Friendship Quilt Along

Life has been such a huge juggling act for me the last few months - what with finishing a new book, designing a new fabric line, promotions for my new collection that's hitting stores any day now, and the usual commitments that come with running a house with two young kids (and a third much older one :-p ) I've been in headless chicken mode! I'm sooo looking forward to things returning back to a normal level of 'crazy busy' soon - I mean let's face it, it's never really quiet and peaceful when you have two young kids and a farm to run, is it?

Despite all this busy-ness I simply had to join in on a lovely quilt along that's taking place right now. It's called 'Friendship' and is hosted by the lovely Amanda Herring, a fellow fabric designer for Riley Blake. I wish I had the time to take the whole quilt (which is gorgeous! You can see it here.) But I only had enough time to make this block, which is called 'Empathetic' - it's an applique block and one of my faves in the whole quilt. The sweet florals I used are from my new range Summer Blush.

I confess I struggled to make the stem as per the pattern instructions - mine turned out quite wonky. So I just cut a stem piece slightly larger than finished size (which I worked out from the pattern), backed it with fusible web, cut it to down to the precise stem size, and machine appliqued it on - so essentially the same method that I used for the leaves.

 I love the concept of this quilt-along, which is all about attributes of friendship and bringing friends together in a project of love. Isn’t that what the quilting community is all about?  To find out more about the quilt along and get the templates go to Amanda's blog. Thanks for visiting today!

Strawberry Pincushions in 'Summer Blush'

We're literally counting down the days before my new collection Summer Blush starts shipping to stores - and I couldn't be any more excited! The last few days I've been busy making two new quilts featuring this collection (which I can't yet share) and using the precious scraps to make strawberry pincushions (which I can!).

I used my free strawberry pincushion tutorial to make these sweeties - I thought strawberries would be a lovely fit with these fabrics given that summer fruit (peaches, apricots, watermelon and of course strawberries) was a major inspiration for this collection!

Summer Blush will be available in local quilt shops and fabric stores from August - ask for it at your local shop if you would like to get your hands on some!

'Winter Tales' Blog Tour

Hello hello! I'm so happy to be blogging again after a little break whilst I worked on my new book, Zakka Home. It's coming out in September so not long to go! I've got to say, I'm really proud of this book - every single project in it was a labour of love.

Today I wanted to show you what I've been making with Minki Kim's latest collection for Riley Blake Designs, 'Winter Tales'. Such a sweet winter-inspired collection and those soft pastel shades are just utterly scrumptious.

The first thing I made was this mini quilt - the pattern is called 'Backyard Chicks' and available in my Etsy shop in PDF and paper formats. This pattern depicts a group of little chicks in a feeding frenzy, but squint and you can also see snowflakes!

We are actually in the midst of winter here in Australia, so I couldn't stop at just the one wintry project! However I was running out of time for this post, so I had to find a super cute project that was also SUPER fast. Voila - sweet little mittens! They literally took an hour to make.

The pattern is a free one by Amy Sinibaldi available on her blog, Nana Company. I modified it slightly by adding fabric to the front side of the mittens, below the fold line - I backed the fabric with fusible web and appliqued it in place by machine, before constructing the mittens.

I hope you enjoyed my projects today! A big thank you to Minki for inviting me to be a part her blog tour - check out the other participants' blogs to see what they've made!

July 9 - Christopher Thompson - The Tattooed Quilter
July 23 - Kim Kruzich - Retro Mama