The hexagon header quilt

This is the quilt that has drawn the most interest from my blog and I promised I would try and get the publishers of the magazine to fix the link for the correct templates. The magazine is no longer available, not even as a back order. It's done, so click here to get them and make sure you print them with the no scale option for your printer. It's issue 18 Candied Hexagons and there are two pages to download. The maker of the original quilt, Kerry Dear, used the Marti Michell hexagon templates. I hand pieced mine but you can machine piece if you are ok with set in seams.

Top left

top right

bottom left

bottom right

I love the spotty back with the striped binding.

I cut my inner border 1.5" and the outer one 4.25"

I thought I'd show you a few of my favourite hand quilting books. The Encyclopedia of Designs for Quilting is my absolute favourite. It has so much information on background quilting designs and how to make simple cardboard templates to mark them. I do have a couple of others but these are a few of my favourites that I go to for ideas.

stash enhancement

It's not that my stash needs replenishing, it's more that I have plans for these fabrics down the track. The Kaffe Fassetts on the bottom left are a kit I got from Glorious colour for this quilt.
I'm not fussed on the border fabric so will substitute that one.
I'll add fabric to the pile on the top left to make a gorgeous and colourful number I saw on Sarah's blog. The pattern I'm using is in the Material Obsession 2 book. I thought the Moda fabric on the top right would make some great pillowcases. The Fairy princess fabric will do for a giant cushion or as the centers to a little girl's lap quilt.

I'm confessing to my obsession with pouches here. I made the mini one yesterday, really I'm trying them all out to find the ultimate most useful pouch for me. You can see a couple of humbugs here.

These two are from A Passion for Patchwork by Lisa Bergene. This is the winner pattern for me, easy to make, handy, useful, holds quite a bit and love the feel of it. You can make them in any size.

This one is a tiny number, it will hold a thimble, thread and small scissors.

This one is the first pouch I ever made and holds quite a bit. It's a Bronwyn Hayes pattern from Red Brolly. I can't find a link but try google and you'll find shops that stock the patterns.

It's been an amazing week for mail, they know my name and box number at the Post office, It is a small town. MJ in Michigan sent me a big surprise, a magazine to enjoy and a couple of pamphlets from exhibitions she's been too as well as the neat card and check out the photo of the Susan McCord quilt. Yes I need to get back to that project! This will spur me on for sure, Thank you MJ for your thoughtful gift!

Report from retreat

I had a wonderful time on retreat from Friday to Sunday with my sewing group. There were eight of us and we ate, laughed, ate, sewed, you know how it goes. The weather was stormy outside for a lot of the time, perfect for sewing. This is the bag I wanted to get finished, most of us tackled it, only two finished so far. It's the quilters carry all from willow designs. It has eight pockets! I have to say, it was a big task and I did a lot of unsewing.

There are four outside pockets, one coin pocket and three large main pockets inside with the middle one having a zip. Here's a shot inside. I had to get DH to make a delivery of more fabric since the side pockets I had made just weren't working. Lucky we were only five minutes from home.

Today I had a go at making a boxy pouch to accessorise. There's a free tutorial here. Not the easiest pouch I've made in this style, I'll show you my favourites another time. I added a beautiful hand made glass bead to the tassel. I made this one quite a bit deeper than the instructions said to.

Here are a couple of photos of the projects the others were working on. A spools colour wash being hand pieced.

This gorgeous Karen Cunningham quilt pattern that a friend is doing at Quiltsmith. It's the same one Jean is doing.

The same friend is working on this quilt as well and has a pieced border to go on it. I'm sorry I did not get a photo of the William Morris quilt she had there, all appliqued and hand quilted. It was a stunner.

There was some piecing, lots of unsewing, some hand quilting and fun going on and now it'll be another year before we do it again.

A bit of this and that

I haven't shown a quilt in a while and found these photos to share. The tessellated block is an oldie but goodie and can be found in a lot of places. This one is the same as Freddy Moran's version in the Collaborative Quilting book. This monochromatic top is done in batiks and was never quilted because it wasn't doing anything for me. It is interesting to look at though.

I'm off to our annual quilting retreat this weekend, which is only five minutes away from my home so I have been working on getting these bag parts ready so that hopefully, I'll come home with it all completed.

The other ladies are working with these fabric panels as the pockets, aren't they fun?

I'm off to make a giant pot of soup and a batch of biscuits ( cookies to you non Aussies and Kiwis) this apron will help convince me I'm doing some serious cooking, lol. We make sure we don't starve.

A bit of sewing and my nest

I've been wanting to have a go at making this notebook cover from Bloom's tutorial. I started with the same as hers so I could understand measurements for others I want to make. The only adjustment I had to make was to turn in the ends by more to fit better. I did a don't look now butterfly on the back.

There's a bit of sewing room tag going around at the moment and I've shown you mine. Here's my sewing corner in the lounge, otherwise known as the sewing nest. I park myself here to do all my hand sewing and quilting. I haven't dressed up the spot for a mag shoot, I'm keeping it real.

In the corner of the room is my quilt rack that a friend's DH made for me. There's no danger of quilts fading because we had a special film placed over the windows in the french doors to block out UV and harmful rays.