Finished: The "Berrima" Quilt

Let me introduce to you "Berrima", the quilt I made for my mother for Christmas. I have called it "Berrima", after the quaint village township where I purchased the fabrics with her many years ago. This quilt is made from a pattern by an independent designer that I purchased many years ago (forgive me, since moving my sewing room into the other room I have misplaced the pattern. Once I find it I will credit the designer).

"Berrima" was made using woollen batting and an eclectic collection of quilting fabrics. I decided to contrast the floral prints with the red ticking strips, and also a paisley print binding. This beauty is 2.3 meters square, making it large enough to drape over a queen sized bed. I made a couple of mistakes with my machine quilting, mainly I suspect this was due to my basting. I secured the layers with quilting pins, but I don't think I used enough, so there was a little bit of movement in some parts. 

I have to admit, it was a little hard to give away :-)

I hope you enjoy snuggling under this in the coming winter mum!

Love Sam xox

A finished quilt.

Let me tell you a secret... making a quilt completely by machine is sooooooo much quicker than by hand! Don't worry, I have not completely turned my back on hand quilting (it is such a beautiful method of quilting), I just have a new found appreciation for quilting on my machine.

I have always been a strong 'hand quilting' advocate, but for quilt gifts that need to be made in a reasonable time machine quilting really is a good option. Some benefits of machine quilting:

> You don't need to plan quilt gifts two years in advance (yes I am not the quickest hand quilter around).

> Your stitches will be even.

> There are so many different stitch options - classic stitches, fancy stitches, embroidery stitches.

> The quilt is able to be washed by machine.

> Machine quilting is perfect for summer when it's too hot to have a quilt on your lap when working on it.

> A machined made quilt perfect gift for babies as it can be washed umpteenth times if it gets dirty.

> A machined quilt makes a perfect picnic blanket.

I made this quilt for a friends new baby boy (the one I made those bibs for). I had started this quilt prior to our move, and had not had a chance to finish it until we moved and unpacked all our boxes. These friends visited us recently so I was finally able to give it to them.

The quilt is made up of nine pin wheel blocks (five blue and four yellows) set out with a 3" calico sash separating them. I chose 1930's reproduction fabrics and tried to stick with a 1930's feedsack and cotton theme. I had wanted to bind this quilt in blue, but I was unable to find the 'right' blue, so settled on yellow. My friend said she preferred the yellow binding as it made the quilt a bit more gender neutral.

He appeared to like the quilt! It was always intended to be a floor quilt, something my friend could lie him on and scatter his toys around him. He is such a sweet little boy :-)

And of course, I couldn't leave out some machine quilting photos...

What is it with quilts and cats? When ever you take out some sewing to do, suddenly the cats appear!

Machine quilting is simply a breeze on my new machine. There is enough space to the right of the needle to fit a rolled up quilt, and the IDT system means that there is no bunching of the bottom fabric when stitching.

I didn't stray too far from the familiar - choosing the mock hand quilting stitch.

Babies are wiggly!!!

I will put up a post later this week with some basic instructions on how to make this quilt yourself.

Hope you're all going to have a brilliant weekend!

Sam xox

Machine quilting.

Following my stressful beginning of this week I decided I need to do a bit of sewing 'therapy' at sewing class. I didn't want to face the tricky scalloped jacket I have been working on. Instead I decided to do some experimental quilting on my new machine and see what I could create...

First I did some "mock hand quilting" on a simple pin wheel block. I will bind this in blue and hang it somewhere in the house. I then decided to test out some of the machine quilting stitches. First I tried all the different straight quilting stitches, both stitched in the ditch and also 1/4 inch from the seams. This is what my practices looked like...

Then I decided to be more adventures and try out some of the "crazy quilting stitches". Some of them are beautifully vintage in style!

I had tried machine quilting in the past on my old Janome My Style but found, even with the walking foot, that the stitches would never be right and the machine would struggle. Because of this I have shied away from machine quilting. Now I have a machine that can handle the job, the sky is the limit.

Any machine quilting tips people?

Sam xox

Camilla's quilt.

Oh you all have no idea how much I have been busting to show this quilt to you!

It may appear lately like I haven't been doing much quilting - it's a lie! Because Camilla reads this blog I was unable to post ANY of my progress on this quilt.

In February I decided to make a quilt for Camilla to take with her to the US to help make her appartment feel more like home.

I searched through my large collection of Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine to find the perfect pattern. I came across this one, it is called Friendship Star and the quilt example in the book was made from coutry homespun fabrics, and the feature fabric was a mushroom brown. I changed that in my quilt to a bright yellow homespun, and complimented it with a variety of 1930's reproduction fabrics from my stash.

I love these fabrics as Camilla knows, and I also think you can't help but smile when you look at them - perfect when you are away from home!

So many nights were spent in secret making this quilt. I had it machine quilted by a lovely lady called Kay Brown at The Finishing Touch. Kay did an amazing job! It was the first time I have had a quilt machine quilted and I couldn't be happier with the result... I think I will do it again!

I had planned to finish it a week before the party, but the flu hit me bad, and I was still sewing the last bit of binding onto the quilt the night before the party!

It is also a relief to finally give it to Mill and tell her what I had been up to, as over the last few months I have been going to craft night with no evidence of progress on my vintage quilt - now she knows what I have been spending all my quilting time on! :-)

Here are some photos of the quilts journey...

And this is Mill with her quilt and pillow. Michelle knitted this pillow for Mill to take with her. She did such a great job on it! Camilla only taught Michelle to knit in January of this year, so I think this is an amazing job considering she has only been knitting for less than 6 months!

Again, every craft night Mill could not work out why the scarf Michelle was working on was just not growing!

Sam xox