BossyOz

At the end of the summer term, DS helped prepare this quilt for his main teacher. As she was expecting her first baby at the time, we made something the whole family hopefully could find useful. We may have gone a bit over the top in the Thank You gift department. We made the quilt in black, white and green, as we don't know if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl. Using a home dec weight fabric from IKEA, which DS coloured in, we created a rather unique looking quilt. Many of the blocks had small messages, like this one. I almost like the backing as much as the front, but then the written numbers just seemed perfect for a teacher! All nicely rolled up. It hadn't been possible to pull this gift off, if it hadn't been for Debbie , who managed an impressively short turnaround for the quilting it on her long arm! This is the fourth quilt she has quilted for me and I'm continuously very pleased with her work.

This second post contains the more geometric and I guess modern quilts which caught my eyes at the Festival of Quilts this year. I believe the following quilts were all submitted in the main competition; although not sure which category. Seeing quite a bit of overlap between the categories, it seems that what's modern to one person is traditional to another one. Perhaps time to have different types of categories. Categories that actually mean the same thing to all quilters. The full quilt seen at a distance means you can't really see the awesomeness properly. Here's a detail of the clever quilting. Suddenly the piecing is less important. This one looked like a photo of fields from above. These two felt like a pair and were hung next to each other. There was a special area with a few of these city plans.  This one was in the Fine Art section, and my favourite there. One by Catrin in my Modern Insta Bee. This

Despite being at the Festival of Quilts for two days, I definitely had quilt inspiration overload. With so many fabulous quilts seen in such a short time, it was really hard to properly appreciate the awesomeness of all of them. Having taken quite a few photos, and now scanning through them at home, here are some of the ones which caught my eyes. I liked this one because of the attention to detail. Close up: The full quilt: This was different as it had dimension to it. From the side: This quilt remind me of fantastic skiing holidays. Also loved the clarity. This one was fun and made by one of the people I follow on Instagram. This one felt fresh and different. I usually don't like coral and aqua, but this stood out. Blue and fish can never be wrong! Here a quilt by an online "friend" commemorating World War 1. This was submitted in the "In my garden" category. Wishing I lived in a country where these little fellows lived

For July, Isobel asked us to help her make a very special quilt for a close friend of hers. Isobel picked the Stacked Windmills, and was also kind enough to send out fabrics for the blocks. The only fabric I had to find, was for the middle block. As I had limited fabric to make the real block in, I carefully made a test block in red, white and blue fabrics. The pile of my blocks for the "Oh Dear Nina" quilt is growing. With potentially 36 half square triangles and LOTS of points to get neat, this is a rather fiddly block, thats for sure. Promising myself to be extra careful with the points, press more often and to be sewing straight, I set off and made the block in the proper fabrics. Gorgeous colours! Having seen most of the other Bee blocks, I can confidently say this is going to be one stunning quilt! At the end of July, Isobel had eight blocks and published the below photo. To see the progress, please pop over to  her Instagram  feed. Thanks for letti

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of the Click Quilt , a pattern created by the multi talented Tracey over at TraceyJayQuilts .  As I was going on holiday, I packed my tiny sewing machine (28cm x 23cm x 12.5cm / 11"x9"x5"), the pattern and lots of cut out shapes for the blocks.  As an added bonus, when we arrived in Cornwall there was a parcel full of lovely batik fabrics waiting for me. These were all from Susan over at  CanadianAbroad . She had asked on Instagram if anyone could find a use for batiks she had left from a project. As there were some lovely purples in the mix, which I wanted to use for the blocks, I 'had to' go and get a new rotary cutter, cutting mat and ruler (the others were left at home). The lovely Coast and Country quilt shop , or locally known as "Sally's" were just around the corner, so this was easily rectified. This Tula Pink block was one of the first I made.  No matter how lovely Tula'