Round Robin Border 4

Hello, here is a new post about our Round Robin group:

This time, I received Serena’s centre block from Rebecca. I was very anxious to receive this quilt top as many layers were paper pieced (3 out of 4) and I never tried this technique before. All the ladies did an amazing job with the rainbow colours and I had no idea how to keep up with the skills and creativity level.

My first thought was to keep the same block size as a nine patch and create some stars, keeping the rainbow colours.  I looked online and found the friendship star block. I liked the name, I liked the shape, I was sold!

The only issue was to find some rainbow fabric. I don’t have an extensive stash and most of my fabric are florals, so not ideal for that project. To my surprise, many people were keen to help and I went through everyone’s stash in Wellington to find the fabric I needed.

I had to find four different shade of one colour plus a tiny piece to fussy cut to add a little bit of interest at the centre of the star. I bought the background fabric at the local store and it’s funny how the design replicate the quilting I’m currently doing on my Arizona quilt. 

I love the result, each star is so special. The star bellow is made of scraps from Deb (I believe the “Cat nap” line) and the centre is from my stash (“Sweet as honey” line).

My colleague advised me to switch slightly the colours to give a bit of a movement to my border. I thought it was a good idea.

When talking to Wendy, the next person for this quilt, she says she might not use the rainbow colour. I wasn’t brave enough the break to rainbow but I’ve included black wonky stars blocks at each corner to introduce new tone. Hope it would be helpful for her.

I love the result and I’m quite proud of myself. At the start, I really had no idea how to keep up with the level but I think the result looks nice and blend well with the spirit of this quilt. Yay!

Don’t forget to check my Possum Magic friends over here:

• Carla from Granny Maud’s Girl
• Wendy from Wendy’s Quilts and More
• Jane from Where Jane Creates
• Jo from Riddle and Whimsy
• Serena from Sew Giving
• Sharon from Motherdragon’s Musings
• Rebecca from One Wee Bird

Linking up with:

Goodbye/Welcome back gift

Few weeks back, I left work as my contract was ending. I mentioned before that I currently live in New-Zealand with my husband and, being French, we need visa to stay. We weren’t sure that the visa would be accepted and my work decided to give me a goodbye gift on my last day. Turns out visa were granted and I went back to work one week after I left. So the “goodbye gift” became a “welcome back gift”. Ha!

They picked for me some Kiwiana fabric. Kiwiana is a fabric line representing some aspects of Kiwi’s culture (such as the silver fern, specific native birds, maori patterns, etc). It’s a good way to create a memory quilt. 

I really like this cute kingfisher and those bright ferns. I know which quilt I want to make with those fabrics (the fabric were actually cut for a specific pattern), so as a true quilter I cut all my squares and packed them in glad wrap bags. Those bags would be ready to sew in the new Year! 

Do you have anything planed already for the coming year? Do you prep some of your quilts too?

Linking up with:

Possum Magic Round-up: Border 3

As you might now, I belong to a Round Robin group called Possum Magic. I am currrently working on border number 4 (you can see few blocks in my Instagram feed here). Before sharing it with you, I would like to show you what everyone’s been working on during border number 3:

I love watching the evolution of each quilt. Everyone from the group, adds their personal touch but the quilt remains cohesive. It is just so pretty to watch them all growing.

Possum Magic cast:

• Rebecca from One Wee Bird
• Jane from Where Jane Creates
• Jo from Riddle and Whimsy
• Me
• Wendy from Wendy’s Quilts and More
• Carla from Granny Maud’s Girl
• Serena from Sew Giving
• Sharon from Motherdragon’s Musings

Sweet new fabrics

Few weeks back, I placed two fat quarter bundle in my “cart” and press “proceed to check out”. It was such an impulse buy and slightly silly to be honest. You see, I currently live with my husband in NZ and our visas were about to expired. We applied for new visas but we didn’t know for sure if they would be accepted or not. I bought these fabric just when we were waiting the answer and I could have left the country without them if we had to leave the country.

The good news is: we have new visas!!! So, we are staying in NZ and I can enjoy my new fabric. I chose Acorn Trail from Birch fabric.

This line is so sweet, every print is my favourite. I can’t wait to create a simple square quilt with this line.

My second fabric crush was Sweet as honey from Art gallery fabric. I had my eyes on this line for quite a while and decided that now was a good time to get it. 

I can’t wait to use this fabric and I was thinking to create either a large hexagon quilt (like one hexagon per fat quarter) or the Razzle quilt from Amanda. What do you think? What would you do?

Linking this new purchase to:

Baby hoodie in the making

I’m starting a new knitting project. My colleague, seeing that I really enjoy knitting at the moment, offered me a pattern. It’s a hooded Coat from Shepherd. She said it’s an old time Kiwi favorite and so many kids were wearing this jacket here in New-Zealand. It is very convenient as the size can fit a 6 months to a 1 year old baby.

I’ve decided to go with Cleckheaton tweed yarn. I went for a dark color as I see it as a winter jacket. I like the look of the tweed but, as I knit, I keep taking them out as I’m annoyed that something is sticking out.

The pattern is easy to follow and I had no difficulty to create the texture. However, when it is necessary to decrease, I can’t seem to follow the pattern correctly and I keep unpicking it. Hope, I will crack the code.

The texture is very funny, this is what makes it extensible to fit a wide range of sizes. It’s quite old school but I like it and I’m sure it would be very warm to wear.

Are you knitting anything specific at the moment? Please leave a comment and let me know. I would love to hear (and see, if you have a blog post about it).