First Finish - more batiks

Those batiks must obviously have been calling my name for a while now (and it's not stopping yet lol)... Should I mention that I just yesterday made an order almost entirely of batiks from Pink Castle Fabrics? Well, somehow that #patchworkcity2018 top will need to be completed lol and now that I have made the order I feel more confident to cut up my remnants of Me & Yous in black and white because I know there are more (and similar ones) to come. But back to my first finish for 2019:

Pohutukawa - Kiwi Christmas (Whakapapa #2)

It actually look way less distorted in real life, but the sun is burning down on the deck and a light hot breeze is blowing, so until I get it put up inside the house, this photograph will do fine :)

It started all back in early 2017. The Brisbane Modern Quilt Guild had made this quilt Riverfire before I left Australia:

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Show and share today at BMQG sew day. Our group Riverfire quilt which had won a blue and red ribbon. #mqgsewday #bmqg #brisbanemqg #quiltyfriendsarethebest #mqg #showusyourmqg

A post shared by Brisbane Modern Quilt Guild (@brisbanemqg) on Nov 19, 2016 at 11:33pm PST

I had dabbled with crazy patchwork 'back in the day' (you can find a few of those under the label Small Projects), and I wanted to try my hand at modern improv. New Zealand summers are well known for the red flowers of the Pohutukawa tree, New Zealand's 'Christmas tree', and to follow on from Whakapapa #1 (which was all about the small town where I grew up in Germany), so this is now Whakapapa #2, in reference to our life in New Zealand.

Copyright free images from Google Images provided the inspiration...

...my plan - 1" grid on paper for 4" blocks

I decided to pull out all my batik scraps for this projects and sorted them into the corresponding colours - using batiks as I felt even small 'crumbs' would be usable and not unravel (is that the word???)

Soon I had to start cutting into my batik FQs and yardage as I didn't have enough scraps - and with that I created more scraps (sigh)

I was ready to give up at the top completed line, but thanks to my IG buddies I persevered with a final row

FMQ and threadpainting

Not the best colours, but this is the quilted top.

Some close-ups of the quilting:

As per my usual method, I pulled up the bottom thread at the beginning of the quilting and kept long ends at the end, again pulling up the bottom thread (when I remembered). As usual that left me with a gazillion threads to bury, but I finally finished this today - phew!

Instead of binding I opted for a skinny facing with triangles in the corners for hanging:

While I found the right piece of wood for the top in DH's stash, we'll need to buy some more for the bottom; with the tight quilting I feel there needs to be a bit of weight at the bottom to make sure this piece hangs just right.

Happy Sewing!