It's been a while.

I have been neglecting this blog recently.  Oops.  Maybe that would be a good new year's resolution - keep up to date and keep quilting!
So some photos and descriptions of recent creations:

This is a 60" square sofa throw for my mother.  She requested something with deep green in it and being a fan of Australiana I decided to largely use material from the Robert Kaufmann range "Under the Australian Sun".  I love the pink and turquoise line within it and think it really gives, what could have been a bit of a cliche, a real twist.  The pattern is adapted from one I found for jelly rolls. 

 The back is a sage broadcloth with a couple of accents added.

 The following three items are part of a Christmas order for my first proper word of mouth client!  She was fortunately very happy with the results. :)
First up is a table runner using a mixture of great materials sourced from the US (gee those guys know how to do Christmas!)  The tartan gives it a real Scottish Christmas feel and the little red birds are so cute.  The pattern is this one.

 The next item I made for her was a baby girl quilt.  It is quite a generous size, about 40" x 48" so it should last a while.  I started with the colourful daisy print and picked out colours from there. I love the baby animal print too - There is nothing too saccharin about this quilt, which I am very pleased about. :)  It is a square in square design, which always looks lovely and fresh and modern.

 Finally another table runner.  This time using real Americana Christmas materials, mostly (or maybe even entirely) from the "Jingle all the Way" series.  I adore this range because it is really understated in its Christmas motifs and yet when put together it shouts festive season.  It is a runner for a 6 seater table so ended up about 2m long (yes, I do sometimes use metric!)  The design is my own using traditional sawtooth and Ohio star blocks.  I had an image in my mind it came to fruition almost exactly, which was very exciting.  It is backed with the same gold check used in the sashing.

The production line is starting....

Here is the first cab off the rank so to speak:

It is a disappearing 9 patch design, which looks a lot harder than it actually is. :)  I had had the blocks done for a while but not sized or sorted, I had had a number of intentions for them but they just kept being put to the back of the queue.  Until now.  I love the pink and green combination - I think I have managed to include pretty much all my favourites here although I do love the guitars on the white background!  As my mother in law said to me today - although this is a baby girl's quilt it will still be relevant when she is a child or a teenager.  The prints are unashamedly girly but not too juvenile.  I love the backing material too and the colours work perfectly with the front.

New pretties!

This beautiful bundle of fabric is winging its way to me.  As is this and this.  And maybe a few other things too...but I needed them! Honest. :)

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

I love the idea of versatile quilts but for some reason haven't really managed to make one until now.  I think because the baby quilts I have been making are very much baby quilts - novelty fabric and the like, which means no self respecting adult would want to adorn a chair or their knees or a picnic with it down the track. :) 
However, with this latest (completed) project, which I think got finished within a 24hour time period (a record for me!) I started with the challenge of making a gender neutral baby quilt.  This is because it is going to be sold to raise funds for family who are going to Cambodia to do charitable work and I wanted it to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  So then I thought why not go further and make it appeal beyond the baby market?  The result was this:

It is made from a range of coordinating woven fabrics, which lend an amazing texture and softness to the quilt.  When I first received the bundle of material in the post a couple of years ago I wasn't sure what to do with them as I was only used to using printed quilting cottons and hadn't realised that these were woven.  So it has taken a while to get the confidence to use them as they are quite dense and stretchy.  Here is a detail:


 
Mmmm!  Raspberry and lemon sorbet! The materials and pattern, which make for a bright and cosy baby quilt for either a boy or girl, also put me in mind of picnics in the early Summer and I think it would be just as nice for that purpose as for a baby.  It really made me think - there is no reason that a baby quilt should be put away in mothballs once the little one is toddling, if the quilt doesn't scream baby then there is no reason it can't be used, enjoyed and loved for years to come...

Not waving, drowning

I have a crazy number of projects underway at the moment, which all have a November/December deadline.  There are table runners, quilts and baby quilts quite literally coming out of my ears.  Still, good news is that I will have lots of photos soon as they come off the production line...
Not much time this week for sewing during the day as I have been busy baking and cooking up a storm for my little one's first birthday party this weekend.  I can't believe he is one already.  Happy birthday for tomorrow sweetheart. 

