Compulsive Quilts

I'm trying to use up my stash before I start a new project.  As I have so many bright colours, this is where I will start. So my plan starts with the idea below. The shaded rails will be solids, the middle rail will be the same shades with a pattern or white, and the white rails will be well... white. I don't think it matters if my middle rail matches the others exactly, as long as they are a similar shade.  In fact, the solids don't have to match exactly either, as long as they tone in. To make a cot quilt, I will need 20 blocks, 5 long and 4 wide, so the finished size will be 5 foot x 4 foot. My stash has been organised into drawers, the middle drawer contains strips of 2 1/2 inches. I'm diving into that drawer.  Wish me luck.

Do you want to while away the hours at home, but don't have any fancy gear? You can't go out to the fabric store as it is not an essential activity, so can we just make do with what we have? I thought a hexagon quilt might be easy to make from what you have around home. If you have some old shirts that you can upcycle, that is all you need. It doesn't have to be shirts, but any fine weave cotton will be fine. A few hexagons to start with, all these are cut from my husband's old shirts, my favourite is the splotchy liberty print on the bottom right. At least 2 of the others were from shirts we had made while we were in Vietnam You don't need a sewing machine as we  will use English paper piecing and then the hexagons together by hand. The trickiest part is making the templates, but I found a video online to assist with that. This is what you will need: old cotton shirts, men's work shirts are ideal  a drawing compass, a ruler or tape measure,  som

In Australia, we are not in total lockdown, except if you have just arrived in the country or have landed from a cruise ship. However, everyone is being as careful as they can and not go out. So.…. What do we do? WE QUILT!!!! I really wanted to finish a rainbow pinwheel quilt, but since the move I haven't been able to find it, so I had to start something new (to tell the truth I have started 3 new things, but we will get to that later. Bright colours with little houses one patch modern quilt Although I have loads of fabrics, I wanted to start with my scraps as they were overflowing out of the tidy scrap drawers that I had stored them in. I try to cut any scraps into 2 1/2" strips, so that I can easily make things from them. I pinned a quilt using Pinterest with little houses on it, and thought it was cute.It was a one patch quilt with the houses interlocking, upside down and right side up. The ones that I saw were in low volume fabrics, but I think

A lovely parcel arrived from the courier today. My stash builder pack from Pink Castle Fabrics. It is lucky that I get the parcels at all as the courier driver is terrified of the dog. As he rings the doorbell, our fat old golden labrador takes on a much younger and meaner persona, by barking in a deep angry bark and frightens the life out of Manu the Pakistani driver. He hurls the parcel at the front porch and then takes off back to his van as fast as he can. We have tried to tell him that the dog is 90 in dog years, and a complete pussy, but it makes no difference. Anyway I got my parcel, it was full of lovely aqua fabrics. I only just joined this group, and seem to have an obsession with this blue green colour as my stash collection is at least 1/4 of this colour. I have a queen quilt on the go for my bed, but I keep thinking of other things to make as well.  That is the affliction of a compulsive quilter.

I completed the OLL quilt over the weekend, but have been too busy in the garden to show you pictures. This quilt was great to make as it came together quickly, as the drunkard's path piece was easy to piece, then combined to make nice large blocks. As I did the quilting as you go method too, the quilting was simple and was not bulky under the arm of the machine. This was enjoyable. My Bento Box quilt is pieced but I can't seem to get around to quilting that one, as the thought of moving the queen quilt under the machine is enough to put me off.

The orange, lemon and lime quilt is almost done, but first it has to be road tested.....by the cat. She doesn't look happy here. I don't have a design wall, I have a design bed, which is why Zali the cat loves it so much.  I tried to make it so that the bright orange quarter circles were distributed evenly, and the greys, where they meet are all different pattern. I nearly succeeded. There is one spot where there are the same pattern, but I'm not going to tell you where. This quilt is even too big to lie flat on this bed. That is why I have used a QAYG method and  quilted the spirals separately. See my QAYG tutorial here.  I think it is a good trade off, as the back is not as perfect as I would like.