Southern Jewels Quilt - for the last time EVER!

This is going to be the absolute last Southern Jewels Quilt that I'm ever going to make….I hope. I've mentioned and posted lots of photos of different versions of it already.
My daughter is going to Canada with her dad ( my former husband) over the September school holidays to visit her family over there, so of course I saw this as an opportunity to send over a quilt each for her grandmother and aunt.
I made a Southern Jewels one for Grandma, and the other one just looked right for her aunt. It's one of those ones you make, then store in a cupboard - you know the ones I mean. I originally made it as a sample for some patterns and Penelope/Lake House fabrics when I first opened my shop.
Anyway, I hope they like them!

Hello Luscious Layer Cake Quilt

I'm also finishing up the Layer Cake quilt I showed in a tutorial, finally. I half finished the quilting this morning, and hope to get the rest done tonight. Maybe it will be quilted and bound for the Maleny Quilt Show coming up. if you're up on the Sunshine Coast in the last week of September, why don't you drop by, say hello on our stint and see some gorgeous quilt?
Till next time,
Ann.

Show and Tell

I had some lovely visitors this week, who brought in their quilts to show and tell. The first two were Kathie and Sandra with their African Quilts. About three years ago, I had my original African Quilt at the Maleny Quota Quilt Show, and these two girls bought a packet of African Squares each. Of course, almost every time I saw them after this, I'd ask them how their quilts were going...? I caught up with them again at this year's quilt show (last weekend - haven't posted about it yet) and they promised to bring their quilts into the shop.
And here they are! They used a 1 inch black and white stripe, instead of the original diamond print I used and has become very hard to find. (Of course there's instructions to paper piece the sashing in the pattern I did for the magazine - but it's a lot of work and a similar effect can be achieved just by using an effective fabric and imagination.)
The second one was my friend Jill who's been making Kellie Wulfson's (Don't look now!) Lillie Pilly quilt, which her daughter fell in love with in my shop. Jill used aquas, blues and turquoises for Greta's quilt and extended the borders to make a large bed sized quilt. The background fabric is Kyoto cloth (again - I just love this bamboo cotton!) and she's hand quilting it. It's so soft with the bamboo and a lovely beige gingham on the back!

Here's a close up of the tree:

And the birdies, with their dear little cleverly cut wings:

Thanks so much for sharing girls!
Have a lovely weekend and get plenty of stitching done,

xo xo Ann

Quilting

Just quickly - here are two samples of the different quilting on the two quilts in the post below.
The top one is the medallion boy's quilt commission.(I've just finished it!) I did an allover large meander in a variegated blue thread. I've really only just got comfortable with this type of quilting.
On the Shweshwe Quilt, I hand quilted with sashiko thread.

The lines of white quilting show up really well on the red back of the quilt. It gets a bit lost on the white fabric, but pops out on the indigo and red ones. It's a while since I've done this type of quilting but the sense of achievement at finishing is very satisfying.

The whole thing is nice, don't you think?

xo xo Ann.

Update on the last couple of weeks...

Well, I've finished a couple of things I blogged about a little while ago!

The first one is my African Shweshwe Quilt. I showed it to you here and here when I'd just finished basting it and Dolly was curled up sleeping on it. I made it from a pack of mixed indigo and red shweshwe squares and a fabulous Prints Charming red-and-white print, with a background of white Moda Bella Solid all fabrics I LOVE to sew! I hand quilted this one with an ecru sashiko thread. It took 3 skeins of thread and several weeks to finish, but worth it in the end. You can't really see the quilting in this photo, but it's wavy lines in a grid. I'll do another post with some details.
The quilt was already dirty, as It's been in progress for a year, and in use, unfinished as a table cloth in Quiltopia Boutique.

The next one is my latest commission with the star medallion. It's been basted here - but I finished quilting it yesterday! I want to finish it today. I used Shweshwe in it too - the red squares and a little bit of Nelson Mandela - a good roll model and someone to inspire any boy (or person for that matter!).
The one below is a new Jelly Roll quilt I'm working on. It's a sampler and you need a special ruler to cut half square triangles from the 2 1/2 inch strips. I saw the sampler at and went on to develop it in my own way. Quite fun but a bit frustrating for some reason. I used a Moda Verna Jelly Roll for mine. I'm still deciding on the border...

And finally, here's one of my students and her stunning finished quilt, from my last Stained Glass Stack and Slash class @ QuiltEssentials. She used a selection of semi-solid bold fabrics and black quilting thread. Doesn't it look stunning?

I've been busy... but I've been thinking about doing a blog quilt along of my Three Easy Pieces Modern Sampler Quilt featured as a Free BOM on my website. There's also a picture of it in my side bar.I picked some new fabrics (including gorgeous Prints Charming ones) and thought I might rework it as a quilt along. What do you think?
Life goes on...

xo xo Ann.

