Category Archives: quilting

Nan’s Quilt

This quilt has been about 3 years in the making, I decided early on that I wanted it to be for my Nan who was delighted that I was sewing and quilting, I knew that she would appreciate the time and effort of a handmade gift.

Nan's Quilt

I’d worked on it in bits and pieces up until the end of 2015 when I learned my Nan’s health was deteriorating, she was 93 and still living in her own home up until then. I took the finished top, got it basted and started quilting it so that I could get it to her to cheer her up.

She was going to need to move into a nursing home for the extra level of care and also moving down closer to family (yet far from her home) and so I wanted her to have something to make her room feel like hers.

Nans Quilt

I kept working away when I could, another family emergency kept me out of my sewing room for weeks, but eventually I got the machine quilting finished, and I had to update the year on the label I’d already prepared. She was having a hard time settling in, when I went to visit I would take other quilts and sewn pouches to show her and she was so happy that ‘young people’ were still making things.

Nan's Quilt - Binding

I decided to put the binding on first before hand quilting, then Nan needed to go to hospital. She showed some improvement and returned to the nursing home, I started working on the binding, when I went to see her I told her I had something special on the way for her.  Shortly after her health went rapidly downhill again, before I could finish handstitching the binding I went to visit my Nan for what would be the final time.

When Nan passed away I put the quilt aside for a while, I needed a break from it, I felt terrible that it was still here, not finished.

Nan's Quilt - Detail

It had started as a couple charm packs of Moda’s Domestic Bliss by Liz Scott and a couple solid packs in Moda Bella Solids in Snow which were turned into piles of Half Square Triangles, but I quickly realised I didn’t have enough for a decent size quilt so I had to hunt around and eventually found 2 more charm packs of each for more HSTs. The backing print is by Joel Dewberry that matched the colours and style in Domestic Bliss perfectly. The leftovers from this quilt went in to making Heidi’s Quilt.

The layout was designed with the quilting in mind. I wanted the large diamond shapes and then worked out by offsetting them I’d have nice channels zig-zagging all the way down the quilt for long straight quilting lines following the seams. Inside the diamonds I used Angela Walters’ dot-to-dot technique from her Craftsy class to create more diamonds. All of the machine quilting used Aurifil 50w thread in 2110 Light Lemon. The print fabrics needed a little quilting so I decided to add hand stitches in Perle 8 thread in the middle of each triangle.

Nan's Quilt

Towards the end of 2016 I picked it back up again, my Mum had a tough year and I thought maybe the quilt would bring her some comfort, I had wanted her to have it after Nan anyway.

I didn’t stuff around this time, I worked on the hand quilting over a month or so to have it ready for Christmas, I nearly got there, but with only a row to go I gave the quilt to Mum anyway and finished off the last bit of quilting the week after Christmas.

The label reads:

Handmade with all the
love in the world
For Nanna
By Jessica
2016

Nan's Quilt - Back and Label

Graffiti Quilting Workshop with Karlee Porter

This past weekend I was lucky to have a place in a 2 day workshop, hosted by the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild, we welcomed artist and quilter Karlee Porter to Wollongong for the final leg of her Australian  tour. Karlee’s signature style is called Graffiti Quilting, an approach to free-motion quilting that builds up a design from layers of elements, some which have been inspired by street art, some using common quilting motifs in a modern way.

On the first morning Karlee took us through 20 or so designs and techniques which we practiced in our sketch books, and then started to combine.

Graffiti Quilting Sketches
Graffiti Quilting Sketches

Left: Sketching designs, my leaves are terrible but I’ll keep working on them. Right: We all started with the same centre elements (black) then had 5 minutes to add our own ideas to kick off a design.

After lunch we put those ideas onto fabric with no real plan and only gentle direction provided by Karlee. My free motion skills were a little rusty but I slowly found a rhythm. I’d do a little bit and then stop and think about the next element, trying to pick something to suit the space or contrast a geometric design with a soft and swirly one, the whole while referring back to my sketch book and the fun analogies about the different designs.

