Looking Ahead with Hope

Some of my favourites 2015 Instagram posts

Every blade of grass, 

each leaf, 

each seperate petal, 

  is an inscription speaking of hope.           

                   

                                                     Richard Jefferies

Some of 2015's Quilting Highlights

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tunes without the words -

And never stops - at all.

                                                       Emily Dickinson

As 2015 draws to a close, with all its highlights and challenges, I want to face each new day with Hope as my companion and to be brave enough to dream new dreams. Are you still brave enough to dream too?

Aussie Landscape - Quilt

With Australian native plants flowering in the garden and glorious calls of Australian birds filling the air, I selected, stamped, cut, and carefully stitched and quilted a melody of beautiful natural Australian designed fabrics. Inspired by the earthy tones and textures of the linen, hemp and organic cotton fabrics and visions of our wonderful wide, open, sunny Australian horizons, ideas for an Australian landscape quilt gradually became reality.

There was some playful exploration of fabric stamping to provide custom made segments for my desired big open sky. I plan to experiment further with fabric stamping and printing in the future.

Clumps of tall, hardy native Kangaroo Paw at a local park mingle beautifully with the large and small Kangaroo Paw prints in the quilt. The far horizons of our sunburnt Australian landscape are beautiful from a distance, filled with interesting plants and details as you look carefully and hold hidden details for those who explore more closely. I tried to capture these three levels of impression with my Aussie Landscape quilt - overall picture, interesting details in prints and textures and a variety of fine details in the hand quilting.

Quilt Details

  
Fabrics: Ink & Spindle offcuts - hand printed. (Ink & Spindle is an Australian boutique textile design and printing house).
Maze & Vale sample pack and selected panels. Maze & Vale is the work of Leslie Keating who designs and screen prints her work by hand in Melbourne Australia.
Umbrella Prints Fanflower fabric - also used for backing the quilt. Umbrella Prints is a small Australian textile house in South Australia, specialising in organic printed fabrics.
Two fabrics from Cloud 9 Fabric's Landscape collection, designed by Ink & Spindle.
Solids fabrics include various shot cottons and organic cottons.
Ink: Permaset Aqua, solvent free, Textile Printing Ink. 
Threads: Scanfil organic cottons
Batting: Hobbs Organic cotton batting.
Quilting: Entirely by hand using mostly Scanfil organic cotton threads.
Size: 40" x 59" (100cm x 150cm).
Completed this week - October 2015.


Sharing at the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Art Quilt Category.

'Set Free' - complete

Sometimes a single image sticks in your mind, capturing a certain emotion or thought, sparking a desire to somehow live that moment. One such image for me is this photo of Jennifer Causey hand quilting a blue and white flying geese quilt - you may have even seen it yourself. 

As soon as I saw a preview of Geninnie's Moody Blues fabric I had thoughts of making a similar quilt with this timelessly beautiful blue and white collection. Alternative ideas came to mind but  I could not shake the original inspiration from my thoughts.

Gradually the quilt came together and details resolved themselves along the way, as they tend to. You can read more about that here if you wish.

I love everything about this quilt, right down to the subtle squares which the quilting has produced on the quilt back. The beautiful birds and prints seem to be very happily Set Free, flying in the seaside winds, not unlike Jennifer's original joyful quilt.

Quilt Details: 

Fabrics: All prints are from Geninnie's Moody Blues collection for Cloud 9 Fabrics, some bought from the US and others from Spotlight in Australia (with interesting variations noted here)

The solid is a yarn dyed cross-weave called Limestone from Cloud 9's Cirrus collection

All fabrics used are GOTS certified organic cotton.

Batting: Hobbs Organic cotton batting

Threads: Scanfil organic threads plus Gutermann quilting thread.
Quilting: Hand quilted along the vertical centre of each row and horizontally in-the-ditch between each row. Machine quilted vertically in-the-ditch between each row.

Block size: Just under 8" x 4" finished, custom sized to fussy cut my favourite print (sashiko bird).

Quilt Size: 55" x 82" (140cm x 205cm)

Completed last week - October 2015

Special thanks to two of my daughters who persevered as quilt holders in very windy conditions! Thanks Miss O and Miss G!  :)

Sharing at the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Large Quilt category.

With Sprinklings of Joy and Hope

Pieces of contentment with sprinklings of joy and hope, that sums up last week quite nicely. The sights and sounds of an historic steam train through town always bring an extra excitement. Flowers are blooming more abundantly and the birds singing more sweetly with the beginning of spring. There has been an encouraging improvement in my husband's health with the addition of another medication this week, hopefully a sign of good things to come.

Another SIMPLY MINI Organic Quilt in lovely soft colours is now complete and listed on Etsy. 

My favourite Moody Blues fabric above is drying in the gentle spring breeze. Bought on a one-day sale at Spotlight yesterday (big happy face)! There was only a handspan of fabric left on their roll after this was measured out for my quilt backing. Perfect timing!

I'm really enjoying watching my younger three daughters choosing and colouring pages. There are so many delightful colouring books available now. I love observing how each one chooses designs and colours according to their personalities. I might just have to join in on the fun too!


Sharing at SkyWatch Friday.

SIMPLY MINI Organic Quilts

I'm very excited to share my latest project! The SIMPLY MINI Organic Quilt is the result of combining my desire to make affordable organic quilts, particularly for newborns who are most vulnerable to chemical exposure, and a love of the beautiful organic fabrics now available.

As the name suggests, they are simple, letting the beautiful fabrics be the star - and they are MINI in size at only 20" x 28" (51cm x 71cm). I believe this will prove to be a very versatile size for baby car seats, strollers and as a clean, soft quilt or mat for a newborn baby. This is also a great size for play with dolls, bears etc. Each comes wrapped with its own business card sized tag. 

Now listed in my ETSY shop  (pink one has now sold) where you will find more details. I love both of them, but as a mother of six daughters, I must say I really, really enjoyed sewing with a little pink again.....


***Fabric Note: Each of the four printed fabrics are from Eloise Renouf's new First Light collection for Cloud 9 Fabrics.