I Spy Crawl Quilts

I was recently contacted out of the blue by someone who bought one of my I Spy Crawl Quilts several years ago.

I started making these quilts when I lived in Darwin ten years ago, every time a friend or relative had a baby. They were inspired by the hard tile flours in Darwin and the number of soft little babies I knew at the time, including my daughter. Novelty fabrics were really popular then too and everyone was making "I Spy" quilts. When we first moved to Maleny, I started to make the quilts to sell in the local arts and crafts shop.

I designed a label which outlined all the positive features of the quilts and sewed them on the backs. I made the quilts using either a black or white sashing to stimulate the eyes of babies and because they both complemented all the colours in the fabrics.

That label has turned out to be one of my better business decisions, although I didn't know it at the time! I received so many repeat orders for the quilts then...and now a new generation of nieces and nephews have arrived and the orders have started up again. I wrote the label up in my design book at the time, so it was easy to go back to it and copy it out again. The original was dated 2004.

The latest quilts have evolved a bit from the originals:

The I Spy Charm Squares (you can get these from my eBay Store if you press that link)

are now 5 inches instead f 6 1/2 to make it easier to add Moda Charm packs to them if wanted,

(These are the latest two on the design wall.)

The sashings are 2 1/2 inches instead of 1 1/2 inches,

The wadding is 100% organic bamboo rather than thick polyester, and

The quilts are quilted in a crosshatch and tied with wool, rather than just tied.

They still have:

49 charm squares,

Multicoloured solid corner squares and wool ties,

Durable, funky cotton backings,

Bold stripey machine sewn double bindings, and

The same label.

The moral of this story?

Always label your quilts!

Happy sewing,

Ann ♥

p.s. Thank you Chelle, for the sweet photo of your little one on one of the original quilts.

African Quilts

Look what I just found!

After recently posting about my friends' African Quilts, another friend told me she'd found some photos of another one on another blog. These pics come from Alison's blog, Cardygirl, and the quilt was made by Lea. It was really amazing seeing the quilt after selling Lea the African Squares pack and leopard print from my eBay Store.

Online selling is great, but it also tends to be a bit impersonal. You often only ever know your customers by their log on IDs, and you never really know what they use the goods they buy from you for.
The African Fabric Squares are a bit significant for me, as most of the fabrics were bought by me in South Africa and Swaziland, came from pieces my sister gave me, or markets in Zimbabwe when my daughter and I went over to visit my sister when she was living in Pretoria, South Africa. Some were even remnants GIVEN to me by a lovely African tailor in Pretoria, Images d'Afrique - so exotic!It was a wonderful trip with my little girl, to an amazing place and my love affair with fabulous African fabrics, colours and designs began. When we came back to Australia, I wanted to make a quilt to showcase the fabrics I got in a quilt, as well as design a quilt that could be taught with kits so I could sell some of the fabric.
I came up with The African Quilt (you can get a free pattern if you click on this image on my website):
It started as a wall hanging with the central 36 fabric squares and a border but I liked it so much I went on and made it into a single bed quilt. I used a strange and ugly large harlequin diamond black and white print and fussy cut it for the sashings. The zigzag edge on the border is made from the left over strips between the fussy cutting! Then I decided to teach the quilt and make kits - my first commercial venture.
It was so popular, Australian Quilters' Companion asked me to do it as a project, and it became my second published work.
Then I made a new version as a wedding quilt for my sister and her husband. It's a queen size and quilt- as- you- go and as I was running out of the Black and White diamond print, I decided to cut it just as it came. It still looked good and was much easier with no wastage, and it still created the alternate light and dark effect.
I used a golden yellow Lonni Rossi fabric for the corner stones. One of her friends liked it so much, she commissioned me to make one for her, with turquoise accent fabrics. I chose a gorgeous Phillip Jacobs print for the corner stones to give a different effect. It's also slightly larger.
I entered it in the Queensland Quilt Show and was invited to submit it as a project to Down Under Quilts, where it was published in issue 141, April 2010. (I've already had a good response to the project, thank you!)
It's quilt-as-you-go and reversible. Here's the back:
So, there's the story, started by Cardygirl with Lea's quilt and ended with one of Alison's photos, another cat and quilt cameo. Thanks Lea, for following through with the quilt. And Thanks Alison for posting the pics!
Happy stitching,

xo xo Ann

Finished!

