Collection 38 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 38	Hearts and love surrounding a loved one .... what a great way to live.	C38 Hearts Abound
I just love sitting inside watching a storm descend.	C38 Splendour of the Storm	A favourite pastime while growing up was playing Chinese Checkers.
C38 Tempest	Yes you can see the tempers rising as one circles a never ending problem	C38 Chinese Checkers
Yes there are many days that I appear to be going Round and Round and at the end have nothing to show for it :-(	C38 Strawberry Shortcake	Can you guess another favourite food of this family?
C38 Round and Round	Absolutely no idea how Couer d'Or came to be named as such. The words mean "courage of the gold" in French.	C38 Couer d'Or

BOM 38 - Chinese Checkers

C38 Chinese Checkers

As a child my family loved to play Monopoly. I however loathed this game as it was always cut throat. Chinese Checkers on the hand, even with everyone's desperate desire to win, was not so. Even if you lost you had to have taken some of your opponent's marbles off the board.

First Quilt

Isn't this cute? I am just starting to convert my old photos into digital version and came across this  photo of the very first quilt I made. Isn't it a wonder. By the look of things they were about 20in square. All hand cut with a pair of scissors and many were cut on the bias so the design would go diagonally. You can tell I knew a lot about quilting. I made that quilt in 1984.... Wow I hadn't realised it was so long ago. Unfortunately I discarded it when I learnt how to make proper quilts :-(

Rolling on the quilt is my eldest son, wearing another of my creations. I used to sew clothes when the children were young. It saved so much money, that we didn't have and filled in so much time, that I also didn't have :-) 

Fabric Needed

Well I'm in desperate need of some more of this fabric. It is a Debbie Mumm made for South Sea Imports .. many many many years ago. By my calculations I have exactly the amount I need ... if I make absolutely no errors and manage to cut everything with only the minimum amount of seam allowance which is not going to happen as I intend to foundation piece this and so will need 1/2in seam allowance rather than 1/4in.

Oh the colour is a yellowy mustard.

Collection 37 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 37	There is always a special private temple within the public one that visitors see.	C37 Temple Within
Yes I agree I have never seen a Fish Kiss, but it does look they are kissing if you squint yoru eyes.	C37 Fish Kiss	Not as hot as our Summer Sun but you can still see the heat radiating out.
C37 Stolen Threads	Two birds sitting on the window sill watching as I sew. A thread is dropped and down they swoop.	Summer Sun
Every parent has hopes for their children but at times are discouraged and feel bound within.	C37 Alexander's Gold	Alexander IS gold. He is a delightful child who will have many battles in life.
C37 Bounds of Hope	The maze may have been easier seen had I used two colours, but then who wants and easy maze?	C37 Twisting Maze

BOM 37 - Fish Kiss

C37 Fish Kiss

I know that no one has ever seen fish kiss but this is what I always envisioned a fish kiss would look like. 

What do you think?

Topsy Star - APQ

Several months ago I was asked to make a block for Patchwork and Quilting's birthday celebrations. They had decided that they would ask people to make a block each and combine these into quilts for an aged care home. The blocks were HUGE... 24 1/2in each. Made it easy to make a full quilt as it only needed four blocks with sashing and borders to make a quilt suitable for the establishment.

I had designed this star for Val who you can see sewing it just here. Val wanted to learn foundation piecing and I figured well why not simply blow it up bigger and use that. So both Topsy and I made the circling geese and then I finished it off while she started on a smaller version.

Looks totally different to what I had in my head :-)

Ocean Waves

A few years ago my friend Terri started a class using a wedge ruler. After she finished making all of the wedges the project sat in her 'to be finished' pile long enough for her to buy a new table. This one was long rather than circular and so the planned circular table cover was not going to suit.

 So off she went and played with her finished blocks...... the result was a gorgeous runner which Patchwork and Stitching thought others would like and so published the instructions for it. 

I recently received these photos from Susan of the results of a sewing day she had with a few of her friends. Funny isn't it how Susan has completed the cycle, joining her wedges into a full circle as per the original class.

The circular table centre is by Susan Flynn, while the red and green runner belongs to Judy Smith and the purple one in the same photo is by Linda Allen.  These three women all belong to Clermont Patchwork and Quilters Group. The single runner was made by Sandra Galvin from Walcha who visits the Clermont annually whilst her husband is gold prospecting.

Collection 36 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 36	Doesn't everyone just love raspberry syrup swirled through their vanilla ice cream?	C36 Raspberry Ripple
Yes I realise that it should have been golden star bursts but apart from the colour it looks perfect.	C36 Starburst	I made this after a trip around Turkey(?) where I had watched some dancers whose costumes flowed in and out inviting others to join.
C36 The Dish	The Dish is an Australian movie retelling the roll of the men working at the Parkes radio telescope in the first landing on the moon,	C36 Twirl With Me
Surely the title, Blue Diamond, came from the shapes and the image of light radiating from the middle.	C36 Blue Diamond	The fabric suggests a storm radiating from the middle in Eye of the Storm.
C36 Nine to Five	Yes I did watch the Dolly Parton movie Nine to Five and laughed right through it.	C36 Eye of the Storm

BOM 36 - Raspberry Ripple

C36 Raspberry Ripple

Don't we all just love Raspberry Ripple ice cream in a waffle cone!

