My quilt ‘Whimsical Flowers’ has just been published as project in the latest edition of Great Australian Quilts #15.
This quilt is an extension of Whimsical Houses, only I changed the appliqué features and added a foundation pieced outer border. Bright, colourful Kaffe Fassett fabrics are arranged on a background of light grey fabrics.
It incorporates machine appliqué with fusible web and foundation paper piecing. Full instructions and all pattern pieces can be found in the magazine.
This quilt grew from a challenge set by my local quilting group. We celebrated 30 years of quilting this year, so the challenge was 30 or Pearl. I chose to design 30 blocks and incorporate them into one quilt. I had long wanted to do a wool felt appliqué project and this provided the perfect opportunity to play with colour and experiment with wool embroidery.
I chose coloured cotton prints from Tilda’s bloomsville blenders and used these for the appliqué circles. They were needle turn appliquéd onto the cream squares.
The felt appliqué pieces were then matched to the colours in the respective rings. I used the same print fabric for the pieced border.
Originally the design incorporated sashings but I decided to simply piece the finished blocks and make a feature of the quilting. Lots of small circles and feathers fill the background negative space. I am so happy with the finished effect. I think it compliments the appliqué beautifully.
My 10 year old granddaughter has already claimed ownership and decided this quilt needs to hang in her bedroom.
I have been working on a new quilt that incorporates appliqué and embroidery using wool felt. It has been a very relaxing activity at night to sit and sew, creating different effects with the wool embroidery. Sue Spargo’s creative stitching provided some great inspiration. I used a range of tilda fabrics for the circles and tried to match the wool felt with the colour shades in each block.
I joined the blocks together and added an outside border using the floral prints.
It is so rewarding when a quilting plan works and makes the whole piece become one design. So happy with the progress so far.
She is finished…. The biggest machine quilting project I have ever attempted. I decided to quilt it with a dense bubble style background filler so that the appliqué would pop. All the appliqué has been outline quilted, then I added a quarter inch outline before filling the negative space with bubbles, feathers and scrolls.
I really enjoyed making this lovely design, using all my favourite blue fabrics. I had to extend , change and create new designs using Yoko Saito’s original pattern so that it became a queen size quilt. My border treatment is very different and I think it adds to the delicate feel of the appliqué design. The background and border fabric are Japanese yarn dyes, with the majority of appliqué in the same fabric style. I added a few printed cottons here and there from my stash.
It has been a while since I have made an update… in between times we have been away overseas for 6 weeks…no sewing but I did manage to buy some lovely fabric in Amsterdam. Now home I can continue working on my current project.
It has been a 18 months since I started my Imaginary Garden quilt, designed around Yoko Saito’s pattern. I wanted to make a larger quilt to fit a Queen size bed, hence some pattern adjusting and expanding was needed.
I have finally completed all the appliqué and embroidery. I decided to alter the outside border to make the appliqué appear to float in the middle of the quilt and added a light blue border with the same fabric I used for the flower stems.
Now for the quilting…. I want the appliqué to pop, so will only outline the flower clusters and fill the background space. I am happy with the progress so far.
Lyn Keogh Quilts 