How to fold a quilt...

Did you know that you should ALWAYS fold a quilt on the bias. Check out Becky Goldsmith's youtube video to show you how that's done:  

When fabric is folded on the straight of grain, the fibres are more prone to damage which leads to permanent creases forming in your quilt. I know I've heard this before, but this time I took notice

Now I have a stack of quilts in my cupboard folded on the bias and when I found my Christmas quilts, I left them unfolded in preparation for their appearance at my house in December.

Simply Delicious Quilt Finished!

My first blogpost about this quilt was in August 2010 so this has been a long time in the making (a long time sitting in a cupboard anyway!) At that stage I had tried a couple of times to hand applique the pieces before realising that fusing and machine stitching the blocks was much more me! By October 2010 I had fused them all

but then they got packed away and only re-surfaced in September last year when I started the sashings 

In January of this year I was quilting the backgrounds, and it resurfaced again in April when I was ready to move onto the leaves

A couple of weeks ago, I was disappointed that I had missed the deadline of showing at our quilt show, but I changed my studio around, determined to focus on completing it

It's now school holidays, and I've had a couple of decent blocks of time and now it's all done. Here are the individual blocks - click on any photo to see it larger and check out the quilting detail

This quilt makes me feel happy. The original quilt pattern had 12 blocks, but I have just made 9 and set them in my own way. If you would like to make your own, the original pattern can be found here at Piece O' Cake Designs.
This is the label - it's a corner left over from my grandmother's fabric serviettes that I used for my Fabric Banner.

And now the quilt's hanging at our front door where I can enjoy it every day :-)

Quilt Show this weekend

This weekend it's our quilt club exhibition that we hold every 2 years.

There's more information of what's on show HERE. It's always inspiring to see so many quilts together, and there's shopping opportunities too! Worth a look if you're in Palmerston North this weekend. I don't have anything that I am showing this year. I had hoped to get my "Simply Delicious" quilt completed, but unfortunately I'm not there yet.

Simply Delicious Quilt top ready to layer and quilt

In April I shared my quilting progress. At that stage I had finished quilting the backgrounds, and was moving onto fruit and leaves. It's still very much a work in progress! I've sporadically quilted a few more leaves and thought I would share some of the designs I've used

They are free-motion quilted - nothing marked ahead of time 

I like to see what the leaf shape suggests to me...I am not following any kind of pattern for the quilting designs

And it is really cool to see the difference between a leaf unquilted

and with the addition of stitch

I now have a new aim of completion by the end of 2014...I've rearranged the studio and hope this will help support my quilting. Before :

After :

Better room and support for quilting. Less room for mixed media messes! Hopefully this will help guide me to where I need to be spending more of my time for a while. 

I am still quilting...

Going to those quilt shows last month really got me enthused again about quilting. By reminding myself to get out to my studio instead of spending time on the computer and by utilising micro-movements between working and family demands, I've managed to make some quilting progress on this quilt top that was completed in September last year

I've completed quilting the background squares and have made a good start on the branches, and some of the leaves and fruit. Here are some peeks - click on the photos to see them closer up. 

Block fused before quilting

The applique pieces were fused to the background squares (as seen above) and I am attaching the applique and doing the quilting in one step. 

Using this method I am stitching through all 3 layers at once so you see ALL the stitching on the back of the back of the quilt

I'll show you the quilt when it's finished...not predicting how long that will take me though! Hope you have a happy and creative week.

Fabric works in progress

Anniversary collage and 50th birthday collage

Apart from the above, most of my recent creating has been cards and art journaling. I really want to stitch more this year so am sharing these next 2 projects with the aim that this might help me give them some attention!
You last saw this quilt top in September - it's not going to be packed away this time. It WILL get finished!

I've made a start by quilting the sashings and I'm now working on the backgrounds...can't wait til I'm done with that and can start quilting the fruit

The other project is the workshop with Deborah Boschert which I began in October last year. I showed you my gatherings and some printing on fabric. Now I'm up to composing the layout. So many possibilities...

More to come - I promise!

Simply Delicious Quilt progress

I shared these blocks as I fused them together in 2010! - this was the start.
It's been an unfinished project for too long, and I decided to take my own advice the other day and have been using micro-movements to make some progress. Threaded up the sewing machine so it's ready whenever I am

Sorted the sashings I've started putting together

Gradually piecing them into longer strips

and adding them to blocks

Building them together in stages

So gratifying to see how small amounts of time add up to satisfying progress

Hopefully more on this soon....You can see the original 12-block quilt and download your own pattern from Piece O' Cake designs here.