New Projects for 2015, finishes and WIPs

Who can resist beginning something new for the new year?  With an enormous choice of new quilts appearing I have chosen 2 that have been around for a little while.

The first is Sweet Citrus Love, a quilt pattern available from Treehouse Textiles and designed by Emma, Sarah and Cathy.  I plan to use mostly Cotton and Steel fabrics for this quilt.

Here I have started auditioning fabrics for the first block.

I am using a mixture of fabrics from both quilting cotton collections from C & S.
Citrus Sweet Love is a great combination of both piecing and applique. I plan to make this quilt by hand.

My 2nd quilt will be La Passacaglia from a Quiltmania book by Willyn Hammerstein. It is the cover quilt in this book.  Again I will be using lots of Cotton & Steel fabrics and stitching by hand. I don't expect to finish this quilt any time soon!!! Lol I have seen lots of versions on blogs and Instagram and the colour choices I have seen are very inspiring!!!  Almost every quilt I have seen has been made using English paper piecing. However, I am going to have a go at making it just piecing.


Now for some things I have been stitching over the last few weeks.

Lots of Noah and Matilda!!

Exotic Flower:

Three Flower Stem:

Four Tulips:

And......

All the blocks completed!!!

This won't be the final arrangement of blocks. I just wanted to see them all together. Next week I will start the border blocks. It is going to take a while; there are something like 200 tiny grapes to make!!!!

I finished block 28 of CCCQ, Mary McDowell. (patterns available here)

Only 5 more blocks to go!!



Mostly I hand stitch at night after dinner. When I have time during the day I stitch on the machine.
At the end of last year one of the stitch groups I am in had a fat quarter swap. I decided to make a mini and a small pouch. I wish I had taken a photo of the original fabric, but you will just have to imagine it! Lol Here is a small peek at the mini. I am still hand quilting...

I appliqued circles from the fabric to use on the pouch:

The exterior fabrics and Cotton and Steel. For the lining I used a piece of fabric by Julie Wallace, and Australian quilter and designer, who passed away late last year.

Another machine project is something I decided to attempt after seeing a quilt on Jacquie's blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Tutorial here. This will be a mini quilt of hexagons entirely pieced by machine. I am about half finished right now, but here is a photo from earlier....

I have used a mixture of Cotton and Steel and Maze and Vale fabrics.  This project has been a huge lesson for me in very accurate cutting and very accurate 1/4 inch seams!! (there has been some unpicking, trimming and re-stitching!)

My Lone Star quilt is still growing. No photos this month, but the next section is more than half done.

You may remember that last year I was lucky enough to win a very generous giveaway on Lynne's blog, Lily's Quilts., where I won 12 fat quarters of Cotton and Steel fabric a month for 12 months from Pink Castle Fabrics.  I really want to again thank Lynne, the ladies at Pink Castle and the ladies at Cotton and Steel. While I still love reproduction fabrics and recreating quilts from the past, in the last few months the direction of my sewing and quilting has been moving to more "modern" sewing. I have been inspired by these new fabrics to take a new look at the types of quilts I make. Now I need twice as many sewing hours every day!! Lol!!!!!

The latest bundle from Pink Castle's Cotton and Steel Club:

Love those butterflies! :)

Lastly, a photo of the flowering gum in our back yard.

Have  a great weekend, everyone! :)