Graffiti Quilting Day 1 Sampler
Graffiti Quilting Day 1 Sample – Aurifil 28wt blue varigated thread on black solid fabric from Spotlight.
Graffiti Quilting Class
Everyone concentrating hard on their quilt samples

That evening we were joined by more WMQG members for a trunk show where Karlee spoke about her background and a selection of her quilts, explaining the progression of her work, the highs and lows of entering shows and different experiments along the way. I particularly enjoyed hearing about her collaborations with other artists, having their designs digitally printed on fabric which is then quilted. Of course, cheese and wine with guild members and our guests made for a really enjoyable evening.

On day two we spoke more about materials, threads, fabrics and battings that suit this style of quilting and what situations they suit best. Karlee also took us through different layout options and then suggestions on how certain elements go together. I chose to try quilting in rows with a common circular element up the middle.

Karlee Port & I with my sample quilt
Here’s my sample at the end of the day, couldn’t have done it without Karlee’s encouragement

For my sample piece I’ve used black solid from Spotlight with 2 layers of cotton batting. The thread is Aurifil 28wt in a magenta colour and then a soft medium pink, the next two colours will be a light grey and then finally white. I found I really liked the geometric elements, particularly the columns and my curves were definitely improving with practice.

Graffiti Quilting Detail - Centre
The bottom centre circle turned out better than I could have thought possible, with just a few circle guides and I sketched the leaves first because I find them so tricky to get the curve right.
Graffiti Quilting Detail - Geometric Columns
Love those columns, they can be a city skyline, a stereo equalizer or local rock formations.

All in all I had a great time and really learned a lot from Karlee, she’s fun and genuine with lots of tips and tricks for creating our own unique spin on Graffiti Quilting. I hope to practice more and put together some smaller pieces that can be used for pouch & bag panels, and will most definitely keep sketching and drawing, I found I really enjoyed that part! Here’s a start on something in my sketch book…

Graffiti Quilting - New Sketches
A fresh page & textas, I no longer feel paralysed trying to envision the entire design, just add a bit at a time and the whole becomes much greater than the some of it’s parts.

Quilts for Lachlan & Heidi

Hello! I’m still here! Went a little bit AWOL from blogland for a bit there. The 1st Modern Quilt Show Australia back in May last year was a huge success (more on that to come) but boy, was I wiped out afterwards. Just as I was getting my sewjo back a couple months later, we went and bought a house (as you do) and so everything was packed up and moved and unpacked. There was just enough time to settle in before all the Christmas/Birthday craziness, with a few house warming parties thrown in for good measure and so here we are at the end of January and I’m finally getting back in the groove.

I have been sewing & quilting a bit here and there and popping pics up on instagram. Now I finally have a handful of fun things to share with you all, including a couple of special quilts for two awesome little people.

First up is Lachlan’s quilt, a Single Irish Chain in rainbow colours over a silvery mid-grey solid background. It worked out about 42″ square.

Lachlan's Quilt

Simple straight line quilting outlines the chains in both directions, and bright blue binding keeps things fun.

Lachlan's Quilt - Detail

For the back I used a darker grey (which I secretly prefer and wish I used it on the front to, the colours pop right off it). Both quilts have their name and the year embroidered on as a simple label.

Lachlan's Quilt Label

Heidi’s quilt features pinwheels, made up using the leftover HSTs from another quilt I’m still working on. This quilt measures about 36″ x 47″.

Heidi's Quilt

The fabric line is Domestic Bliss by Moda, with Moda Solid in Snow as the background. I’ve quilted straight lines in the sashing and border to help define the individual pinwheels, and hand quilted inside the background on each pinwheel using Perle 8 thread. This was actually my first attempt at borders, for some reason those long strips scare me but at least on this smaller quilt it worked out ok.

Heidi's Quilt - Hand Quilting Detail

I love this binding, is there anything Architextures Crosshatch (in Plum) cannot do? Another embroidered name & year.

Heidi's Quilt Label

I hope to see both these quilts being dragged around, snuggled with on the lounge, used as picnic blankets outside and maybe occasionally make it back onto the beds of two adorable little munchkins.

Quilts for Lachlan & Heidi

I’m linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday!

