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!

Batiks and #patchworkcity2018

There is a lot I like about batiks - the colours and patterns, the tight weave, the fact you can (almost) equally use the back and the front... However, over the last few years I have gotten out of using batiks though I still have quite a bit of it in my stash. In February 2017 I came across Hoffman Me & You batiks, to my mind mixing modern patterns with the beauty of batiks, so I had to have them lol

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When you look at your stash and want to say "Hello my friends, it's been way too long..." love #batiks @hoffmanfabrics @brisbanemqg

A post shared by Monika Kern (@himmelgartenquilts) on Feb 17, 2017 at 6:48pm PST

In 2018 I finally made use of them, first in the Baby Quilts, then I joined the #patchworkcity2018 SAL on IG where I decided to use a mixture of my batiks, including the remainders of Me & You. I could be really obsessive and list every single block used, but if you want to know, just follow the link above, @manhandledthreads has got the names listed in his weekly SAL blocks.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

'bonus block' 2

'bonus block' 1

Week 11

The SAL took a break over Christmas so Suzanne and I sewed a few bonus blocks in the meantime. My black & white Me & Yous are seriously depleted, so I am trying to get some more. No one seems to carry it locally, so sadly I will probably have to order from the US despite the high freight cost - but it would look strange to change it all around now. I have started to add in some black Quilters' Muslin which I am using for the sashing, but I want to keep that to a minimum. Using a non-batik for the sashing helps a lot in getting the blocks into the right shape - much more forgiving :)

I don't have that many more colours to go from my original selection, I think I will go back and do a few more transitions - and then there is always the option of buying more fabric...

My selection for #patchworkcity2018; well, I obviously have quite a few batiks...

Happy Sewing!

Progress on Giant Panda Quilt

Some more progress:

  

I bought just a few more FQs and I’m confident I have enough material for the background now though the borders will need some sort of scrappy feel to go with the background. I can see a roadtrip to Whangarei in the near future to get my borders sorted...

Happy Sewing!

Baby Quilts

At an organisation like ours that employs many younger people, there are always babies due, and in 2018 I made quilts for two sets of expecting parents.

Baby Quilt #1

I had a FQ pack of Hoffman Me & You

I used this Criss Cross Applesauce Tutorial

Auditioning the faux piping

Quilted with generous swirls and loops on my Sweet Sixteen

Doesn't that binding just look too cute?

Baby Quilt #2:

More Me & Yous...

Creating a streamer pattern...

...but quite a few corners to match...

The pieced inner without border...

... and here a dreadful photo with borders attached and quilted. I can't find a photo of the completed item, maybe on my work phone (which will remain turned off until I go back to work lol). No piped binding this time though.

Sadly I haven't kept notes of measurements etc. but both a backed with a spotty grey minky from Spotlight, cotton batting (roll from Spotlight). #2 is quilted with a ruler, curved lines from corner to corner on each streamer. I will post more photos if I find them.

Happy Sewing.

Always has my back

While I mentioned this quilt in my post from last Easter, I have a few more shots of the making of it. Tanya was my teacher aide when I was teaching in my last classroom in 2016, and she literally always had my back. I have been really interested in plus blocks in 2017 and 2018, and I used some of the left over squares from my Tokyo Subway Map Quilt to make purple and green pluses; while the colour combination sounded a bit unusual for me, I really like how it all came together in the end.

Plus blocks, still fairly random layout though alternating purples and greens

Plus and X block, more interesting

Different background options - from memory I didn't have enough grey but didn't want to buy any more?

Completed top - I added tiny cornerstones within the skinny sashing

First top quilted on my new to me Sweet Sixteen

Close up - I love the faux piped binding, and the fact you don't have to hand-stitch down the binding is a bonus!

On my washing line, blowing in the breeze :)

A Spotlight wide backing on the back; I didn't have enough but luckily one of my Brisbane MQG buddies posted me some more :)

Happy Sewing!

