I finished THREE queen-sized quilts in a month!

So, how was your July quilt-wise? I finished three queen-sized quilts.

Oooh, I love saying this. THREE!!!!

Quilting with me is like waiting for the #10 Bus. You wait for ever, hopping from one foot to the other, and then three of the darned things come along together.

Confession time – I might have finished my quilts in a month, but I sure didn’t start them just last month. To be completely honest, two of them have been bubbling away for well over a year, so it was high time for a reveal. Or two. Or three.

Today I’ll show you my first finish, the Whirligig quilt by Australian designer and teacher Sue Ross, who also designs those scrumptious co-ordinates from A Day in the Country.

Apart from machining the background squares together, my Whirligig is entirely hand pieced, hand appliqueed and hand quilted. Now you know why my quilt journeys are more like leisurely meanders than sprints. I’m what you might call a plodder!

Sue came along to Paddington Patchworkers early in 2010 and over three x monthly classes taught us the finer points of making her quilt. Up to this time I had pretty much been a reproduction girl, a lover of muted, dusty tones.

The Whirligig quilt marked a radical departure, for me, from my soft colour-washed florals, and though I still dip into them from time I prefer my florals on the modern side, teamed with clear, crisp backgrounds and co-ordinating hues that make them pop. 

For my Whirligig quilt I delved deep into my growing collection of glorious Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I pieced the whirligigs after cutting the shapes from plastic templates, and then each finished whirligig was appliqueed to its background, either a fine black dot-on-white or a plain white.

When I started I wasn’t so keen on the floral applique border Sue had designed, but it grew on me and her advice, to use a black and white stripe for the bias vines, paid off, I think you’ll agree. When I took this photo I hadn’t yet quilted the border.

I echo quilted around the flowers and vine in the border, and quilted 1/4 inch inside the seams on the whirligigs, and I made plastic templates from one of the flower motifs and used this to hand quilt the background of the large blocks.

 

I love the look of a striped binding, and this one picked up on the narrow inner border and the many fresh greens, pinks and yellows in the quilt.

It could probably have been a tad stronger in colour, but I think it works well enough. You live and learn.

I’ll try not to leave you waiting too long for the next bus quilt.