Headless peacock

The start of a new project. The first time I saw Violet Craft's new peacock pattern, I knew I had to have it. So when it arrived at my local quilt shop, I immediately ran over to pick it up. I knew I had the perfect fabric somewhere in my sewing room, because I remembered buying some peacock-coloured fabrics a couple of years ago.

Finding it was a bit of a challenge, until I recalled that I had put some fabric collections aside waiting for that perfect project. I pulled it out, checked quantities, and amazingly hsd enough of everything I needed, even the 4 yards of background.

24 (or so) quilting hours later, I have all the main feathers and a body for my peacock.

One-block Wonder

I finally finished another UFO!  This quilt is at least 2 years old, but I'd have to do some digging to find out exactly when I started it. I remember when I bought the fabric - my very first Kaffe Fassett, and I had no idea what/who I was buying at the time, I just liked the look of it and thought it would make a great one-block Wonder. I used a green I had hanging around in my stash to extend the size a bit, and play with an alternate layout. 

When I was ready to quilt it, I realized it was still too small to donate to Victoria's Quilts, so I found some coordinating fabric and added the chevron border on one end.  I wasn't sure about it at first (but I was desperate), but it's starting to grow on me.

That pink smudge in the lower left is the dragonfly label, which is the mark of my Victoria's Quilts group.

Block party

I got a few good ideas on borders when I posted about this quilt last week. What I neglected to mention is that I would have preferred no border at all (as someone suggested), but I want to donate this to Victoria's Quilts so it required a 2-3" border on all sides to meet the size requirements.

That also meant that a double border (narrow inner border and wider outer border) wasn't an option either.  I decided to go with this - a pieced border that tries to continue the basic shading design out to the edges. I think it works, and now at 51"x69", I can donate this once I get it into my quilting queue.

Flight Path

And here it is!  This project didn't take too long.  Each of the airplanes is composed of 7 pieces of fabric, to create large blocks (12x15" I think?).  I quilted this on my new longarm. I figured it would take me about 30 minutes to do a quick wave across the quilt.  But I failed to consider the learning curve I'm still experiencing. 

I setup my pantograph, and had to fight with the computer for a while to get the rows to all flow how I wanted them.  Then, after I finished quilting the first row I noticed an issue with the second, so I had to reprogram it.  Which made it very difficult to line up with the first set of waves.  But, after much effort, I figured it out, got the quilt done, and I know how to quilt this pattern for next time.

The quilt was bound in the background fabric. But I delivered it to the shop before I remembered to take a finished picture.

Paper-Pieced Paper Airplanes

I was asked to make a sample for one of the local shops, so paper piecing landed at the top of the list of projects.  This is going to be "Flight Path", a set of paper airplanes.  So far, all the airplane bodies are made, just waiting for the background fabric to be added.  I hope the little bubbles and pulls I see in the points will disappear when the next pieces go on.

The colours don't show up very well here. The background is the dark fabric you see at the top. The airplane is pale blue, with a white center.  When the background fabric is added, I think they are going to pop nicley.

Block Party Borders

Done! Except for the borders.  I'm not sure what I want to do with this one, I don't really like either of the 2 fabrics shown here, around the full quilt. But I don't have enough of any others to even consider them.  May a pieced border will the way to go here.

Anita's Arrowheads

Earlier this year, I needed a block to make for a block party. 12 of us get together, and each month one person picks a quilt block, provides fabric to the rest and teaches them how to make it.  I picked Anita's Arrowhead for my block, because the piecing on this technique is pretty cool. My only problem was that while I love the block, I was not thrilled with any of the quilts I saw made with it.  But after some pondering, I came up with the idea to do a colourwash, similar to a blooming 9-patch pattern, using these blocks. 

I plotted it out in EQ6, found fabric in my stash, and got set to cut. But I was a bit short of a couple (of my favourite) fabrics. So, I reworked the plan and come up with an off-center design instead, which only needed as much fabric as I had on hand.  The finished quilt needed more than the 12 blocks I got from block party, so the picture above is in the process of being finished, as I make another 23 blocks.