Blogger's Quilt Festival - Original Design - Charm Dash

I am entering a second quilt in to the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I am very proud of my Charm Dash quilt - given it is my first ever released Pattern - so I am entering it in to the Original Design category!

 

Those of you who have been around here for a while would know I released my Charm Dash pattern about a month ago, but for those of you who are new here (You'll find some captivating information about me and my work up there in the "Who is Ms Midge" section  ^^^^) - here's the low down!  The Charm Dash came to be after the first Aussie Charm Swap I ran, with Kate Spain fabrics.  I was left wondering how to use my 5" charm squares without wasting ANYTHING?  After tossing and turning one night, I spent the morning drawing up a block, which would go on to be the Charm Dash block and a whole quilt!

 

The block is a bit of a mutant churn dash - except that you are using 5" charm squares and not wasting a single inch of fabric.  

 

It is perfect for showcasing your favourite fabrics - and in my case, the Kate Spain collection of prints was a stunning example of how fabrics from a multitude of collections can mix beautifully.

 

I pieced and quilted the whole quilt using my trusty Aurifil #2024 in a 40wt.  The free motion pattern is what I'd like to call "vines", but you can call it whatever you like!

The backing is a very simple on fabric finish - but oh, what a fabric!

This quilt made me believe that I could actually reallllly be original and come up with some of my own quilty ideas!  Which in turn led me to designing my Pavement Puddles quilt.  So I guess you could say it was the start of a whole new beginning!

A BIG thank you to Amy's Creative Side for always putting on a fabulous quilt show!  You can check out the Festival main page HERE.  Make sure you allocate yourself a few hours to get through all the quilty eye candy!  And you can also nominate your favourite quilts HERE!

QUILT STATS:

Designed & pattern made by Me!

Size: 50" x 62.5"

Fabric: Kate Spain Charm squares & White Homespun

Quilting:  By Me on my Bernina

Thread: Pieced and quilted with Aurifil 40wt in #2024

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Large Quilt - Pavement Puddles

I'm being very brave and throwing my hat quilt in the ring Blogger's Quilt Festival!  If you're new here to my blog - WELCOME!  You'll find some captivating information about me and my work up there in the "Who is Ms Midge" section  ^^^^

I have a lot of quilts, yes, but the quilt I'm putting forward for the Large Quilt category is my 

Pavement Puddles.....

I designed this quilt under a little bit of pressure - from myself mostly - to come up with something original for my first ever magazine submission.  I was thrilled with the end result and loved the way the colours mixed from tone to tone and through the cool colour spectrum.  It reminded me of the puddles on the pavement after a sun shower!  I was also incredibly impressed with my mathematical ability...... As I designed the pattern all by myself!

It was also my first attempt at any type of hexagon!  It may not be a traditional hexie - but nobody has ever called me traditional, so I can live with that.....

The backing is a very simple, yet effective layout.

And all of the puddles have been straight line quilted using varying shades of my favourite Aurifil 40wt threads!

I had an absolute ball photographing Puddles......as you can tell from the above photo!  I had a couple of wonderful "assistants" who just happen to be expert bed jumpers!

I said goodbye to this quilt yesterday!  It was gifted to one of my wonderful BFF's for her 40th birthday, and I'm very happy to report that she sent me photos of it last night, settled in to its new home.  

A BIG thank you to Amy's Creative Side for always putting on a fabulous quilt show!  You can check out the Festival main page HERE.  Make sure you allocate yourself a few hours to get through all the quilty eye candy!  And you can also nominate your favourite quilts HERE!

QUILT STATS:

Designed & pattern made by Me!

Size: 51" x 74.5"

Fabric: Horizon by Kate Spain & Peppered Cotton by Studio E

Quilting:  By Me on my Bernina

Thread: Pieced and quilted with Aurifil 40wt in various colours

The pattern for this quilt is published in Issue One of Make Modern Magazine.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Scrappy Refractatorium Bee Quilt

For my second entry in to the Blogger's Quilt Festival - run by the lovely Amy over at Amy's Creative Side - I have chosen my Scrappy Refractatorium Quilt!  (You can find the original post HERE) I was torn over whether to pop it in the Wall Hanging category or the Bee category? The decision was straight forward in the end - this divine piece of work was a culmination of mine and eight other fabulous ladies - whom I like to call my friends. 