Experimenting

I love colour and I love contemporary fabrics but I haven't really explored the possibility of Australian Aboriginal fabrics until recently.  I am not entirely sure how I am going to use them, whether they will be integrated into a quilt via their colour scheme or if they will feature on their own.  Anyway, time will tell.  Here is what I spent my pennies on:
Desert flowers
On walkabout
I also couldn't resist these batiks, I am much more familiar with batiks and the colours of these ones were eye popping. :)
Orange! Purple!

Flannel Zigzag

Another quilt finished!  This is a quilt made on commission for a friend's nephew.  I don't often work in flannels and this quilt suggested why - despite being a single bed topper it was very heavy by the end when I was binding it.  Flannel also has a bit more give in it than cotton, which also proved challenging.  I actually had all good intentions of completing this quilt for her nephew when he was a *baby*, ahem, last year but then I fell pregnant and had my own baby to distract me...so the baby quilt became a little boy quilt instead - increasing in size to fit a "big boy bed" and benefiting (I feel) from the addition of a bit of red and dark blue to de-baby the the overall feel.

Here it is flapping in the breeze on a windy, overcast day...

 I really like the accents of red in the front, picked up by the stitching and the binding...

A detail of the zigzags sowing the different materials (the seals are my favourite, so much so that I made my label out of the seal print too!  It is visible in the 2nd picture) and the red quilting stitches.  I am really working on making my quilting more interesting and getting away from just doing it in the ditch to be practical...

Project Peanut

I am now at liberty to write about my latest completed baby quilt as it was given to the mother to be today. :)

Here are some pictures of it:

 The design is based on Cluck, Cluck, Sew's Wonky block quilt, which I think has great movement to it.  The centres are fussy cut jungle animals from Hoffman fabric's "It's a jungle out there"  range.  I contemplated using the same range's stripes or circles or something but in the end selected various bright spots and tonals from my stash.  To pleasing effect I think. :)  Finding the blue on blue dot for the sashing, which was *the* perfect match to the blue in the blocks, took some doing but was worth the effort.  It really brings the quilt to life.  So as not to distract from the main appeal of the blocks themselves I bound it in the blue too.

 Here is a close up of one of the blocks showing the quilting I did.  I am getting into the whole double lines design and rather like it, especially for children's quilts and bold designs.  I echoed the double lines within each block as they are quite large blocks which needed something to break up the space...

 The backing isn't pieced as with many of my larger quilts.  Instead I backed it with an orange striped flannel, which will hopefully be hard wearing and cosy for the little man. 

Watch this space...

I have three baby quilts in various stages of completion.  One has a finished top and is waiting to be quilted and bound, one is laid out in blocks waiting to be sewn and the final one is finished!  I have taken photos but don't know if the recipient lurks here at all so until it has been given as a gift, it will just have to remain secret...:)  I promise to post it as soon as it has been gifted though!

Raggy baby quilt

This is a baby quilt I did last year but forgot to photograph.  It is just a cute little flannel raggy quilt but the memorable thing about it for me is that it was really my first commissioned baby quilt.  (I had made a wedding quilt made to the recipient's design specs earlier in the year but that was a gift from me).  So anyway, thanks Deb for believing in my quilting enough to purchase this quilt for your friend's baby.  I believe it has had much use and love, just as a quilt should. :)

Memory game

Thanks Amanda for pointing me towards this memory game.  Looks absolutely gorgeous!  Can't wait until my little man is old enough to appreciate something like this although maybe I had better make a start on one soon considering how long projects are currently taking me...:)

A package in the post...

I love receiving packages in the mail, especially ones containing...fabric. :)
Today I got a box from fabric.com -  not a site I have used before but they proved to be very efficient, reasonably priced and had a great selection of unusual fabrics.  Some of my favourites in the box were some Kaffe Fassett materials and a "Sherbet Pips" jelly roll.  No immediate plans for using them but plenty of ideas...

Hello world

Hi, I'm Kate but hope to become known through my quilting as Jemima.  It was my nickname as a little girl and seems somehow apt that I use it now as I embark on my quilting journey.  Actually my journey started a couple of years ago and traces of it can be found here but I feel the time has come to give my sewing its own space.  After all, it has its own room now!
This all sounds very grand and it isn't really but I hope it will be a nice space to explore quilting, share things and show and tell...