Life is a Garden…

I showed you my garden blocks a few weeks ago which I made as part of our friendship group’s 20ll theme and here they are again finally made into a quilt top with a couple of additions.

I decided to make a larger central block using my Go Baby shape cutter for the flower motifs and then machine zig-zagged around them. I was pretty happy with how they turned out and thought I would embroider the names of the group members on the central block to remind me of who contributed to the various block designs.

It meant of course that I had to do a little bit of a calculation to work out how to incorporate the the squares on either side of the middle block (math is not my strong point)! but in the end I was quite happy adding the floral strips to the two squares and putting a couple of narrow blocks that I could embroider on to.

The other pleasing thing for me was the sashing fabric which I bought about 5 years ago from a closing down sale for a bargain price. There it was just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself and now I can feel satisfied that it has been put to good use … at last! The other blocks too were all made from fabric already in my stash so no new fabric purchased – Yay!

Here is the finished quilt top, hope you like it.

If you want to see a close up of the blocks take a look here

Garden theme friendship quilt

These blocks I’m showing you are actually from our 2010 friendship group quilt. We chose the theme of “Garden” at the beginning of the year so that it would be nice and easy for people to come up with ideas and then we each had to come up with a design for a block which we would present when it was our turn for the monthly get together. The design could be either applique or stitchery as long as it had some connection to the garden theme.

Try to ignore the loose threads hanging (some of the blocks have been hanging about for a while)!

Some of the group had a lot going on in their lives so ended up not making all the blocks; they will probably use whatever they’ve got to make cushions out of. As you can see, this is not a high pressure group (thank goodness)!

There were 10 of us in the group at the time and here are my 10 finished blocks:

The next one was probably my favourite block as I liked the combination of stitches and buttons:

The last block was my contribution although not my own design as I had it in an old magazine and thought it would fit perfectly with the theme:

I hope you like them and I am now planning how I am going to put them all together in one quilt top. I have been playing around with a large centre block and will hopefully be able to show you that soon.

I love to hear how other friendship groups work and if you decide on a yearly theme or just work on individual projects. Let me know as we are always looking for ideas and I will show you some of the other things we have made in future posts.

Baby flannel quilt

Still waiting for news of baby’s arrival (from friends in Bonnie Scotland) but in the meantime I set to putting some flannel squares together to make a nice snuggly quilt for bub. I appliqued some stars on to the squares and then gave to Natalie at the Quilting Bug who echoed the star design in her quilting. Hopefully mum, dad and baby will enjoy!

Baby flannel quilt with stars

Thought you might like to see a couple of other that came back at the same time. The first one is my friend Carol’s who made a large version of this (not shown) and a small baby one which she is about to send off as a present overseas. I think you will agree it is very pretty (and bonus knowing that it is made up from the left-overs of a bigger quilt – including the batting)!

Carrie’s been at it again too! Again this one is going overseas with get well wishes for her mother in law. I think this quilt would cheer up anyone’s Christmas.

Here are some proteas I often pass in a friend’s front garden – I just couldn’t resist their beautiful colours and I hope it brings a touch of sunshine to those going into the depths of winter!!

The Mad Cows Quilt Challenge

OK so we’ve been meeting monthly for a few years now but it was only this year that we came up with a suitable name for ourselves – The Mad Cows and thought we ought to make that the theme for this year’s project.  So each month we take it in turns to come up with a suitable cow block design – reflecting something about ourselves and then we all make our own version of it.

So far I have only completely finsihed two of the blocks (slack cow!) and here they are:-

Di – the beach cow!

Di loves nothing more than lying on the beach with a good book to read so I thought I would give her some rather sexy sun glasses and a beaded bikini – She’s not quit as buxom in real life!!

Julie – my life is a “cowtastrophe”

Julie was feeling the pressure at the time so this is a reflection of a relaxed happy cow (how she would like to be feeling)….. good luck with that Julie. I gave her some rather charming hoop earings and her very own cow bell!

Having seen some of the other girls’ versions I think it will be really fun when they are done and they will all be very different.

Keep ya posted!