Collection 35 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 35	How to make a label. Open up a new Word document and write whatever you want in the label. I used Edwardian Cursive size 48 from memory. Don't forget to include your dates. I know you should also include boring info like washing instructions and materials used but I saved that for a small label on the back.	C35 Raconteur Label
No Way Out - doesn't it look like the perfect maze to occupy a lot of time. For a time you actually get the feeling you may be going somewhere but you're not. A lot like some days at work!	C35 No Way Out	Bamboozled - this block came from a mixture of two quilts I'd made before, Flying Geese and Circles. Another day of going nowhere fast. This wasn't a fun time at work but things did improve.
C35 Reflections	Pebbles dropped into slowly moving water form ripples and then Reflections. I do enjoy skipping stones.	C35 Bamboozled
It was a restful time when Free Time was made. That was why I could have so many tiny pieces in such a small block. 57 pieces in fact.	C35 Free Time	I just love sitting on the machine and mindlessly Stringing Away. I have so many strips but have now thrown out most of the small ones I used for this type of block.
C35 Winter Blossoms	I just love it when you see the first of the blossoms appear as Winter comes to a close.	C35 Stringing Away

BOM 35 - Winter Blossoms

Winter Blossoms

 I just love those blossoms that appear towards the end of Winter .. cherry blossoms and others. I suppose the Japanese fabric suggested the title for this one. Oh it isn't that hard a block ... give it a try.

Colour Variations

Mixed collection variation -  Snippets

C60 variation - Post Scrip

2016 South Bay Quilters Guild

I was contacted a short while ago by Sue Glass who is the quilt show chair for the 2015 and 2016 South Bay Quilters Guild of Torrance California.  

For their 2015 show, the challenge was 12 ½ inch red and white blocks, and one of those submitted used my block “Patrice’s Gift” from the Quiltmaker 100 blocks magazine.

Since then they  decided to use those challenge blocks to make their 2016 opportunity quilt, which is really lovely (red and white of course). The quilt will travel around the Southern California area and be displayed at their quilt show. 

I just had to share the photo. Isn't it a beautiful quilt. Patrisse's Gift is the second block from the top on the right hand side, just below the 's' in quilters. What an honour.

Collection 34 - Where Did That Name Come From?

Collection 34	I always think of an English Garden as a subtle restful place with delicate flowers here and there.	English Garden
Paul loves gardening and could spend forever there ... even at night with stars in the sky if able :-)	White Wall Tiles	The lime green in this block looked as stark as White Wall Tiles in a new building. Funny it doesn't look as stark in the finished quilt.
Follow Your Heart	Yes I know the saying once in a blue moon. At the time this block was made there were so many once in Blue Moon events that I had to make a series of them.	Blue Moon
The long strips in Solid Gold appeared a lot more definite in the finished block than they did in the design.	Through the Roses	Which is the maze, the pink roses or the green path that meanders Through the Roses?
Solid Gold	Well of course you will all immediately guess where I was when I made Champs Elysee Alight and what I'd been up to the previous night ... Paris is beautiful. I'm so glad PJ studied there for a few years.	Champ Elysee Alight

BOM 34 - Follow Your Heart

This is one of the few applique blocks in Raconteur. The title and absence of many applique blocks reflects my attitude to this technique. I don't enjoy applique but adore piecing and so following my heart I do as little as possible. 

The star was reverse appliqued from the centre of the block to signify taking away rather than adding to.

Joy's Quilt

What a difference fabric can make. Joy, the woman with the bright red shoes, made this quilt for one of her grandson's and isn't it absolutely amazing. 

She'd had many plans but wanted to highlight the background fabric and her original plans would have meant a LOT of work and left little space for this fabric to feature. 

She had already made about 40 of the NYBs when she saw the Wedding Quilt layout and thought it would be the way to go and so asked me to design a central circle that could feature and allow her to us my layout. 

Viola not bad ... the quilt I mean. 

Won't her grandson be gobsmacked when he sees this!

One Man's Trash .....

Well I have been given a friend's unwanted scraps and boy what a monumental task it has been to organise them. I have been cutting for over two weeks and now have managed to clean up most of it but I was wondering this morning could I have done it better and after a bit of surfing have discovered that yes...... I could have completed it a lot more efficiently.

One site that I found is this one by Cindi Souder who gives some good suggestions on how to organise yourself for both better/cleaner cutting and more organised time management in the task of cutting fabric. Hopefully I remember it for next time but for now I have cut the following queen sized quilts from my friend's 'rubbish'

• Storm at Sea
• Kaleidoscope
• Penrose Tiles
• Three strippy quilts
• Two hexagon scrooge quilts

What makes it even more amazing is those were cut from her small scraps. There still remain larger pieces to be cut ... another day!

Hexagon Anyone?

Was just cleaning up my camera card and came across this photo. Would tell you the name of the maker but I just don't know it but there she is in the photo. 

She lives in Berry if that's any help :-)

Isn't it a great quilt! Looks simple enough too .... If you like fussy cutting and EPP neither of which am I into.