Another Stained Glass Class at QuiltEssentials

I've just finished another class for my quilt, Zen Courtyard AKA Stained Glass Stack and Slash. I've posted a few times about various classes, and quilts made in them, for this quilt. So, just a quick peak at a block from most of the participants- unfortunately a few were away on the day I brought my camera! Have a look at the blocks below just to see how different each one is. Even the two Bali Batik ones, though similar, are different and will make up two very different feeling quilts.






As usual, it was a lovely class at QuiltEssentials in Brisbane. Great work space, friendly people, lovely class participants and yummy food from Alfina's next door, as you can see from the mini mud cakes in the first photo.
Thanks girls! And thanks for stopping by,

Ann.

"Patricia" Quilted

I finished quilting the Gypsy Bubbles, Patricia Quilt! I love all those beautiful photos on other people's blogs, showing the lovely textures of quilting, so I tried to take some to show you too.

I am quite proud of this one, having quilted it entirely free of templates on my domestic sewing machine. My nice big Janome 2500 sort of died in the process (more correctly, it's gone into a coma after having a seizure caused by a malfunction in its motherboard). So I had to change over to my little Pfaff. It did a pretty good job.
This is the back,

a close up of the all-in-one binding with its little peeper trim,

and finally, its passed the comfy test by Dolly who started to sleep on it as soon as I folded it and put it on my studio table!
I haven't got back to the little doll quilt I asked you about in a post below, but the overwhelming vote went to (a), the yellow with the pink dot. Thanks for all your responses and I'll post when its finished.
Till next time,

Ann.

"Gypsy Bubbles"

Just a snippet to show you I'm still here! I've been incredibly busy with setting up my new "micro-shop" in Maple Street, Maleny. It's been fun, and a really

BIG THANK YOU

to all of you who have dropped in and supported me!
I've also had my 50th Birthday! I had a party with lovely friends and family. My sister, her husband and baby Eva even came from PNG!
I thought I'd give you a peek at the Gypsy Bubbles Quilt's progress... It's actually finished now and will be hanging in the shop for you to see in the fabric, and book into classes for too.
I'm calling it Patricia after the designer of the fabrics, Patricia Bravo. It looks like a Patricia!
Here it is, hanging on the design curtain in the shop below.

Now here it is, becoming a quilt as I've started quilting it. I had terrible problems with my Janome 6500 - in fact I think it died. So I swapped over to my little Pfaff which did itself proud (but it was harder to manipulate the quilt under the smaller arm).

I just had to show you this one! I pulled out my chair to start stitching and what did I find? It's Dolly, making sure I had a rest from quilting!
As I said, the quilt is finished now and I will be posting more pictures.
I'm so excited - I've just made my first sale of Fabric by the Metre in my Ebay Store!
Happy creating,

Ann.

My Latest Project in Print

Australian Quilters Companion # 38, July 2009

My latest project in print in Australian Quilters Companion is Medieval Tapestry. It's now quite an old quilt which I made back when I'd fallen in love with a range of Tudor themed fabric which I madly collected whenever I found some.
I worked out the quilt based on a Blackfords Beauty block and was toying with the idea of making it as a scrappy mystery quilt project. Boy, was it complicated to construct, and then to present as a project to the magazine! But it looks like they've done a good interpretation of it.
It's definitely not my style now, except I do still love quilts made with lots of fabrics and I guess it looks quite good.
I liked the way the magazine gave it a masculine theme in a boy's bedroom. I truly don't have much of a clue about gender specific quilts - I've often been surprised what people like regardless of gender or age!

This was my first commercially quilted quilt and Trish Simpson, from Cut from the Same Cloth, did a lovely job for me.
I just had to add this snippet from the magazine for all those people who (based on my contemporary quilts) have the impression that I may not be meticulous in my quilt construction...

The table of contents lists the quilt with -

"LIFE'S RICH TAPESTRY:

Have patience cutting and piecing Ann Ferguson's Medieval Tapestry quilt." !!!
Then, they introduced it with an article featuring Carole King's Tapestry Album- I never was a fan!

Three Easy Pieces - A Quilt is Born.

For all of you who have subscribed to my BOM, here's another softer, prettier version of the quilt. I just wanted to show you Juliet's sampler quilt from the Three Easy Pieces pattern. It's very different to the others to date. Most people have used similar bold contemporary fabrics like the ones I used in my original quilt. I love the pretty Legacy reproduction prints Juliet used for a softer, more feminine quilt.

Loved this star block!

And here is Juliet starting to machine quilt on her domestic sewing machine. I think it looks just lovely and she deserves heaps of credit for an excellent job.
If you want to receive the BOM patterns free each month, you can subscribe on my website. You can also order and but fabrics in a variety of ranges and colourways from my online store or studio.
If you haven't already, start quilting today!

