A Singing Heart

The quiet joy of anticipation bubbled over into great excitement yesterday when the mail man left a package at our front door. I knew straight away it was much more than the mentioned nondescript "little something". Look what was inside! A beautiful copy of Sarah Fielke's new book Hand Quilted with Love, thoughtfully wrapped in a fat quarter of Sarah's latest fabric range. Even the cotton twine matches, half of which has been squirrelled away already by one of my teenage daughters (just spotted some around an ankle...).

Sarah's book is about far more than hand quilting, in fact several of the 16 quilts shared in this book have no hand quilting on them at all. There is a great variety of designs, something for every level of experience, all beautifully photographed and presented.

Quoting from Sarah's Introduction: 

Try new things, be adventurous, and crack your own quilting code. 

Don't be hung up on whether something is right or wrong, 

or on whether you are a "modern quilter", a "traditional quilter" 

or even an "art quilter": 

just be a QUILTER, be creative and love what you do.

Sound advice for many areas of life.....

Most of my quilts contain a lot of different fabrics. 

I don't usually use one or two greens when I can use 30.....

I don't ever get stuck finding that PERFECT fabric. 

(Sarah, page 8)

So where did this wonderful parcel come from? From someone I've never met who lives hundreds of miles/km away, the very thoughtful, generous and talented Bloom whom some of you no doubt already know. As well as being a devoted wife and mother, Bloom stitches beautifully, designs, quilts, sews, blogs, produces unique project articles for Australian Homespun magazine and has the most amazing garden.

With my parcel came the discovery that Bloom also makes beautiful cards! Filled with kind words Bloom's card sits here on my Sunlit Treasure quilt which I made from Sarah Fielke's previous book Quilting from Little Things (North by North East design). 

No wonder my heart is singing! Thank you Bloom!

The Story of Sunlit Treasure

A very warm to welcome to all visiting from the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side and Sarah's blog, The Last Piece.

I'm sharing the story of my Sunlit Treasure quilt which I finally completed last month.

It began with a desire to make a bigger, more challenging quilt, one large enough to cover our bed well. When my pre-ordered copy of Sarah Fielke's "Quilting from Little Things" arrived in April 2011 I fell in love with her "North by North East" quilt design. The same month Lori Holt's Sew Cherry fabric range was released - a perfect match!

Using fabrics from my colourful stash, I quickly made a start on all those flying geese required for the middle panel, experimenting with which method worked best for me as I had never made a flying geese block before.....

Being one who sews on the dining table (of our family of 10) which is also our main homeschool space, quilting time and space is largely confined to school holidays. Somewhere in the middle of the monotony of sewing the required 700 flying geese I nearly lost all motivation to quilt at all. I was enjoying the more instant satisfaction of exploring my love of photography, and "unfollowed" every quilting blog I had previously enjoyed following.

 However, every time I would take a good look at the rows of geese hanging safely in my wardrobe I would realise afresh how much I really did love these fabrics. Many of them held special memories being remnants from previously made quilts and sewing projects, not to mention that their bright colours (like jewels or treasure resplendent in sunlight) just made me feel happy. Slowly but surely I persevered...

As I finished the quilt top I was still unsure about how to quilt this monster. It was physically impossible to reach the centre using my 28 year old domestic Janome. Not wanting to give up at this point, I decided to hand quilt the middle panel using hundreds of little four point crosses, an invented stitch which acts similarly to discreet tie quilting. Using this quilting method I was able to avoid stitches on the coloured fabric pieces.

Stippling the large setting corners has provided good stability and a smooth finish.

I love the hand quilted border around the edge of the quilt, it gives a wonderful finish to the design.

As the time drew near when the backing fabric would be needed our local Lincraft ( fabric/craft chain) store had a fabric sale. They had a cherry fabric which looked just perfect. I bought all that was left on the bolt but I knew it was considerably short of the stated requirements. However as I had slightly modified the quilt top, I ended up being only a few inches short. After hunting through my fabric stash to supplement the cherry backing, my first choice was a green basket weave print which I later discovered just happened to be a quarter yard purchase from the original Sew Cherry range which I had bought (and forgotten about) nearly two years ago. A happy discovery indeed.

As we head into our winter "Down Under" in Australia, my Sunlit Treasure quilt is keeping us snuggly warm at night and brightening my days every time my eyes glance upon it.

Once more I can enjoy contemplating new fabrics and dreaming of beautiful quilts....I am relished re-entering the world of quilting blogs!

Quilt Stats:

Dimensions: 87" X 87" (Slightly modified/smaller than Sarah's original design)

Special Techniques: Centre panel and border hand quilted with mini four-pointed crosses.

Quilted By: Me! All geese blocks are hand quilted, the setting corners stippled using my Janome SL2022.

"By perseverance the snail reached the ark."

                                  Charles Spurgeon

PS If you are interested in further details, click on the Flying Geese Quilt tag in my tag cloud in the side bar or leave a question amongst the comments.

Sharing at the Blogger's Quilt Festival: Bed Quilts.

