idea came I thought it was hilarious. Still do.


The blocks from being queen in Bee Inspired last month continue to roll in. It’s such fun! These are from Sharon at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs, Jen at A Dream and a Quilt, Paige at Quilted Blooms, Ann at Brown Paws Quilting, Kate at Smiles from Kate,  and Karen at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats.

Saturday 11 March 2017

Jen and Jan’s Mini QAL



Hello and welcome to my stop on Jen and Jan’s Mini hop! There’s a lot of other places to get to (links at the bottom of the post) so I’ll go photo heavy and text light for this post.



I decided to make my version as a charity quilt so went with pastel colours and added a border to make it bigger.



And I added a cute chook print on the back.

This pattern (designed by Jen and available here for FREE!!!!) was simple and easy to use – that of course didn’t stop me from making mistakes and I had an unfortunate skewing event when I quilted my mini block hanging on the line, due, I think, to having my dual feed foot on the wrong setting. Can I pretend it was supposed to be wonky?


The little bear starring in these photos was knitted by my Mum many years ago J

Here’s the links to the rest of the participants. Prizes are available for commenters on Jen and Janice’s blogs- head there to win!

March 10 Reveal Day
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats
Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Jayne at Twiggy & Opal
Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication
Leanne Milsom at Lizzie the Quilter
Sandra Walker at Mmm! Quilts!

March 11 Reveal Day
Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting
Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter
Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot
Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs
Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts (you are here!)
Anne Boundy at Said With Love
Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

Wednesday 1 March 2017

February Block Round-up



February’s queen in my Stash Bee hive was Jen (@jentexas06; Fat as Butter). She asked for a Crosses and Losses block in blue or green. The original tutorial (at Fresh Lemons Quilts) uses 8" blocks and Jen has written a tutorial for a 16" finished block. This is my version. You can see a finished quilt using this block in a rainbow of colours here.


These are my Garden Snails Quilt blocks (pattern by Pen + Paper Patterns) posted this month on Instagram. I’ve started putting them together into mini quilts now and they are looking super cute.


My current WIP is a mini quilt for Jen and Jan’s Mini Blog Hop and Quilt Along. Details are available here. This looks like it could be bigger than Ben Hur - Janice said she had 28 participants at last count. Jen has designed the pattern and it’s available FREE here. This is my mini quilt which hangs from the washing line in the design – so CUTE!!!


Now for a Not My Work segment.


I’m getting a lot of happy mail at the moment, since I was queen this month at Bee Inspired. There have been a pile of blocks posted over on the blog and I’m so thrilled with the way this is working out! These two blocks have arrived from Velda at GRANNYcanQUILT (left) and (right) Irene from Patchwork and Pastry. I can’t wait to see them all together!


And my MQG swap partner’s quilt arrived from Cathy in Melbourne (@cathtakespoland). She covered everything on my list of likes – negative space, solids and I said my favourite colour was blue (well, that day anyway). I could hardly wait to open the package when I saw it in the letterbox and did a little dance of joy with it once I had!