Irish Chain Quilts

Today my little Sweetheart is 3!  Such a glorious ride being his Nanna.

Posted off the block for June to Sarah last week in our B&C Beehive

and made a few blocks for the next few months (not ready to tackle July's block just yet and also waiting for some fabric to arrive).

August - "Fireworks"

September - "Fireworks"

October - "Swoon Sixteen"

November - "Sugar Plum"

It will be my turn to receive blocks in December - the star blocks from Bonnie Olaveson's "Summer Nights" quilt.  There are Irish Chain blocks to go between the stars and some have been made over the last few days -13 more to do.  These go together very quickly.

Saturday was a big day with Michael, Peta and Gulli moving to a new flat (and the movers not showing up till the next day).  Mum is always in the thick of any action:

While driving home on Saturday night I had an idea for another Irish Chain quilt using up some "Handmade" fabric in my Bonnie and Camille stash.  Of course I needed to buy more of the beautiful floral Handmade fabric from Karen because I decided to make the quilt larger.

The little blue cot quilt is together using the pinwheels made a couple of weeks ago:

and so is the House/Irish Chain quilt top:

These were dropped off to Karen last night for quilting when we had stitching and I picked up a special quilt to be bound and given away in the next few weeks.

Line Dried

Last October or so I saw a post on Instagram from @yardgrl60 about making "Line Dried", a quilt designed by Corey Yoder of Coriander Quilts.  I thought this would be a great pattern to use up the fabrics left over from my Swoon quilt (mostly sent to me by my friend Elizabeth in USA) and I added a few from stash

along with a turquoise spot Riley Blake Swiss Dot fabric for the background as well as the stripe and butterfly fabrics for blocks, borders and backing (ended up using another backing and the blue stripe for binding).

 In April I started making blocks.

The quilt top was finished last month and Karen quilted it with Clamshells.

I thought this quilt would look good with a wavy border - cutting into the border is a bit stressful but the special ruler (designed by Quilt in a Day) and instructions are terrific.

I love the backing fabric - "Lulu Lane" designed by Corey Yoder.

I still have loads of fabrics left from this group - I think there will be another "Line Dried" quilt using the pink butterfly fabric for the border/backing and pink stripe for binding.

Cake Mix Recipe 4

Carrie Nelson is Miss Rosie's Quilt Co - she is a brilliant designer and so very clever.  Carrie has designed a series of patterns called Cake Mix Recipes (12 in all) with each Cake Mix able to be made into three or four different designs.  On Good Friday the Stitching Girls and I had a sewing day at Karen's and we started to make one of these quilts using a pack of Cake Mix Recipe No 4.

This is a very accurate way of sewing half-square triangles and all you need is one layer cake of feature fabric and one layer cake of background (plus backing and binding).  I had seen a star block made up of half-square triangles and decided to use the star for my design rather than one suggested on the pack.

The quilt top was sewn together a few weeks ago

and Karen quilted it recently using a new design called "Featheration" - it looks wonderful.  Even though it's an intense design, it doesn't overpower the quilt at all.

I started stitching down the binding at stitching with the girls on Saturday afternoon and sewed in the final stitch last night.  I love this "Strawberry Fields Revisited" backing fabric.

This is a great way to make a quilt and we're thinking we might make another Cake Mix Recipe (maybe No 9).

PS:  Another little cot quilt has been started - a blue version of the pink one made recently.

Seaglass

One of my favourite quilters in Susan Ache (yardgrl60 on Instagram).  Susan has such a lovely, fresh style when putting colours together and she uses mostly FigTree and Company fabrics.  "Starting with Strips" is a book filled with quilts designed by Susan and "Seaglass" is the first quilt I've made from the book.

I had some lovely "Miss Scarlet" fabric (designed by Minick and Simpson) to use for the background and could use loads of FigTree fabrics for the strips.

The backing is from FigTree & Co's "Coney Island" range - I really like this green.

 

All the chain blocks have been made for my house quilt.  The plan was to use only stash fabrics for this quilt but I had to change those two darker chain blocks - they stood out too much.

I bought two background fabrics from Karen, moved a few blocks and think the layout is better, although probably not yet final.

What a big weekend!  Dinner with The Schoolgirls on Friday night at an Indian restaurant - such delicious food.  Boy we laughed - mainly about our times at school athletics and swimming carnivals (only one of us is really sporty).  Saturday afternoon was fun with the Stitching Girls and then saw "Solo:  A Star Wars Story" on Saturday night - loved it.  I really enjoy these back-story movies.  Yesterday Mum and I went to Sydney to spend time with Jenni and Kurt (mum baked an apple pie and Jenni baked an Oreo Layer Cake) and then headed over to Michael and Peta's to stay with Gulli while they went to see "Solo".

Houses

Lots of construction work happened in The Pink room this week.  All the houses are built for my House/Irish Chain quilt.

I think I'm happy with the layout.

Scrappy Irish Chain blocks are now underway and then the quilt top can be put together.

The binding on "Seaglass" quilt has been stitched down

and also on the cushion.

Busy weekend coming up - lots of socialising which is always fun.

Binding

After all of the quilting Karen has done over the last couple of weeks, I've been stitching down binding while catching up on recorded tv shows.

Ohio Star Cot Quilt

Cakewalk

Seaglass

I had enough "Seaglass" strips left over to make a 17" sq cushion cover, which Karen kindly quilted in a smaller version of the design on the quilt.

Seaglass Cushion

On Saturday ChaCha came for a sleepover and brought an extra birthday present for me - a bundle of Allison Glass fabrics!  The colours are glorious.  I'm hoping to make Jen Kingwell's "Long Time Gone" quilt some time this year and these fabrics will be perfect in that quilt along with some other Allison Glass fabrics left over from Jenni's 30th birthday "Tessellation" quilt.

Karen quilted "Line Dried" this morning and sent through some photos.

Looking forward to picking it up tonight.  This quilt will have a wavy edge and bias stripe binding.

One of my dearest friends is going to be a first-time Nanna later this year.  I've been saving these fabrics for almost 10 years (for her) and am so happy to have sewn them into a cute quilt.