I've just realized, I haven't posted about my latest finished commission. You've seen bits and pieces of it here, here and here if you'd like to follow its development. It's already gone to its owner... and I've finished another quilt I haven't even uploaded the photos for! This one is for a grandson. I slowly built it up from the star in the centre and half square triangles which features an African Shweshwe pack of 5 inch red squares. These dictated the size of the star, the medallion and the quilt. I think they also give the quilt a bit of an African flavour too.
I used the left overs and some of the fabrics given to me by the client to finish the quilt. The dark blue strips on the are a synthetic sear sucker with a metallic thread pin stripe! -You can see it better in the top pic.
I love the backing, which is a Moda one. They quilt by machine so beautifully - a very soft and crinkly finish... just what you want under a quilt next to your body!
I like medallion quilts, but they definitely are a bit slower and seem to take a bit more consideration than some of the others. They tend to spend more time on the design wall waiting for the next border to take shape in my mind.
I was very happy with this quilt and I think its my favourite of the 6 Grand children's quilts I've made for this lovely Grandmother.
I've got lots more to write, but will put it in a new post later,

xo xo Ann.

Three Things I'm Working On

I wanted to let you see three works in progress that have been taking up my time lately.Here they are in order of finished-ness:
The first one is my second commissioned quilt for a boy. I've decided on this medallion star centre and a number of borders. It's been a bit slow going, but I want to finish the top over Easter.
The second is a strip pieced hexagon quilt. I decided to use only fabrics from my shop - beautiful ones that for some reason aren't selling well. As soon as I started working on the quilt top, people stared noticing the fabric - and buying it! So I took the top home and finished working on it here so I'll have fabric to make some kits with. It's now ready to be basted...my least favourite part.

And the third is one I started over a year ago! Dolly's already found it where it waits between quilting times,- usually at night in front of the telly. This one I made from a pack of indigo and red Shweshwe squares. I used a gorgeous Prints Charming red and white fabric in the sashing. For almost a year this quilt has existed as a top and been used as a table cloth to cover a trestle table. It's already a bit dirty and stained... I'm free hand quilting it with an off- white sashiko thread (to stand out against the bright white background).

It should be finished very soon, with a binding in the same red and white fabric.
I have given myself a couple of days off over Easter and I have so many things I want to do including:

1. working on all the above quilts
2. adding colour the stitcheries for The Sewing Circle quilt which I started at the same time as my blog - just over a year ago
3. gardening in my jungle of weeds
4. catching up with friends and spending time with my daughter
5. writing a shop newsletter for Quiltopia and updating my contacts list
6. updating my eBay store
7. reading some blogs!
8. writing some blog entries!
9. ...and the list goes on

Oh yeah, and FINISHING my book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - only another chapter!
That's what I'm going to do right now.

xoxo Ann

Two New Quilts, Another Commission Finished

Just to start off, here's a little doll quilt I made from the scraps left over from Amelia's quilt. I used all the cut off edges for the triangles and the border comes from the backing. It's sweet, and just visible in the background of the ironing board photo. I've got another one in progress, from the really little scraps of the same quilt.

I love doll quilts - so random and cute!

Behold the scene of conception of a new quilt commission in my studio. It's not very pretty. I was asked to make quilts for two 12 year old boys. This is the first. The colours were chosen and I decided to make a snowball block, with a look of tiles and tortoise shell, from fabrics provided by my client with a few of my own thrown in. It turned out to be quite a fiddly exercise with all those little corners and lots of cutting and pressing.
How do you like my ironing board cover? I can't help smiling every time I use it. I covered it with a fabulous Alexander Henry fabric called The Outdoor Type from my shop.

The quilt was finished with a simple black border and binding, and minimal quilting in the ditch so it retained a soft and cuddly feel. It's quite a large single bed size. I used lovely 100% bamboo wadding again.

In 12 years of quilting, this is my first quilt made specifically for a boy! I made a small one for my Dad, early in my quilting life. Apart from that, all the others have been for girls, women, or non-gender specific - just quilts I wanted to make. It was a bit of a challenge, and I think it's worked. I enjoyed working with the strong, earthy colours. I do think a lot of girls would like it too...

xoxo Ann.

Fish and Flowers Quilt Finished.

Well here it is, completed! I thought I better post the finished quilt before it got too far in the past and I forgot. I made this quilt for a friend of my mum's 80th birthday. She's young at heart and was thrilled with the gift.
This was a different quilt for me, but when I think about it, it's a bit similar to the Outback one, with a background of strips and raw edge applique on top.

I used a Moda Marbles Pastels Jelly Roll plus some summery fabric strips for the background, then scraps of bright fabrics for the applique. I like the rickrack flower stems and stripey fish. Then I outline quilted in black around all the shapes and stipple quilted the spaces. I've never been a fan of stippling, or done quite so much, but it grew on me with this quilt. So much so, that I stippled a whole quilt after this one!

