Carli The Quilter

I'm really glad that this quilt along came along. This little wall quilt has been so much fun and was fairly easy to make.  I fell in love with Jen Kingwell's pattern "Midnight Over the Oasis" purchased the pattern and started my first quilt along.  I've finished my first Quilt Along! The Elven Garden was an awesome host for this quilt along. I chose fabrics from my stash, many of these were found on the online shelves of Mad About Patchwork. I really enjoyed the process of hand sewing the triangles together. I posted about my hand sewing of the triangles in the corner blocks . I could have machine sewed them, but really wanted to give my hand sewing fingers a good work over. If you are like me, and do a tonne of hand work, then keeping the fingers nimble is essential. You see the plaid  blue print in the center, this was a beloved plaid blue from an older shirt I found at the local transfer station Free Shed. But I didn't re...

I participated with the lovely Jess of The Elven Garden who hosted the Jen Kingwell's pattern "Midnight Over the Oasis." I'm going to be completing this beautiful quilt this winter! So I thought it would be fun for you to see my incomplete Midnight Over the Oasis quilt top and to see all the other images on Google just for fun. You  can go here to see the hundreds of other images using this pattern. Its been a great experience for me to use someone else's pattern with only a few minor changes. I will make more of this one pattern as I fell in love with it. Happy Quilting, Carli

Yes, I decided to join another "Quilt Along" after having such a great time with "Midnight Over The Oasis" by Jen Kingwell from Australia. and my version turned out like this and its finally made it to my pile of "MUST QUILT" I stopped a wee bit earlier than others but it was a great way to participate with a quilt along. Cora's Quilts is doing a fun quilt along, mind you, I'm late joining up, but its fun to go at your own pace and the block patterns and finishing the quilt will be up for longer than the July date which ends the quilt along. I was looking around for a sampler because I've not done a sampler and this cannot go on. I am in and so can you, if its up your alley. I'm busy today while waiting to help out my hubby on our new greenhouse and potting shed. Keep on quilting and thanks so much for hanging out and reading about the unfortunate shop that I won't be shopping in ever again. It ...

I have just loved this process of a quilt along and I've learned the challenges of keeping up and going ahead. This pattern is so vibrant and it allows for your own creativity, I'll make more. I love hand sewing, so the four center triangles were done by hand. I proceeded to the aqua sashing pieces to make the first square block. That took me about 1.5 months of on and off piecing. I took the time to hand embroider some of the orange peel blocks and finished the rest with machine blanket stitch for texture and another little something. Then it was onto the flower border and all the fussy cutting and the corner blocks. I was really pleased with how it came out. I love the creative free spirit that Jen Kingwell offers up in her patterns. Just before Christmas, I decided that I was running out of time to devote to this quilt along. I was overwhelmed with last minute Christmas gifts and I decided that the chevron border that I made earlier in the ...

I had to make it mine so the leaves were not cut and appliqued, I simply used large rick rack for the leaves and machine appliqued those into place. If was fast and easy to do, I encourage quilting out of the box. You can see the hand embroidery I did on some of the Orange Peel blocks, just for texture. Did you notice the cute buttons on the basket vine? I really enjoyed making the baskets from crazy piecing and this looks really cute. I hand embroidered the basket handles with a big primitive stitch. Sorry about all the fussy edges, the wind was blowing and I my hands were getting cold. But I must say these Quilters Press Bars that I won at a quilt retreat many years ago were the perfect thing again. Here's why: to buy them they cost around $7.99 at a quilt shop, you get five sizes You can make the 6 inch sections the patterns calls for in a snap You don't have to buy several colours of bias tape and I find the bias tape is never the colour you want....

I'm having such a blast with this pattern of Midnight Over The Oasis from Jen Kingwell Designs and I'm really pumped about how its turning out so far. Here's where I started last night on the Orange Peel border. This is not the best photo, but it was late last night,  I turned off all the lights except the one behind me and I used a flash. Not  bad! So its complete and I'm starting immediately on the applique border coming up next. Hope you my fabric choices.  Its been years since I did any pattern made by someone else. This is one that is very special.  I did a hand applique on some of the blocks to further enhance this unique quilt layout. I did 11 OP blocks on my machine and then 9 by hand. Join us anytime, pop over this link below to participate.

I've happily picked out 16 colours for the triangle pieces for the MOTO QA with The Elven Garden  blog and Jen Kingwell.  I've been listening to CBC Radio from Canada on various topics and quietly hand cut my triangles. But this was not before I took a lengthy read through the tips on accurate hand piecing from  "Playful Patchwork by Suzuko Koseki " review from Playful Patchwork.    I've learned to be exact in cutting out the hand cut triangle pieces. The hand stitching of the piecing went really well, I'm quite happy with this first triangle. Then, all four came together in about 3.5 hrs of hand stitching. So not too bad in terms of length of time to hand stitch. The my camera went on the fritz! My friend Betsy, went for the paper piecing method, see photo below for Quilting Fiesta , you can follow her progress too:) Very cool Betsy, these are all going to be so different! I really like the calm effec...