And The Year Comes To A Close

Unbelievable...how fast did this year go!

I finally managed to write up my latest pattern. Had been talking about it for most of the latter part of the year, but just have been too lazy. I was going to upload it to Craftsy early December...good thing I did not, as Craftsy send out an email mid-December about closing a whole lot of shops on their website to re-vamp the site. The cut off date was the 28th December! Needless to say that left a lot of people unimpressed.
I retained my little Craftsy shop however they scaled it down to 2 patterns. All I managed to do was to get some of the images off the website as I was busy with Christmas. All in all there are 5 patterns that are no longer on the Craftsy site.

So, I set up shop on Etsy...you can find the link to my humble beginnings HERE. I already had started that process prior to December, so for the new pattern I just had to actually write it up and upload. Still got a bit more work to do on the Etsy site...any feedback/comments welcome.

This is it...tada...the new pattern 'Bright Baby Quilt'

Original Colourway

...and here is a close up of the latest version with my ruler handiwork

Alternate Colourway

I love this pattern and already planning on another one using more of Anne Kelle's cute Urban Zoologie fabric, this time 'Mini Cats'. This pattern is strangely addictive.

Very happy that I got my pattern up in 2018 as I had promised myself to do!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

Karin

Pastel Baby Quilt and Other Good Intentions

Over Christmas I just pottered around  and came across my UFOs...most notably my Spiderweb blocks. I had started this several years ago and you can read how I construct these blocks under the Tutorial tab (I use a wafer-thin interfacing that I leave in the block). I did look at other tutorials on the internet as well and did try to construct them in a less involved way, like just piecing them together, but I do think it does need a foundation to work from, so I went back to my original method.

I think that the interfacing just gives the block more stability.

I then started looking at my stash and decided to use up some fabric that I had won some time ago. Not exactly my colours, but very pretty...the fabric is Foxglove Garden by Leanne Beasley for Ella Blue fabrics. Made good use of my Accuquilt Go Cutter and cut myself a Charm Square pack and then just pieced them together...this repetitive stitching was so enjoyable! Not really feeling it I then used the Birds die that I had and cut out some birds to go on the quilt top. This was very quick with the Go cutter as you cut the fused shapes and you are ready to go. A little bit of blanket stitching around the basic applique shape and I was done!

You can hardly see anything as this fabric is very pastel 😄

Now I only have to find a suitable backing and this little quilt is done. Not planning anything major around this and probably will just meander over it.

Got heaps of the fabric left as it is a Fat Quarter bundle and will probably do another one at some stage. Handy to have them around to give away as gifts.

Karin

Best of 2018 Linky Party

Meadow Mist Design is hosting the Best Of 2018 Linky Party

2018 has been a somewhat quiet year for me in terms of blogging. Pretty much was concentrating on actually finishing some projects off, so for this Linky Party I am choosing 5 finished projects.

1. The Mini Wholecloth

Literally got side tracked straight away in January by participating in Patsy Thompson's January Online Ruler Workshop. Could not resist and produced this little Mini Wholecloth. Read more

2. The 1000 Pyramid Quilt

This quilt had been some years in the making and I finally decided to finish it, come what may...I wrote several posts about it throughout the first half of the year, first when it was finally pieced together (Read more here) and then several posts about the quilting. The quilt was massive and I had chosen a Baptist Fan design to go all over it. Note the 'What a Crazy Idea' Post

I was so happy when this was finally done!

3. Dancing Squares Baby Quilt

Found the most gorgeous fabric...'Jungle Fever' by Rebecca Jones for Clothworks and made another baby quilt...

Read more

4. The Challenge Quilt

Our local Handiquilter Group ran a challenge throughout 2018 using the rulers acquired in some of the Ruler of the Month Clubs. This was very intricate and took some time, but having it broken down into smaller sections, month by month, made this very enjoyable. 

Read more

5. Little Chicks Baby Quilt

I love making baby quilts (and there is always someone who needs a quilt), particularly with Anne Kelle's Urban Zoologie fabric. 

Read more

No photo of the completed quilt as this was supposed to go into my Craftsy pattern shop, however with recent changes I will have to upload my pattern somewhere else.  Over Xmas was not the time to do any further exploration around this! 

The highlight of the year for me was the Australian Machine Quilting Festival. Went to a lecture with Ricky Tims and attended some classes with Cindy Needham...absolutely fabulous! 

Read more

Well, there was more, but this post is getting way too long. Linking up to Meadow Mist Designs for their annual Best of 2018 Linky Party

Karin

Little Chicks Baby Quilt

I have been working away on another baby quilt with the cutest Anne Kelle fabric. Not sure what it is called but it is from the Urban Zoologie range featuring cute little chicks. I am testing out one of my patterns and sure enough I did not have enough of one colour, then mis-cut the white fabric, so needed to buy some more. But after a somewhat  stressful beginning, it was smooth sailing once it was stitched together. Too cute!

I decided to practice some more ruler work and chose a simple line design for it after many, many different ideas of varying degree of complexity. Sometimes, simple is the best.

I used Lisa Calle's Pro Echo 8 curve ruler for this

Such fabulous rulers. Had them for a while but apart from a bit of a play here and there, had not really given them the full workout of a quilt. I am a bit spatially challenged and often struggle with curves in terms of alignment and trusting the ruler to actually end up where I want it to end up. This ruler was easy to align as it has enough lines on it so that you can orient it to your seams no matter where you are. Was enormously helpful and worked like an absolute dream, looking really nice and even across the quilt. I quilted in the ditch of the main seams before I started but left the little triangle squares and did them as I was doing the curves to save a bit of time. Apart from not always hitting the ditch this worked fine and made for a nice continuous quilting path.

Very impressed with the Pro Echo rulers!

Karin