Ann.

"Thoreen"

This is my quilt, "Thoreen".


Some of you may remember her from last year when I joined a sewing group called "Dear Jane". We were supposed to be all making the tiny hand pieced blocks made famous in the book about Jane Stickle's amazing quilt. As time passed some of us chose to work on other hand piecing and drifted off on other paths.
I brought along a partly finished grandmother's flower garden hexagon quilt I'd decided not to sell in my moving house garage sale but felt completely daunted by.

"Thoreen " was started by a friend of my mother's, Thoreen Jensen. I remember Thoreen quite well as a teacher and family friend when I was a teenager. A couple of years ago she became unwell and asked some other friends of Mum's if I would like to finish the quilt she'd been making and perhaps raffle it. I have to admit I wasn't keen on raffling a fully handmade quilt, but I wanted to finish it for her and I offered to make a donation to a charity. I chose muscular dystrophy and Thoreen was happy with that too. I then received the makings of the quilt as far as Thoreen had cut , tacked and sewn - and that was a fair bit with all those little handmade hexagon papers, patches and the quilt sewn as big as a very skinny single bed throw.


I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when I saw the size of the hexagons - not tiny, but I was hoping they'd be at least four inches across (instead of their one and a half!) Thoreen had been extremely organized and meticulous and many of the hexagons were already sewn over papers, cut from old library cards, electricity bills, letters and doctors' appointment slips, some were sewn into their rosettes and a portion of the quilt was already put together too. What remained for me to do was organise the rosettes into piles for the rows and continue hand sewing the whole thing together.
At one point I almost put it in my moving sale, it was coming along so slowly. But my good angel won out, and I kept the quilt so far and any completed hexagons - everything else I stuffed in a basket and sold in the sale! So goodbye authentic retro 70's fabrics in case I needed you to finish the quilt...
Then the Dear Jane group started and I resurrected the quilt. The others all motivated me so much I ended up making a queen size quilt with what I had and adding many look alike fabrics from Amelia's, my sister's and my cast off clothes. I regretted getting rid of Thoreen's fabric remnants, but I unpicked rosettes from the centre and replaced them with some of the new fabrics, resetting the older ones on the edges to carry the old fabrics right through the quilt.
Once the top was finished, I hand quilted the entire thing with multi coloured perle 8 threads, flower by flower. The cotton wadding and tight muslin backing fabric made this a fairly arduous task.


I decided to turn under the edges and hand stitch the top to the backing. This meant I had to leave the entire outer row of hexagons unquilted, cut back the wadding and backing, fold the backing up over the wadding, hand sew the edge then go back round and finish the final hand quilting matching the threads to each of the hundreds of individual hexagon florets.
After tying off that last stitch I felt like hollering, I definitely Yeehahed!
Thoreen is no longer with us, but I'm glad I was able to finish her quilt and dedicate it to her as "Thoreen".
I love the quilt now with its delicate aged fabrics and crinkly quilting, and I'm so happy I persevered with the encouragement of my family and friends.
Thank you all and I hope you like her too,

Ann.

Autumn at Last, at last.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I find the colours of Autumn leaves inspiring. When I first moved to Maleny seven years ago, after a fairly long spell in the tropics, I made a quilt called Autumn at Last (you can see this in the Quilt Gallery on my website). It was inspired originally by my ex-husband's home country, Canada. After splitting up with him and moving here at the end of Autumn, I ended up making the quilt for myself. I exhibited it and it became my first magazine project commission. It was made from traditional Maple Leaf blocks and quilted intensely in the Indian Kantha style with multi coloured variegated Perle #8 cotton.

Recently I was commissioned to make a similar one in earthier tones. These are some photos of the progress. As I was sewing, I started on the dark green fabric of the block on the left.

I was suddenly transported to the beginning of my quilt making journey! The fabric was one I bought when I first started quilting at City fabrics in Darwin. Just the flimsier feel, small geometric pattern and even the smell of it as I cut it, took me instantly back there. It's only 12 years, but the fabrics have really come a long way in colour, texture and variety. The chartreuse one next to it also came from the late 1990's.

The blocks as they were made, put up on the design wall.

Auditioning the borders - I decided on the mottled cream , same as the block background fabric. Felt that the dark red was too heavy.

The quilt top is finished now and ready for quilting. It took me 65 hours of sewing to finish the piecing... all those little six inch blocks and two inch triangles!
Look forward to seeing the finished quilt with its predecessor in a future post,

Ann.

The Quilting is Finished

I've just finished quilting the Bird of Paradise Quilt. I decided to quilt it heavily by machine and have more photos, which I will post later, of the process. I think the bird stands out quite nicely. Now I just have to bind it and finish the flowers by hand with bead embellishments.