Australia’s 1st Modern Quilt Show

It’s finally here! Only one more sleep until we open the doors to Australia’s 1st Modern Quilt Show.

This year the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild is presenting a Modern Quilt Show for the annual Berry Quilt Show. We’d love to see you there if you’re in travelling distance. Berry is a gorgeous little town with lots of fun shops, great cafes, and the markets will be help on Sunday just down the road. For more details visit the website.

We have some amazing quilts from Kathy Doughty, Sarah Fielke, Deborah Louie and some of my favourites from blog land Jess @  Elven Garden Quilts, Amy @ Badskirt and of course Molli Sparkles!

Australia's 1st Modern Quilt Show Flyer

Our committee has been working tirelessly to get everything ready. It’s our first ever show so we’re jumping in the deep end and there’s a lot to learn but considering we’ve only had a few months to pull everything together I think we’ve done a pretty good job. There’s a lot to learn and we have lots of ideas for improving things for next time.

I cannot wait to walk in and see all the hanging quilts tomorrow.

Riley Blake MQG Challenge – Quilt-As-You-Go Bag

It was a perfect match, a Modern Quilt Guild Basics Challenge sponsored by Riley Blake Designs to make anything quilted, with six fat-eighths to start us off, and a fabulous Craftsy class to make Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags that I could not wait to try. I’m so excited to share this bag so look out, lots of pretty pictures coming up!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’d been hoping for a chance to take the Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags Craftsy class with with Tara Rebman when it was announced that Riley Blake Designs would be sponsoring the 3rd annual MQG members fabric challenge, we heard about it at a Wollongong MQG sew day and I knew exactly what I was going to make. Light bulb moment!

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

We received our fabrics towards the end of last year as 5.5″ x WOF strips from the range of Riley Blake basics. The fabrics I received were:

  • solid dark grey
  • light grey and white 1″ stripes
  • navy and white medium gingham
  • aqua tone on tone medium chevron
  • white on yellow small dots
  • orange pop

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I’ve supplemented these with some other Riley Blake fabrics from my stash and a few solids including:

  • yellow tone on tone small dot
  • orange tone on tone small dot
  • white on aqua dot
  • orange solid
  • yellow solid
  • sea green solid
  • navy solid for the bias binding
  • navy blue solid cotton duck cloth for the bag base

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I started off by cutting a few small and medium strips and squares of varying sizes from each fabric and began the quilt as you go process which uses a log cabin approach. Each round adds a new piece of fabric to cover the join of the previous two pieces and gets quilted down (as you go), towards the edges using pre-patched slabs rather than single fabric pieces. Stay tuned for an upcoming post reviewing the class and sharing some more details of the bag making.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I used Aurifil 50wt threads for this project, a light grey/silver (2600) for piecing & quilting the main panels and navy (2745) for quilting on the base panel and attaching the bias binding. My quilting is roughly 1/4″ apart, though I did vary on purpose to give some subtle difference in textures and in some cases to suit the fabric.  My favourite part of the quilting is this navy gingham piece below.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

The bag is a pretty good size as you can see above with it on my shoulder. In opens up wide and has a handy flap with magnetic snap to keep it closed. I included both pocket options, a hidden zipper pocket on one side and a divided pocket on the other.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

I really love these challenges, this one in particular took me out of my comfort zone with colour but seeing all the fabrics combined I quite like the overall effect of the outside of the bag.  I wish I didn’t choose an orange solid for the lining, next to the navy binding all I see is football team colours. This is a perfect case where a subtle tone on tone chevron or dots would have been a better choice for such a large area. I already have some fat quarter packs of the Riley Blake small dots and tone on tone dots and I’m sure more of their basics will make their way into my stash, I just haven’t been able to source it locally yet so couldn’t get it in time to finish my bag.

Riley Blake Challenge - Quilt As You Go Bag

A huge thanks to Riley Blake Designs for sponsoring this challenge and providing the fabric for us to play with. Thank you also to the Modern Quilt Guild for organising these challenges for us and to our awesome leader Rachael of the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild who does all the organising so we can participate.