What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I finished the portraits quilt I showed you in the last post.

I used the index card portraits as my inspiration, so I used background fabric that would result in the same size as the index cards.

I used fusible applique to add the body and the body parts: hair, whites of eyes, eyeballs, nose (optional), mouth, and clothing.

I decided to use the binding fabric as a border instead, and since it looked like a frame, I decided to birth the quilt instead of bind it.

I used embroidery stitches to stabilize the quilt instead of stitching in the ...

 This quilt was inspired by a quilt I saw in Quilts for Kids Nepal. It isn't affiliated with the U.S. version of Quilts for Kids. I wanted to make a folk art peacock quilt.

I won't show you that first progress picture, because you have seen it twice already. I started with a background that feels Indian to me, and I added a green strip to add some interest in the background. I love that they both echo the shapes even though the mood of each fabric is very different from each other. 

The original quilt had ...

 My youngest son turned 21 this week and I finished his Topsy quilt just in time.

I haven't been able to get outside for proper photos yet, but I took some quick photos when we tried it on his bed yesterday. 

It's the biggest quilt that I've ever made, so I had it custom quilted by my friend Rayna Clinton from Tui Song Quilting in Wellington, New Zealand. We chose the pattern together and I'm really pleased with it.  It's called Snakes Hexagons by Sharon Perry.

I put the wide back Onion Rings by Brandon ...

The blue quilt from my last post is in a pile on our living room coffee table. I'm doing the binding by hand on the back, during hockey games and watching mystery shows. It is fast, again using Glide, the most wonderful thread for this task. It does not twist, break, or annoy in any way!

I offered to make quilts for refugee families thinking with Covid and the crazy amount of paperwork to get them here, I had lots of time. Not. One family is coming in July, a mom and three daughters. The yellow one is done. The blue on is on the longarm, pictured here. The red top is finished and next in line. The black one is still in my mind. I do have the fabric though. It seems best if they are all done before these gals arrive, but I'm not sure it will happen. I do have another life ...

The Topsy quilt top is finished and I dropped it off to my long arm quilter this morning.  We looked at a lot of quilting designs, and I chose a custom pattern that I'm quite excited about.  I hope you'll think I made a good choice.  

I'm really pleased with how this quilt has turned out.  I loved going through my blue stash and finding all the fabrics that would work.  

My son will turn 21 in July, and this quilt is for him.  As you can see below, it matches the feature wall in his bedroom ...

Here's my latest finish, Trans-Tasman Bubbles.  

This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted by me.  The pattern is by Willyne Hammerstein from her book Millefiori Quilts 4.  In the book it's called "Dancing Cheek to Cheek", but I called my quilt trans-Tasman Bubbles, because the circles keep disappearing and re-emerging as you look at it.  

The trans-Tasman bubble is an agreement between the New Zealand and Australian governments that lets citizens of those countries travel between the two countries without having to stay 14 days in managed isolation/hotel quarantine on arrival.  

However, as soon as ...

I told you I got inspired at the Kapiti Quilt Show last week.  I saw Sheila Christensen's Topsy quilt on her stall, and I remembered that I had bought the pattern back in October at our own guild's exhibition. 

I had promised that I would make new quilts for the bedrooms when we had them painted four years ago, so I decided "this is it".  And I started cutting all my blue fabrics to make a quilt for the room with a blue feature wall.  

I'm making the Queen sized version of Sheila's Topsy pattern, and ...

I had a pile of little short scraps collecting on the cutting table. I was ready to toss them in the garbage when it occured to me they might make a scrappy block. I don't need just one odd scrappy block so I ...