Well, hello!

I'm sorry I've neglected you for a while, but life's been a little busy so I've been hanging out on Instagram (@darlingdi) where the posting is faster and easier. Lazy, I know.  

Anyway, I thought a quick summary of the quilt-related things that have been happening in my life since I last posted here might put us back on track again, so here goes.....

I've been......

...Making a modern hexie star quilt, coincidentally at the same time as Di B was also making an Australiana quilt from an Emma Jean Jansen pattern for an overseas friend. 

I entered mine in the 2018 QuiltNSW Southern Stars Challenge as "He Counts the Stars", though it didn't win an award. 

But when I entered it in this year's NSW Royal Agricultural Society Show, better known here in Sydney as the Royal Easter Show, I renamed it "Starring Australia", and was thrilled when it was awarded 3rd Place in the Wall Quilt Innovative category.

It was also part of the QuiltNSW display at Government House on Australia Day.

...Stitching with St Mark's Quilters, making quilts together for the KU Marcia Burgess Autism Specific Early Learning & Care Centre, the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospita, the Children's Ward at Orange Base Hospital and the Palliative Care Unit at the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick.

It's exactly 10 years since my friend Linda Hungerford (@flourishingpalms) taught her Stitchin' Mission, a 5 week beginner quiltmaking course, to 25 keen would-be at St Mark's, and from that grew our keen St Mark's Quilters group.

Though I haven't been blogging as such, I have been updating the Pages (see the tabs above left) to record each finished cot quilt, Blanket of Love and humidicrib cover and the makers. They are a very generous, fun and creative bunch!

I'm not as prolific as most of them, but these are a couple of my finishes.

...Entering the 2018 and 2019 Quilt NSW Suitcase Challenges.

The theme for the 2018 challenge was "Running Away with the Amish" and my entry, "Amish Amplified", was voted Viewers' Choice. It seems I had learnt a thing or two about colour and value at those monthly Colour and Design classes I attended all last year with Bob James at My Sewing Supplies!

As the name implies, the entries are designed to fit into a suitcase, lying flat, and form a travelling exhibition by QuiltNSW across Australia over the following 18 months or so. 

As a modern quilter, I wasn't quite as comfortable tackling this year's Suitcase Challenge theme, "From these Curtains". Entrants were given a piece of no longer used curtain fabric from NSW Government House and asked to create a 40cm square quilt using as much, or as little, of the very traditional fabric as we liked.

I deconstructed all those petals and leaves, even the coral-coloured bird, and fused them into colour blocks, then applied similar toning fabric "tiles" over them, leaving the tiny scraps of curtain fabric peeking through "windows".

This was my entry, "Peek-a-Boo Petals", not an award winner, but I certainly enjoyed the challenge. 

So now I have two little quilts travelling around Australia, seeing the sights!

...Diving in at the deep end, ruler-free and template-free, to make this improv mini quilt for the Curated Quilts mini challenge, "Connections" in June last year. I called it :The Highway over the Hill leads to Home", a place where we connect with our loved ones.

Improv piecing is still a completely new experience for me, and I didn't enjoy being out of my comfort zone! I had the most fun walking-foot quilting the background though, inspired by Jacquie Gering's book, Walk. The mini measures 11" x 11"

I know it's good to stretch myself and learn new techniques, but I really need to loosen up!

Gosh, there's so much more to tell you, especially if you're not an Instagram follower of mine, but I think that's quite enough for now!

Twin quilts = Double the fun

One of my most satisfying quilt finishes this year has been these two cot-sized quilts I made for my young friend Alex's twin baby daughters.

Though they were possibly the worst kept secret ever because I couldn't resist sharing sneak peeks on Instagram, I wanted to wait until they were in Alex's hands before sharing here.

Alex likes to keep her home decor to a restrained palette of grey and white, with splashes of colour. So last year I made this grey, white and yellow quilt for her newborn baby boy, Atticus.

Knowing that this time she was expecting twin girls, and being something of a pink-lover myself, it was a no-brainer to choose a pink and grey colour scheme. 

Both quilts consisted of basically the same design, scrappy triangles of pink bunting fused and machine appliquéd to a whole cloth background. The girls are fraternal twins, so I wanted their quilts to have a similar appearance so they look matching in their cots, but with easily spotted differences so there are no mix-ups when they're older and want to quickly grab their own quilt to snuggle under while watching TV.

This quilt belongs to baby Harper Emerson Indiana, and the background fabric is white dots on grey.

... and here is Harper asleep on her quilt. I like to think that's a tiny smile of contentment.

The really fun part of making these quilts was being able to cut loose and try out lots of free motion quilting fillers. Some of the designs came out of my imagination, having seen something similar on the internet.

I like the way the matchstick quilting lines in this circle throw the flying geese design up into relief.

Some designs, like this next one, were created with some high tech help, in the form of the Westalee Spin-e-fex Snowflake templates. Along with a ruler foot to my sit-down domestic sewing machine, a vintage Bernina 1230, it was really quite easy to stitch this pattern.

But not all my tools were sophisticated. I also had some very low tech help, five bowls of assorted diameters that I kept close at hand and drew around (with my Sewline air-erasable pen) whenever I needed a new circle. It's fun to improvise!

This quilt belongs to baby Calliope Florence Eleanora, and the background fabric consists of tiny white stars on grey.

...and here's Calliope herself, fast asleep like her sister :-)

Grey is such a useful shade, and a great foil for any colour, whether pastel or bright, but it's not very easy to photograph. So here are a few more detail shots showing the quilting more clearly from the back.

 Oh, I do love how Harper and Calliope are already snuggling into their new quilts!

Harper's Quilt

Calliope's Quilt



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Many hands

Sorry about the blogging hiatus, friends. I just popped out for a spot of quilt making, self-organizing, and family time. There might have been a tad too much time spent on Instagram too.

Now, where were we?

You may recall that back in February Perdita brought along this large quilt top to our St Mark's Quilters workshop.

We all agreed that it would be perfect to have on hand to donate in case of an emergency, and Gail, bless her heart, offered to quilt it on her domestic machine.

Pinning could have been a challenging job for Gail alone, but there were plenty of willing hands at our March workshop.

A Kwik Klip is the best way Di B and I have found to close those safety pins without pricking our fingers, but without one of these some of our quilters chose to leave their pins open, while Di came along behind to close them with the Kwik Klip.

It was done in under 15 minutes!

Many hands do make light work.

Here are a few of our latest finishes.

Gillian

Gillian

Gail

Margaret

Jill

Robyn

Remember I shared this little pieced heart pattern at our February workshop?

Di J

A few of our ladies have started on their own versions, and this is Gail's Blanket of Love, with the heart shape cleverly repeated in the negative space. Perfect for one of the tiny bubs in the Newborn Intensive Care Nursery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Gail

Di C has pinned this cute Noah's Ark panel and plans to domestic machine quilt it into a Kindy quilt for The Marcia.

And Sue W has similar plans for this panel.

Finally, something I hope will make you smile. 

Like all of us, Chester loves *91 years young* Margaret, so when his friend Matilda the golden retriever (Margaret's grand-doggy) wasn't nearby he moved in for some love and pats. Beautiful picture of them both, don't you agree?