Roundabout Quilt {Finished}

I am finally able to let the cat out of the bag for one of the secret projects I was working on in the middle of last year - my Roundabout quilt pattern appears in the latest Quilters Companion magazine, available now :o)

This quilt is 60" square, entirely paper pieced and caused me to question my sanity numerous times during it's construction. It is made using the gorgeous Schoenrock Cross block, which I fell in love with after making my cushion for the the tenth round of the pillow talk swap last year. And (hold onto your chairs) I simply quilted in the ditch for this one, no FMQ in sight! Having said that, I did free motion quilt in the ditch and there are a loooot of seams because of all the teeny piecing ;o)

I used a heap of favorite fabrics in this quilt - lots of Denyse Schmidt (mainly Chicopee and Shelburne Falls), Architextures and a few other coordinating prints from other collections. It is by far the most traditional and complex quilt I have made, and was gifted to my Mum last month for her 60th birthday. Happily, she loves it as much as I do.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts since it is kind of a Friday finish, and with Kristy's paper piecing party ;o)

xx Jess

Pillow Talk Swap 10 {Finished}

My partner's cushion for the Pillow Talk Swap round 10 is done! It will be winging off to it's new home (along with a few yummy scraps) later in the week. 

The cushion/pillow top is made using four Schoenrock Cross blocks, following Leila's fab tutorial. I used a lot of Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt, a bit of Simply Colour and a lot of Architextures (the greens and background fabrics). 

I decided to quilt it fairly simply (since there is so much going on in the patchwork). I've densely free motion quilted straight lines in the background areas, radiating out from the points, and echo quilted just inside the edges of the green areas. This has made the 'flowers' pop really nicely.

The back is more FMF, with a covered zip closure (using the great tutorial on Sew Mama Sew - it works brilliantly every time).

 I'm really happy with how this turned out - I'm now just hoping my partner love it as much as I do :o)

The rest of the week is bee blocks and some secret sewing ;o)

xx Jess

Crossing

I had a bit of child-free time today and got quite a few cross blocks made. I put together the four Schoenrock Cross blocks for my Pillow Talk Swap 10 cushion - feedback on the first on Flickr was positive so I soldiered on with the other three. I really love the secondary pattern created by the green bits. I'm hoping my partner still likes it, because I've got some ideas on how I want to quilt this baby :o) Still playing around with placement, but I think this is my favorite arrangement so far.

In a moment of perfect timing, my copy of Tula Pink's City Sampler book arrived (finally!) just as I finished putting these together. I've been not so patiently waiting for it to turn up, so I got stuck in straight away and made my first couple of blocks.

Block 1

Block 2

These little guys are totally addictive - they are 6.5" blocks so some pretty teeny piecing, but it is loads of fun picking fabric for each block. I think I'll make a few more tonight :o)

xx Jess

Schoenrock Cross #2

Given the fact that my first quarter FAL list has been a no-go (although mostly due to the bush fire appeal, so I'm really not phased about it), I've decided to carry them all over to the next quarter. And start something new. I'm definitely a hopeless case when it comes to shiny new projects ;o)

This quilt has been in my head for a long time, but I didn't have a clue what fabric I wanted to use. Or what block I wanted to use at the centre for that matter. And then I had a light bulb moment over the weekend - I pulled a giant stack of fabric out and began playing. This is the mess stack I'm using (horrible badly lit photo!!):

It's destined to be a medallion style quilt (yep, jumping on that bandwagon too). No real idea where it's heading really, it's a making it up as I go along project. So it may end up awesome, or really really ugly. I'm really hoping it'll be a not-ugly quilt though, as I'm using a tonne of very treasured favorite fabric. The centre block is done, and I love it. I used Leila's Schoenrock Cross pattern again (love this block so much!), and bordered it to bring it up to 12.5".

I have other priorities to work on this week, but once they're done I'll be back to this one. And I really can't wait :o)

xx Jess