It Takes a Village Dwell

Mum finished sewing down the binding on this quilt last week and it's been on my bed since then.  I love this quilt.  Instagram friends Julie and Karen made 5 of the Dwell blocks each, I made 6 and then used a setting designed by another Instagram friend, Anne.

I used the off-cuts from various quilt backings to make the backing for this quilt.

Julie has a long-arm quilting business and she did the "Fantasia"quilting - it looks lovely.

A few quilt tops have been finished over the last week or so.  They will be for donation to Keepsafe Quilts.  Bonnie and Camille Kindness Project Quilt -

FigTree and Company Kindness Project Quilt -

"Village" designed by Miss Rosie's Pattern Co and released for free by Moda Fabrics.

I cut out way too many house blocks, so I have a second quilt underway.

"Gypsy Girl" is together.  I have quite a pile to send off to quilters.

Easter was very different this year.  The little ones had egg hunts in their own back yard and the family joined in via FaceTime then they took part in an egg hunt in my back yard.

Scrappy Trip Around the World

A few years ago I made a "Scrappy Trip Around the World" quilt following Bonnie K Hunter's wonderful instructions.  A couple of years later I saw a low volume with black feature rows and loved it, so made one like that.  Allison Harris recently hosted a quilt-along and I jumped on board to make another one using low volumes again and aqua for the feature rows.

My friend Jenny, Angelcake Quilting, quilted it for me with "Irene's Swirls" - it looks lovely.

 
I really liked the look of the pink sections I'd made for the Kindness Project Mystery Quilt, so decided to do the same with my Figtree off-cuts to make a second quilt.

The Bonnie and Camille quilt top:

and the FigTree quilt top:

Mum is going pretty well with self-isolation, although she has been out to the shops.  I took a quilt up to her to stitch down the binding in an effort to keep her busy.  She's almost finished the Dwell quilt

and I took a second quilt up to her yesterday afternoon - this Bradley Street quilt is beautiful in the Australian fabrics.

This box of half-square triangles has been in my sewing room for a while.  I was procrastinating over all the pressing/trimming that needs to be done.

Thought I'd do one colour at a time, so last night started on pink.

This is the backing for the It Takes a Village Dwell quilt - leftover strips from a variety of quilt backings.  The quilt has arrived in Queensland to be quilted by my Instagram friend, Julie, who was in the Dwell Swap with me.

Peta has asked me to make a special quilt - one of her best friends is having a baby in the next couple of weeks and Peta bought these beautiful Australian fabrics.  We've decided on the sage green for the setting triangles.

Once again I'm using "Bradley Street"because it shows off the fabrics.

This sensational May Gibbs linen/cotton fabric is for the backing and also to go in the blank squares in the photo above.

I've been making "Summer Nights" blocks.  These are blocks 1-20/49.

At this very unsettling time, Moda Fabrics has made a Miss Rosie Quilt Co pattern called "Village" available for anyone to download for free.  I wasn't going to join in but saw an IG friend making some lovely houses and thought I could go through all my older fabrics and cut out some house pieces.  As usual, I've cut out way too many, probably enough for two quilts, and I'll start sewing some together over the weekend.  There are so many fabric memories in those stacks.  These quilts will be donated to Keepsafe Quilts, who give them to women's refuges for the families to keep.

I have two quilts to pick up from AngelCake Quilting - Red Letter Day (love this new-to-me cable)

and Scrappy Trip Around the World

I will enjoy binding these two.

Quilt Tops

"Red Letter Day" quilt top is together and at the quilter waiting its turn to be quilted.  This is the second red/white quit top finished this year.  One more cut out to start in a little while.

Love this fabric for the backing.  I've used the pink and aqua in this design and had been saving the red for something special.

After "Red Letter Day" was done, I started making Ohio Stars for the Dresden Plate centres on "Plain and Fancy".  This is such a pretty quilt in the "Chantilly" fabric.

Pretty backing fabric.



One of my Instagram friends, Anne Boundy, designed a layout for some "Dwell" blocks she had received a couple of years ago.  Her blocks were centred around a "Swoon" block with "Fresh" stars in the corners (all blocks designed by Thimble Blossoms).  I added a scalloped border and this should be large enough to go on my bed. 

The backing for this quilt is going to be made of lots of edge strips saved from other quilt backings.  I'm sending this to Julie in Queensland to quilt - Julie was one of my swap partners.

The University is starting mid-semester break early so there will be virtually no undergraduates on campus from Monday.  Our office is all set up for working at home if necessary.  So far the family is all healthy.

"Dwell" Swap

Two Instagram friends and I swapped "Dwell" blocks.  "Dwell" is a quilt designed by Thimble Blossoms from her "Simply Retro" book and we added 6" blocks for the house "interiors".

The plan was to make 5 blocks to send to each other and 5 for ourselves - I got carried away with the block centres and ended up making 6 each.

The houses I received from Julie:

and the houses I received from Karen:

These are the my blocks all together - I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these yet but I'm leaning towards Anne Boundy's "It Takes a Village" Quilt with a large Swoon block surrounded by a couple of borders and the houses.

"Red Letter Day" quilt top is almost finished - I didn't have enough red polka dot fabric to finish the 4th side and add the last border.  I'm hoping a package of the fabric will be in the letter box today.  So happy with the look of this quilt so far.

Having some red fabric left over I thought I'd make another "Summer Nights" quilt - I'll be able to use up loads of the scrappy pieces from "Red Letter Day" and "Wish Upon a Star".

Before Christmas I joined a sew-along to make "Hide and Seek" (designed by Thimble Blossoms).  The plan was to have the quilt top finished in early January.  I kept up for the first few weeks but then Christmas, family time, other sewing commitments became more pressing and this was put aside.  It was finished on the weekend and I'm so glad it's done - sorting out where to put which little coloured square was driving me bonkers.  I had so many aqua/red four patches towards the end that I ended up pulling them apart on Saturday night and adding more colour.

The Backing

Last night I sewed up the "Plain and Fancy" Dresden Plates - this "Chantilly" fabric, designed by FigTree & Co, is so pretty and I'm looking forward to seeing this quilt come together.

Little Sweetheart T came over for the weekend - we visited Mum, did some shopping, make pancakes for breakfast, played games - had a great time.  Jenni visited yesterday afternoon and it was lovely to spend some time with her.

Quilt Top

Poor "Hide and Seek" has been languishing on the floor of The Pink Room for weeks.

A couple of rows were added last Monday and the floor is looking tidier.  I'll get back to it soon.

I have decided to make a red "Red Letter Day"  and ordered some more Bonnie & Camille reds along with some more Riley Blake Swiss Dots for the background.

Had to make one block. I'm adding extra little blocks in the corners to make small stars when the blocks are joined together.

"Wish Upon a Star" quilt top is together,

 the backing is made

and they are ready to take to the quilter tomorrow.  The rosebud fabric will also be used for the binding.

On Saturday I spent a fair while working on the layout for Scrappy Trip Around the World - thought I had it sorted until I found two blocks with the same aqua fabric next to each other.  Hopefully it's all good to go now - I want to start sewing these blocks together tonight.

Yesterday I went to the shops to buy some machine needles and also bought a new cutting mat - it's long overdue.

 

Over the weekend I also worked on the Dwell house blocks - 2 lots of 6 blocks are going to the other swap members

and these blocks are for my quilt:

Littlest Sweetheart turns 1 on Wednesday - what a quick year that has been!