Anne's Anna quilt and another foundation pieced hexagon

Zebra Fellow and Zebra Girl during the filming of

the adventure story from the garden

I hope you enjoyed my adventure story from the garden over the past three days! I didn't know I was going to do it until I starting taking pictures in the garden when Teetoo the Cat appeared. It just sort of grew from there. I sure know how to amuse myself and I had lots of fun so there may be more stories in the future!

I am busy working on the Cherry Blossom Pattern and hope to get it finished as quickly as possible so you can make your own Cherry Blossom quilt. I'll let you know as soon as it is ready. The theme this weekend for Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell is Scrappy Quilt and Cherry Blossom is definitely scrappy so I've entered it!





Anne H (Mom) made some pretty little hexagons for her Anna quilt. I love the little bits of fussy cutting thrown in as centres for the hexagon flowers! They add a little pizzazz!

And there's usually a bee in Mom's quilts so here it is!

One of the main fabrics used is a dark beige. Mom only had so much of that fabric and we did a rough calculation (too rough apparently) and thought there would be enough for the border. We were wrong but Mom was already committed to the dark beige is it was the background fabric in the centre of the quilt. So the solution was to add a second dark beige fabric that was similar. We just made sure that the new addition appeared on all four borders and that it was distributed as evenly as possible. The fabric on the right was the second fabric.

Enough with the teasers already! So here is Anne H's version of the Anna quilt!

Pretty isn't it? Today I pressed it up nicely! I then pressed and lightly starched the backing. Here it is clamped to my table, ready for the batting and quilt top. The clamps are from an office supply store and they are mean to clip large piles of paper. The hold the backing really nice and tight which means I can give the fabric a good tug to make sure it is as tight and smooth as possible.

Here's the quilt sandwiched; after a couple of hours of work it was pinned and ready for quilting! I can't wait to get started on this one!

Yesterday I showed you a hexagon diamond and the hexagon template for foundation piecing. This is the hexagon I shared. The long side numbered 2 was placed next to each side of the centre hexagon. The final motif looked like spokes. By giving the hexagon a turn so that the short side with the 2 is next to the centre hexagon you get a different block!

This is what it would look like! It has lots of movement.

Try experimenting with your foundation pieced hexagons and see what you can come up with!

I'll leave you with some pictures from the garden!

 

Flies on the white loosestrife - I love the iridescent colours!

Cluster of elderberry flowers

Close-up of elderberry flowers! I thing close-ups of tiny flowers are amazing and fascinating!

It is very hot here (32 C) and even the snails are looking for places where they can hunker down and stay cool!

 

And the green-eyed Forest Gumby (he looks small but he is a big cat) found a nice green spot where he could get out of the heat and cool off!



 

Until I post again, keep cool and happy sewing!

Cherry Blossom Quilt is Finished!

Thanks for all the nice emails and comments on yesterday's 100th post! And now I continue with the first of the next 100 posts!

Cherry Blossom Quilt is now finished! I just love it! Hope you do too and that you are looking forward to the pattern!

It is such a summery quilt and it was made with nine patches from my stash.

I don't like wasting thread or fabric. I cut up my scraps to make nine patches and I keep the sets beside my machine ready to be sewn. When I sew, rather than cutting lengths of thread I sew onto my nine patch pieces and then continue sewing what ever it is I am working on. When I get to the end of the seam rather than draw out a length of thread and cut it I sew off onto another part of my nine patch. You can read about my process here. This means I have a big stash of nine patches! I didn't have to make any extra nine patches for this quilt. I pulled out 100 mainly pink nine patches (that is nine patches that had pink in the corners and in the centre) and also some orange, some gold and some with a touch of yellow to add some sparkle. I also pulled 12 red nine patches. All of the nine patches finished at 3" (with seam allowances they were 3  1/2").

I am working on a free pattern for this quilt. I'll get it up as soon as I can. If you want to make your own version you can get a head start on the half square triangles. You are going to need 240 of them. Use your scraps, that's what I did! They should measure 1 1/2" with the seam allowance - they will finish at 1". I wrote about making small half square triangles here.

I made do with what I had when making Cherry Blossom. The first thing I did was make the nine patch blocks of nine patches. The white is actually a white tone on tone. I made 20 of these blocks and set them on point. My original plan was to alternate these blocks with a solid fabric or a large soft print but both looked boring.

I popped a red nine patch in the centre of the alternating blocks and it popped! I decided to border the red nine patch with a white border so that there was continuity between the two blocks.

My next decision was to add a border of half square triangles that used print scraps and the same white fabric but I didn't have any left so I substituted another tone on tone print that I thought was white but it was a little creamier. In the end I like the subtle change!

I thought I would have enough of that fabric for the half square triangles and one more border but I was wrong! I didn't even have enough for the half square triangles so I added similar fabrics for the half square triangles. This meant I needed yet a third fabric for the last border around this block so I added a third fabric, a very creamy fabric with a small black dot. And I had yardage of that fabric so I knew I would have enough. I used this same fabric for the setting triangles on the sides and corners and also for the border.

I've told you I learn something with every quilt I make and the lesson learned here? Plan to run out of a fabric - introducing another similar fabric can add depth and complexity.

And now for a few pix from the garden! Zebra girls showed up and wanted their picture taken on the bench with Cherry Blossom! Like me, they love this quilt!

All of a sudden someone showed up in the garden. Never saw HIM before! He's one snappy dresser!

Hello, hello Zebra Fellow! Want to have your picture taken by herself?

What a happy bunch! I feel a story line developing. We'll have to wait to see what happens. Maybe tomorrow there will be an update!

Borage pretty and delicious to eat!

Very little brown bug

Bergamot (bee balm)

Black-eyed susans

Until I post again, happy sewing!