Lynn's Crosses

The quilting group that I belong to are making some quilts to donate to a charity auction later in the year to raise funds for our local Hospice.  A member of our group passed away a couple of years ago after a long battle with cancer, and the idea grew after her husband decided to donate her stash and unfinished projects to our group in order for us to finish some quilts and donate them on.  We've had other donations since then, and many of us have been very busy! 

I decided to make a quilt from my stash with our dear friend in mind.  She was a very spiritual person and so the idea of some sort of cross design seemed obvious.  I've been a bit worried that people at the auction would only be interested in traditional quilts, so I took a trip to the shops to have a look at colours in homewares, in an effort to make something saleable.  I decided on pink, yellow and grey on various off white backgrounds. 

So I've been cutting, sewing, pressing and trimming.  

I don't always press seams open but decided that it would help the quilt top lie flatter, especially as I used a mix of cottons and linen/cotton mixes for the backgrounds.

A few of my blocks.  I love that cloud print!  It's from Bark and Branch by Eloise Renouf for Cloud 9. I used quite a mix of prints from my stash, especially quite a few pink Valori Wells prints from her Wrenly line.  I'd been saving them for a special quilt.  I can't think of any quilt more special than this one, a memorial to my dear friend Lynn.  

Catching up

Although I haven't blogged for a little while, I've been really enjoying my sewing lately, working on many different projects.  This means my kitchen bench and dining table are no use for cooking and eating.  

What a mess! 

 

Mum had a friend admire her Metro Market bag a few weeks ago, so I was happy to wip up another one in this retro crochet flower garden drill from Spotlight.  Spotlight have some fantastic drills, and they are a great weight for a bag like this.  No interfacing needed!

 A few friends in my quilting guild have decided to make a couple of blocks a month from Tula Pink's City Sampler book.  I couldn't resist joining in.  They've challenged me to go outside my usual comfort zone of using citrusy or nature inspired colours, so I've pulled some deep pink, light pink, aqua and grey fabrics for this long term project.  I'll need to buy a few more but I've got enough to make a good start, these are my first four blocks.  I love the Tammis O'Keefe reprint cat fabric in the bottom left block, so cute.

I've also been making more Spool blocks.  This was a challenge that my friend Sue and I set for ourselves last year.  Her gorgeous wall hanging is finished, but I've decided I love them so much that I want to make a bigger quilt.  I've got 180 finished now, but think I will need about another 100.  We've been thinking about what to make together next.  It's a lovely way for us to 'sew together' even though she is 400 miles away in Adelaide! 

I also finished this quilt a little while ago.  It's one of the three that I've made using Sandi Henderson's older lines Meadowsweet, Meadowsweet 2 and Farmer's Market, and shot cottons.  I blogged about another of them here, my Sandi Frames quilt (yet to be quilted, as is the third quilt).  It's not a very big quilt, really a lap size quilt, but I love it so much I usually drape it on an angle across my bed.  Wombat approves of this, here he is 'testing' it for me.

The pattern is by Ashley who writes at 'Film in the Fridge'.  It's a free pattern on the Robert Kaufman website. 

I quilted it using my walking foot to sew wonky not-so-straight lines down the length of the quilt.  I think it works really well with this quilt pattern.

I took these photos at my sister's house, her husband collects musical instruments.  The banjo looks great with the quilt, it's fun to use a different location and props that the usual spots around my house. I'm always on the lookout for something to help my photographs look a bit more interesting.  I think the banjo does just that.