Giant Panda Quilt

Like most years, my niece is planning a themed birthday party, this year the theme will be 'panda'. At almost 9 years old she had outgrown her previous little girl's bedroom and my sister recently refurbished and painted her room, using Dulux Waiwera and Oakura:

   

You know those conversations that start with "If you have nothing better to do..." so there is now the beginning of a Giant Panda quilt. I used the Giant Panda pattern from Animal Quilts by @tartankiwi, enlarged to 200% to give me a 40" square centre:

I place the background pretty much at random, but as I ended up with a noticeable green strip by Panda's ear, I'll think carefully what I will place into the blank areas top left.

Despite wrangling such large pieces, this is really lots of fun, and it goes together really easily - actually quite addictive. The one downside about enlarging the pieces is that you end up with needing large (aqua) triangles for the background and I'm using a variety of leftovers, FQs, charm squares etc. I have now decided I will divide some of the triangles and leave just some of them in the original size - allowing me to work with what I have got rather than travelling to my LQS 100km away or to any of the other fabric stores in Whangarei, the only larger town in Northland.

Once the Panda block is done, I plan to border it all around to give the quilt enough width to cover up the storage under my niece's bed. Suzanne recommended I look at some of the numerours popular medallion quilts all over Instagram, e.g. Aviatrix Medallion, or Marcelle Medallion for some ideas. The easiest would of course be to find some suitable material and just add 20+" around all sides, but four patches, pluses, or appliquéd melon shapes might be more realistic - keeping in mind I need this pieced before I get back to work so I can have it quilted, labeled and bound by her birthday mid February... Wish me luck!

Happy Sewing! 

Why don't I blog much anymore?

Happy New Year 2019! I have lately been thinking a lot about why I find it so hard to blog nowadays - that's here on my Quilting Blog as well as on my e-Learning blog here (to a certain extent). The purpose of this post is to mull over the question above, "Why don't I blog much anymore?"

Thoughts about Digital Tools fit more into my professional life, and in that realm I have presented more than once on the use of Social Media. One of my mantras there is 'different tools for different purposes' and 'not all tools meet everyone's needs at all times'. So what has changed, why don't I use blogging anymore for my quilting?

When we lived in Brisbane in 2015, I started using Instagram because quite a few of the #brisbanemqg members are posting regularly on Instagram. Since I have come back, my longtime friend Suzanne has also started to use IG (and is a much more prolific user than I am lol). It's easy to use, it's quick: Just snap a picture or two, add some text, a few hashtags and handles, and off you post it to the world. Just as easy to like a post, to leave a comment etc. But just as with Twitter (which I have used extensively in my professional life in the past, you can find me as @BeLchick1), posts disappear in a never ending stream. Admittedly they can be accessed via your profile page and / or via the hashtags.

I started blogging more than 7 years ago, and in my first post I wrote: 

my sewing room is my luxury retreat from reality where I sneak away from the "mum, he hit me", "mum, I'm hungry" or "what are we having for dinner?".

My intention is to post every other week or so to keep myself on task. If anyone else is interested in my ramblings - great! - and any advice and feedback is much appreciated!

Looking back at my beginnings as blogger, I had posted very regularly, I pretty much used my blog like I have used Instagram lately. I soon got sucked into the whole how many people follow my blog, how many have viewed my posts, how many comments and where are they from at some stage but I am happy to report that I have now gotten over this - it might have to do with my lack of posting (insert a rolling eye emoji). What has lately prevented me from posting regularly is the whole idea that blogging takes time, requires effort - I have made it into something that feels like a chore. I still like the idea of a blog, though mine needs quite an overhaul I think. It's a great place to keep pictures of the quilts I made though I realise I have gaps in several of the last few years. A blog has space to write about 'stuff' if I want to, but maybe I'll just stick with picture + words + hashtags.

In lieu of New Year's Resolutions as such I have decided I will try to revive my blog, keeping it simple, posting on here what I would put on IG (or maybe what I also put on IG?), giving me an easier way of tracking my sewing progress (or my lack thereof lol).

In case you are interested in what I started a few days ago, check out https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/giantpandaquilt/ until I get a chance to upload the pictures in a blogpost.

Happy Sewing!