Let the Sunflowers shine...

Way back in September 2011, I visited my online quilting friend in small town Kansas - Parsons to be exact.  It was a very special time for me and I so enjoyed meeting Barbara and her daughter Jackie.  Because of Parsons geographical position, it was easy to visit four states within a couple of hours - it sits near the crossroads of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.  Such fun!
While I was there, Barbara asked me to give a talk to her local guild, then it became a few of the little outlying guilds until we ended up with 70 plus people.  It was a lovely evening of showing off our fabulous New Zealand with an awesome DVD of Central Hawkes Bay and other lovely stuff.  At the end of the evening, the President was thanking me and out came this positively massive bag of fabric!!  Unbeknownst to me, the entry fee was a fat quarter of fabric.  Oh my, I got all sorts of amazing fabric gifted to me and some pieces were way more generous.  Most of it had to be posted home as we couldn't fit it all in my bag!!

The reason I have told you this big long story is that I had  around 17 different sunflower fabrics in this amazing collection that I had not really touched in the last 8 years.  However, my (step) daughter was going to turn 50 last month, and I had asked her a year or three before if she would like a quilt.  As Shala is a very good sewist and has made a few quilts herself, I hadn't got around to asking.  The answer was an emphatic Yes!  Then it turned out that she loves sunflowers!  Oh yes again!!  Out came my stash and Shala chose basically all the fabric that had sunflowers on it.  Well Shala's 50th birthday was looming up and I decided about July that I would have a go at getting it ready as her birthday gift for when she came down on 29th September to celebrate with us.

Here you go with a couple of photos and I am smiling so much you wouldn't believe it.

This is one of the two large blocks in the quilt.  It's a beautiful piece  of fabric and the sunflowers just glow.
All the fabrics have come out of my stash, so this quilt managed to make a little bit a reduction, Yay,

 

 I was determined not to put any fabric back in  my stash, so used all the large pieces left to make up the back.  It actually came out really well,

Here is Shala with her quilt.  It was very windy so the quilt would not co operate with laying flat.  Never mind.  I actually managed to quilt it myself as well,  My awesome Tuesday girls pin basted it for me and I did an all over meander on it using a lovely So Fine mustard gold that blended beautifully with all the colours of the quilt.  Looked good as it didn't need anything fancy as the sunflowers were the stars, and then my fabulous Tuesday girls helped again with stitch down the back of the binding,

I can't tell you how amazing getting this quilt finished on time made me feel, as I do have a bit of a struggle with my health issues.  But God was so good to me and gave me the strength and tenacity to keep on and achieve something so filled with love for this very precious member of our family.

Now onto the next quilt...

Thank you for sharing my joy of this quilt and I'll look forward to showing you my next achievements.  I hope you are all having a great time with your quilting and your families.

Many hug and blessings to you all,

Clare

linking with Oh! Scrap here

Last of the Year's Quilts - lots of photos

Hello again, I'm just squeaking in with a last post for 2015.  Oh my, isnt it a bit of a worry how fast these years seem to be going.  Never mind, we all suffer from the same complaint so it makes me feel a little better.  I hope you have all had a wonderful time with your families as we have done. My last week before Christmas went in a blur, but I did managed to achieve a few things.

I quilted, buttoned and stuffed (with inners) to get daughter Rebecca's cushions all finished and ready to take up with us.  I am most pleased with the way they have come out - three different sizes that grade up pleasantly - all completely unplanned, hehe.

I did really enjoy designing the layout of these to have a more modern look to them and hope to play with the modern look in this coming year.

Also managed to finished this lovely floral square in a square quilt of Jean's. I used a free motion pattern that I enjoy using and am pleased with the results.  I used a lovely Magnifico thread.

It's always a pleasure quilting Jeans quilts as she makes such a good job of making them.  I never have any issues.  This meant I was able to have enough time to pop her other quilt on and get in finished before Christmas as a surprise for Jean.





















Isn't this childs quilt so pretty.  Jean put lovely soft pink minky on the back, which quilted up extremely easily with no complications.  I used another gorgeous Magnifico pink on this one too and put cotton batting in it.  What a super soft and cuddly quilt this one is.

I used a freehand combination of hearts and flowers for this one, connecting them with small loops.  I am so enjoying learning to do all over patterns like this and have to admit that I have not done a pantograph for quite some months.  Mind you, most of my quilting at the moment is custom.

This next quilt is my  friend Felicity's, and she informed me that it was made some 30 odd years ago when she was just beginning her patchwork journey.  Some of the fabrics have wonderful memories for her of her mother, aunt and her own dresses that were made for her.  It took me a long time to decide on an appropriate design for this one and am extremely happy with the result.  I hope you agree.

 Felicity thought this was called Jack's Chain, and was going to have a hunt to see if the pattern was still around.  We quilters do like to hang onto things, dont we?

The blue backing gave the whole quilt a really nice lift and quilted up nicely.

The photo bottom left shows how the quilt looked before quilting.  I am always amazed at how quilting completely changes the look of a quilt top even after all these years.

Thanks Felicity...I have loved quilting this for you, and delighted in each nine patch and it's different colours as I quilted along.  May you get lots of joy out it now.

And for the last finish for the year, I was so thrilled to get another grandson's quilt finished.  That's quilt an achievement this year for me, as it has been a year full of ill health and set backs.  Thankfully, we can put some of that behind us now and get on with our quilting.  What about this fun quilt?

 It was made from a bundle of Cat In the Hat fabrics that I had purchased about 3 years ago, (yay, used some stash) and there were only 8 fat quarters, but with some sashing we managed to make a good sized single bed quilt.  I did have to go buy a little bit of sashing as there was no green that was "just right" in my stash.

I quilted it in a quirky fun fashion, after getting the idea from a blog I follow called Tamarack Shack.  I did oddball shapes and did the vertical sashing in a different pattern to the horizontal.  Such fun was had by all, nope - by the quilter!!

The backing is a gorgeous fun dinosaur fabric I picked up on sale at Spotlight (like Joanne's) and it was perfect.  There was just enough left over to make a cute little summer dress for my granddaughter.

The quilt was given to my grandson Hamish when we went up to Te Awamutu at Christmas time.  I bought the book to go with the quilt.  This was actually a birthday gift, not Christmas, but who cares?

I am just stoked that I got another quilt finished out of my own pile on top of finishing three customer quilts. The next grandchild's quilt is for my older grandson Brad.  I have started cutting it out and am doing this one "quilt as you go."  Not sure how this is going to work out but I love the pattern so we will see what happens.

Last photo is my tidying up efforts in the last couple of days before Christmas.  This is only a portion of my stash of threads...I just love threads!!!

They look so neat and tidy.  Hope it lasts. Well I hope you will all have had a fabulous Christmas with your family and friends.  We did and I will talk about that next year.

I would like to wish you all a Happy and Joyous New Year.  May you be blessed in more ways than you can ever imagine and may you experience God's love for you in abundance.

Blessings to all and thanks for hanging in there with my erratic posting.

Clare
I am linking with Sarah at confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

Check it out for some more delicious eye candy.