I used a 2 inch black and white stripe on the back, and I think it works. When you turn the quilt over, you can see the quilting (also in black and white) like a line drawing on the back. It's a bit of fun.

xoxo Ann.

Thank You

Thank you for your support and caring comments after the theft of my quilt, they really helped to soften the blow. I can't really express how much better it made me feel and helped me to move on, knowing so many people cared. I was surprised how many people must drop in and read my blog! It's been a week now and I haven't heard any news about the quilt's recovery unfortunately although I've reported it to the police and published it in the local rag.
The quilt above is a cot quilt commission I've just completed for someone to send to her little grandson in England.
There's lots of free cut curved piecing in it and raw edge Australiana applique - not my favourite techniques and quite fiddly to do. It turned out quite nicely - the photo doesn't really do it justice though...
Time for a new camera!
I've just seen this blog with a mystery quilt for Bedford, a charity that allows disabled people to work. I think I might give it a go!
Happy quilting,

Ann.

"I Spy" Blast from My Quilting Past

I recently made an I Spy quilt from a design I made about 11 years ago!

I designed a quilt to showcase a collection of fabrics and to teach as a project for my first Patchwork students back in the 90's. At that time it was a collection of Japanese fabrics, with hand-dyed indigo sashing. Then I did it for a couple of new babies, with novelty fabrics as an "I Spy". Most recently, I've re-used the idea in my African Quilts. It's very simple, but greatly loved! I sold a few of them when we first moved to Maleny about 8 years ago.
Recently one of those customers from the past contacted me again to ask if I still made the quilts and if I would make another one!

I said yes, and went to find my long unused shoebox of now vintage novelty fabrics. I looked up my quilt sketch book/planning journal and there found the entire details of the making of the quilt, including the words on the label, fabric requirements and costing. The lesson to be learned: ALWAYS KEEP A LOG OF YOUR QUILTS!
The fabrics brought floods of memories of my little girl, quilts, times, places and feelings from the past...

Here's Doll, always ready to comfort test a new quilt. And I just threw in a peak at another recent commission being quilted. This one's a Random quilt and looks great when finished with a jumbo pompom trim.
See you soon,

Ann.

Bloggers' Fall Quilt Festival

Better late than never! This is my quilt Zen Courtyard. Park City Girll is hosting a virtual quilt show, you can click on the button to the right, this link or the heading of this post , to go to her blog and see quilt entries from about 400 quilting bloggers! Every time I look there's more.It was really hard to choose a quilt, but it came down to which one I had the best photos of. I designed Zen Courtyard after seeing a shattered nine-patch and thinking there was a better way to make it and carry the stained glass stripping right to the edge. I wanted to use fat quarters and try out quilt- as -you -go which I had never done before and couldn't follow in patterns. I had a lot of ladies in classes at the time who only wanted to make machine made projects. So the quilt is QAYG, completely machine made, intensely quilted, Stack and Slash and contemporary. Even the binding is all in one machine made in Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr's stile from Modern Quilt Workshop.
I loved the Lonni Rossi fabric designs at the time and made a whole lot of quilts with her fabrics. This was and still is , my absolutely most popular workshop and I continue to teach booked out classes for the quilt 3 years after making it. It won 3rd prize Contemporary Quilts, in the Brisbane Exhibition, Quilts Across Queensland, Show and was published as a project in Australian Quilters' Companion. I still get phone calls from people making it from the mag, or asking permission to teach it. (Unfortunately I have also seen it in quilt shows and heard of it being taught with out acknowledgement or permission!)This is a close up of the front quilting. I have become very good at quilting in spirals, and I would say, thanks to this quilt I have become a MUCH better machine quilter.
The quilt is reversible and the quilting looks great on the reverse side. I usually have it this way up on my bed. There's Dolly - she just can't resist a new quilt! You can see the label below and some quilting on the back.
I have also been asked for several commissions of this quilt. The one below is made with Pacific prints for my Papua New Guinea family (In an earlier post).
This one is queen sized and uses some furnishing fabrics as well as the Oriental ones to fit in with the client's decor.
Finally, the last version of the quilt is this small one I made for the Down Under Quilts 2009 Calender competition. The theme was "The wonderful World of Colour" and I based my quilt on Christina Rossetti's poem , Colours. The quilt is made from hand dyed raw silk which I fell in love with and bought a fat quarter stack from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. It looks like very soft suede.The quilt made December in the calender!
Thanks for looking and enjoy the show,

Ann.