I was approached earlier this year by my lovely friend Gemma. She told me she and the other gals in Wombat Stew would love me to join their paper piecing bee! I nearly fell over..... You see, I had seen their work in our quilting group on FB, and I knew how good they all were - and I didn't know if I would be up to their standards! But I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth - so I jumped in - head first! 

When it was my turn to decide what I would like the ladies to make for me, I really only had one idea. I'd seen Quilt Jane's Refractatorium quilt on IG and on her blog. And I adored it. So I chose that pattern. Then came a tsunami of ideas on how I would turn it in to my own vision? After much thought, Kristy kindly altered the pattern a little, and once printed out, I got my black texta and got to colouring in! I worked out that I wanted black to be the "constant" throughout the project, and then threw caution to the wind, giving my wombat gals very loose guidelines on the types of colours/fabrics I would like included. To say I was happy with the blocks I received would be the understatement of the year decade century. I died, time and time again, as each block arrived in the mail! And after a few months of umming and ahhing about how I would make them in to "something", I decided my first wall hanging was to be...... 

  

My ten year old daughter thinks it looks like an optical illusion.....and I tend to agree with her!

The finished size is 105cm x 105cm.  It is the perfect size for this wall!

    

I pieced the blocks together and quilted it using Aurifil #2692 50wt black thread.  It was super tricky pebbling black on black, but I love the effect it had on the frame around the blocks.

  

I LOVE the scrappiness of all the bright colours together.  Out of the nine blocks - none feature the same two fabrics!

  

Being my first wall hanging, I had to put together my first hanging sleeve.  I was impressed with myself - and it still hasn't fallen down yet!

And the final result.  Hanging proudly on our lounge room wall.  Some days as I'm walking towards the front door, I just stop and stare.  So does the cat.

A BIG thank you to my Wombat Stew girls - Gemma, Jane, Kristy, Marieka, Alyce, Gina, Fiona and Lara.  Becoming a Wombat has opened up so many quilty avenues for me that I truly did not even know existed!  I'm so grateful to be able to call you friends. xxx

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Swoon Bed Quilt

A big thank you to Amy's Creative Side for organising the Blogger's Quilt Festival, so those of us who can't get to Quilt Market have something to get excited about!  I've decided to enter my most beloved Swoon in to the Bed Quilt category.  You can see the original post HERE.  I will have another post shortly for my second entry :)

Those of you who have been around here for a while would have seen many a blog post about this quilt, the whole process was dissected each week through photos.  And you all shared my excitement, which made putting it together even more exhilarating than ever!

I had my fat quarter bundle of Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill for months, and after much searching and thinking about how I would use it, I stumbled across the Swoon phenomena!  I had absolutely no idea that this quilt pattern had swept the world, but was happy to be joining in!

I became rather obsessed with getting the quilt finished, and managed to get it all done in a matter of weeks.  I was able to fussy cut the centre blocks in all but one of them, which was quite an effort given they're all cut from fat quarters.  I tried to choose the prints in each block so that they would accentuate the amazing colours and not overpower each other.  I was pleasantly surprised with the colour balance when I'd completed then all.

 I sent it off to the quilter (the first time I've had a quilt quilted by someone else!) and was stunned with the end result!  The binding went on quickly and that night, I put my kids to work holding this huge baby up!  Bella the cat inspected it and was very happy.

The backing was made up of rows of left over Notting Hill and the white broadcloth I used for the top. And then lots of yardage of this divine print.

I'm happy to say it lives very happily on our bed.  I'm not very happy to say that Bella still loves the quilt, and leaves her black hair as a calling card.....

The gorgeous all over quilting design.

And the quilt that took over our lounge room.

I say it with most of the quilts I make, but I think this really is my all time favourite.  Perhaps just because it was made for me, right from the time I purchased the fabric.

In the details: Machine pieced on my Bernina.  Finished size: 90" x 90".  Machine Quilted by Jeanette @ Gone Aussie Quilting.