Beautiful Coastline

We had a wonderful family day out today exploring a beautiful section of coastline which lies less than an hour's drive from home - the perfect way to celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. We've lived in our town for 16 years and have never visited this particular coastal area. I'm not the only one who wishes to return again - soon!

1, 2 & 3. Kite surfing.
4 & 5. My Sunlit Treasure quilt which has been two years in the making, completed last Sunday.
6. Picnic lunch.
7. Where the lake meets the ocean. 
8. Stunning red soil.
9. Looking further south.
10. Adventure Girl having a wonderful time.
11. Master J flying his RC plane (top of photo) and our other children - Miss N with a camera.
12. Miss N turned her camera on me as I was busy taking photos of Adventure Girl.
13. A sunny gazania thriving on the rocky cliff edge.
14. Off exploring again.

* Master J "discovered" this area while on a Duke of Ed. camp with his school last year. You can see some of his photos from the camp here - they include some stunning beach sunrise scenes.

Although it is mid-autumn here, the temperatures are wonderful. Yesterday was about 23C/73F, tomorrow is forecast to be 29C/84F.



Sharing at Our World Tuesday, Weekly Top Shot.

Bright and Warm

Cosmos

Whether later afternoon or early morning, we are surrounded by warm bright colours as autumn slowly enters our days.

Somewhere in between these two ends of my days I've been enjoying a few minutes here and there of another brightness. I have just finished hand quilting little crosses on the large middle panel of my Sunlit Treasure quilt.

Here is the quilt top during basting some weeks ago. See those large white setting triangles? I'm trying to work out how to quilt these. The idea of machine stippling the entire cherry/white corner triangles is one option. Another option is some hand quilting - but what design to try?

I'm not quite sure - what do you think?


UPDATE 27th March: 

Thank you for making suggestions. After trialling a little hand quilting I decided an open stipple would work best. It provides strength and stability, especially considering these setting triangles form the corners of the quilt. The open stippling also gives a smooth, understated finish, not detracting from the feature central panel of flying geese, while providing a little contrast.

It's been well over 12 months since I attempted stippling, a little more practice won't go astray. I have completed one corner. The border of flying geese will be hand quilting just as the centre panel is.

NB "North by North East" quilt design by Sarah Fielke as found in her book Quilting From The Little Things.


Sharing at WIP Wednesday.

Nearly Most Five!

"Mummy will you do something with me?" Miss E asked yesterday.
"How about some sewing?' I suggested.
"That'll be good. I'll make a quilt like you."
"Well let's start with some stitching."

I was very impressed with her first attempt at hand sewing on fabric.

Miss E is "nearly most five", she has been counting down the days for weeks. Today she added the finishing touches to the piñata she has made with Miss N.

The basting is finished on my quilt and I have begun the hand quilting. I've chosen Bright White in Sulky 12wt mercerised cotton, the perfect weight for this job. This is the same weight Sulky cotton I used in my Nature Play quilt, only then I used two different variegated thread colours, the same ones Miss E used above.

Not wanting to highlight the actual zigzags, nor wanting to quilt over the coloured pieces, I have chosen to hand quilt a little star/cross on each white based print piece, reminiscent of tie quilting. This is producing a lightly quilted, smooth effect which I was looking for.

At last I have chosen a name for this quilt - "Sunlit Treasure" as to me it has the look of a treasure chest of jewels, tipped out and twinkling in the sunlight.




NB This quilt design is called "North By North East" as found in the book "Quilting From Little Things" by Sarah Fielke. Sarah is an Australian quilt designer, quilt maker, hand quilter and author. You can see some of her book in my original post about this quilt here.
Sarah's website.

Sharing at WIP Wednesday, Sneak Peek Friday, I Heart Macro.

Looking Beautiful

As soon as I laid the quilt top out to complete my quilt sandwich, I stood back in admiration. Yes, I DO love it! It was well worth unpicking the not-quite-white-enough white triangles, replacing them with a just-right-white! Now I love the whole quilt!

Saturday afternoon I sewed the back of the quilt together, cleared our lounge/sitting room floor and secured the quilt back, face side down. After spreading out the batting (middle layer) of thick cotton I them added the quilt top. I've been busy since hand basting with needle and thread to hold the three layers together, ready for quilting.

I love the mix of white, cherry and flying geese blocks, the bright cheery colours and the balance of shapes in the overall design of this "North by North East" quilt design by Sarah Fielke as found in her book Quilting From The Little Things. I made a couple of minor modifications, bringing the measurements of the quilt top to 88" or 225cm square.

I also love that it contains fabrics (and memories) from nearly every quilt and sewing project from the last three years, even the dress I made Miss V which she never wore......

Three quarters of the basting is completed, I hope to finish the rest today so we can use our floor again and I can begin the slow job of quilting. At this stage I plan to hand quilt the middle panel as it's too large to fit into my old faithful Janome sewing machine. I might machine quilt the corners, we'll see how things go. But for now I'm just enjoying seeing it in all it's glory - it looks even better than the photos show.


If you wish you can follow the rather slow ongoing story of this quilt here.


Sharing at WIP Wednesday, Sneak Peek Friday.