Celebrate Colour - an Australian Autumn Forest Quilt

I have been sewing like mad to get this quilt finished - from start to finish in about 10 days, which I am quite proud of considering the size (around 80" square)!!!

My inspiration when choosing the fabrics for this quilt was definitely autumn in an Australian forest. While we do have some trees that are deciduous many of our native trees and plants are evergreen, so while there are patches of orange, yellow and red, there is still a strong element of green.

You can see my previous posts for this quilt here, here and here. This quilt was a first in lots of ways for me. My first bigger-than-a-baby-quilt, my first time pulling fabrics from different lines and designers (rather than a single line), my first time using a quilt-as-you-go method and my first time using improv piecing.

My fabric choices for this project were browns, greens, oranges and golden yellows - which happen to be some of my favorite colours as well as shouting 'autumn' to me.

The sashing is mostly Kona ivory - but I ran out and only had enough to sash 13 blocks (whoops!), and didn't have time to order more before the deadline to get this finished... so I used Kona PFD for the remaining 3 blocks and the sashing between the blocks.

I quilted each square (around 19 1/2" square each) in a spiral outwards from the centre block, following the lines of the wonky log cabins.

For some reason, my camera doesn't like the orange-white spotty print and it appears to be much more pink than orange in these shots...

For the back, I had about 3 yards of a print from Amy Butler's Daisy Chain so I cut 8 backing squares from that, and then pulled various shades of yellow-green from my stash for the remaining 8 backing squares. At the basting and quilting stage I hadn't planned the layout of blocks, so layout for the back of the quilt was a mystery until I'd finished putting it together. But I actually think I like the back more than the front...

I love how the quilting looks on the back, and I think the coal-grey binding and sashing works really well with the greens and yellow-greens (I am completely in love with grey at the moment!)

The finished quilt measures about 80" square. I will definitely be sticking to baby quilts for a while after wrangling this one!

This is my entry into the Celebrate Colour competition over at Stitched in Colour.

Wonky Log Cabin Quilt - Quilting

I finished and sashed the rest of the blocks for this quilt over the weekend, and forgot to take photos of the rest... I also spent a lot (A. LOT.) of time working out how to quilt it. Having only made baby quilts (the largest being 40" x 60") I was a bit hesitant about how I'd go quilting an 80" square quilt - and I didn't want to stipple it or do straight line quilting either. So I decided to try something new and quilt it using a quilt as you go method (using this tutorial).

So I squared the blocks up to 19 1/2" each, and cut batting and backing squares a bit bigger (about 21", just to give myself some wriggle room if the quilting went pear-shaped). I quilted each of them in a similar way to my 1001 peeps doll quilt.

And now I'm joining them together... which may or may not end up being an easy process (but so far so good!)

Wonky Log Cabin Quilt - Blocks part 1

I have been sewing like a mad woman with these blocks! I've finished 8 since Monday...

 They range from about 15" to 17" (not necessarily square) and I'm going to add off-white sashing around each and then square them up to about 20 1/2". The plan is to make another 8 blocks and make a quilt around 80" square... if I don't run out of strips before then! I have added a couple of fabrics that weren't part of the original plan just to attempt to have enough fabric - I think I will (well, hope!)

I'm linking this to WIP wednesday over at Freshly Pieced :)