Quilt Club Australia Handmade Swap Reveal!

Photo Courtesy of Caz @ The Accidental Quilter

Caz and Kristy from the Quilt Club Australia group recently coordinated the inaugural QCA Handmade Swap. For the last couple of months we've all been secretly working on our swap projects and posting the occasional sneak peek in the QCA Handmade Swap facebook page.. but the time has come and projects are being received left, right and centre! 

My secret swap partner was coordinator Caz herself.. who said she would like a doll quilt or a table runner, and loved "Aqua, Teal, Red, Grey, Purple, Orange (not all necessarily together, lol)". As far as stalking goes, Caz and I are both part of the QCA Craftsy BOM Support Group so I already knew that after doing our April hexy blocks that she had fallen in love with EPP... and she'd presioulsy mentioned on her blog that she was making a quilt for herself using Kate Spain's "Good Fortune". Well hello! Good Fortune pretty much ticks off all those colours (except red) AND I just happened to have a bag of GF scraps from Kate Spain herself..

So I prepared myself a little take along pack (I'm not quite as organised as Caz, I haven't gotten around to making myself a Zakka sewing kit for my EPP... still using a ziplock bag!) to take to the markets with me so that I could be productive during the quiet moments.

As you can see, there were enough quiet moments for me to pin and baste almost all my hexagons... infact there was enough time to baste them all, but my poor little needle clearly couldn't take the pressure and snapped in half with only 2 hexies left to baste! (insert swearing here - that will teach me not to carry a spare needle!)

Once I got home, found a new needle and basted the last 2 hexies I divided them out into orange/purple and then played around until I got them in an order that I liked before whip stitching them together. I knew that I wanted to put them on a grey background, and as luck would have it I had just enough left over from when I'd made my bee blocks.

Naturally I appliqued them onto the grey using my sewing machine! But how to quilt it? My hexies were mirror imaged, so I couldn't echo the zig zag because it would clash in the middle, and I didn't really think an all over FMQ design would suit... luckily Phillipa provided me with some inspiration. The week before she'd made her sister a table runner for her birthday and she'd quilted it using a wavy stitch that her machine offers (sooooo need a new machine! Mine only has 21 stitches, and for a start, buttonhole is NOT one of them!).. anyway, she very kindly let me use her machine to quilt my table runner using the same wavy stitch. I wanted it to be fairly organic in that aside from drawing a line down the middle of the table runner to mark the centre point, I just eyeballed the distance between lines and didn't worry about whether the waves were matchy matchy. I didn't want to quilt over the hexies, which I think was definitely the right move.

I cut some 2.5" strips from my GF scraps to make binding, and made a little label for my table runner using Daisy my embroidery machine (I remembered to applique that onto the backing - using Phillipa's buttonhole stitch - before I quilted it) and voila! It was complete!

I forgot to take any pictures of it all laid out nicely before I sent it off to Caz because I was trying to go with the whole sneak peek thing, but luckily for me when Caz received it she took some gorgeous photos of it and said I could share them with you all!

Photo Courtesy of Caz @ The Accidental Quilter

I am pleased to say that Caz was very happy with her table runner, and plans to use it on her dressing table to complement her Good Fortune quilt - how perfect was that?! I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and even more thrilled that Caz really likes her gift.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting ever so patiently for my postman to bring me my very own surprise gift.. stay tuned!

Peach Blossom Perfection - A Desperate Housewife Quilt Block

You may not have realised it yet, but it turns out that I'm one of those people who thrives on tight deadlines.. give me unlimited time and I'll procrastinate, but give me a short deadline and I'll surprise even myself! That's not to say that it's my preferred mode of action, it just seems to be the most productive!

Anyway, after completing my "Thifty Housewife" block for Jane's Desperate Housewife's Quilt I asked her how many blocks she still needed to reach her goal of 100 blocks in total.. and with a little help from the Quilt Club Australia girls, Jane was able to close the gap significantly (she has 6 guest blocks this week!). Still, she was one or two blocks shy of the total.. so naturally I offered to whip up another block because I had nothing better to do ;) (Haha, actually it was rather the opposite- this week/weekend is crazy busy, but refer to my earlier comments about tight deadlines!)

I pulled some of my precious Kate Spain "Good Fortune" scraps, my 1" hexie template (available for purchase in Jane's store!) and even fussy cut my fabric! I'll confess that the green print is a generic Spotlight print because none of my green GF scraps were big enough to turn into hexies.

To make one block you will need to cut:

6x hexagons in your "floral" print

4x hexagons in your "leaf" print

Jane's templates are perfect for use with 2.5" strips in addition to fussy cutting.

 Baste your hexagons and whipstitch as laid out above. (If you need information on how to baste & whipstitch hexagons, you should check out the Craftsy BOM - it's free and Amy Gibson from Stitchery Dickory Dock has put together some great video tutorials. Hexagons were in the April tutorial)

Starch & press (really, if you don't starch, please try it!) and then remove basting stitches and paper templates. Press again if desired.

Decide on a background fabric and pin in place. Applique the motif on by machine or by hand as per personal preference. Your block is complete!

 My husband was kind enough to put together a block (digitally) that shows what your block could look like if you took the time and the effort to fussy cut all your hexagons - doesn't it look gorgeous when it's all perfect and symmetrical?

And here is what a 4 block layout could look like! Thank you, husband ♥

Hexagons and Wonky Log Cabins

I was looking through my Craftsy BOM block photos last night and realised that I hadn't taken any photos of my completed April & May blocks! (Or my June blocks, but I haven't even started those yet!)

So without further ado, may I present:

April Block #1 - Hexy Stripe

I very much enjoyed the Hexy Stripe block - I wish I'd thought to do what Phillipa did with hers and place the hexies on the diagonal so that I didn't have to cut any up! Infact, I enjoyed it so much that it served as inspiration for my QCA Handmade Swap project that I have under way at the moment.. more details about that another time, though (it's a secret!)

April Block #2 - Sunny with a Chance of Hex

This block was *so* easy.. I can't imagine anyone being intimidated by hexagons after trying this block.. hardly any whipstitching, and if you're as lazy as I am you will have used your sewing machine to applique them onto the background! Perfect for a beginner.. really! If you've never tried hexies, don't be afraid!

May Block #1 - Framed Wonky Log Cabin

I *really* love how this block turned out! I confess to having fussy cut the centre squares for both of the May blocks, and I'm so glad I did. This is one of my favourite blocks so far, and I'd certainly use it again on another quilt. (This rather surprised me as I'm not really a super modern kind of girl.. or am I?) 

May Block #2 - 5 Sided Wonky Log Cabin

I really hated constructing this block.. the whole time I was bitching to Phillipa about how it looked crap and I didn't think it was going to turn out AT ALL. Clearly I was wrong, because now that it's finished I think it looks kind of awesome. I made the conscious decision halfway through to put the centre block en pointe and I think that made all the difference. If I ever made this block again though, I would start with a 5 sided centre block instead of a square.

I'm so happy with my fabric choice too - Delighted (by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake) has such a great range in the colour palette which has given me so much flexibility in my blocks. I think my favourites are definitely the pinks, blues and greens... but the reds and yellows are striking too.

And now to do those June blocks...