Blogger's Quilt Festival - Liberty Bloomsbury

It probably doesn't seem that long a go, that I posted about finally completing my Liberty Bloomsbury Quilt, however I'm linking it up for the first time to Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall edition 2017.

Back in 2015, I had been looking for a special project for my Liberty fabrics and when I came across Bijou Lovely's, Bloomsbury pattern, I knew I had found it.  Not wasting any time I downloaded the pattern and started having fun making beautiful Liberty dresdens.  Gosh it was hard to cut into those beautiful fabrics,  Once the dresden plates were completed they were hand appliqued to the background fabrics.  These were no quiet subdued choices, I went for a gorgeous periwinkle shot cotton and a very vibrant magenta.

Because I wanted my quilt to be able to fit my bed I had to add a border.  After a little trialing and sketching of different border options I went for a simple scrappy liberty strip and solid  all the way around.

A Tula Pink fabric was the perfect colourway for the backing.  My machine, I decided was a little too small for quilting this 80" square quilt, so I chose a variety of cottons for simple  hand quilting. I love the texture of the handquilting on the back, not that photos really do it justice. Liberty fabric was used for the binding.

I love how this has turned out and am so pleased that two years after starting it, I completed it just in time to use on my bed,  and to add a beautiful splash of colour to my  bedroom over the colder gray winter months.

Now that warmer temperatures have arrived, I'm carefully putting away till next winter.

Liberty Bloomsbury Quilt - Finished

It's definitely purple, it's bright, it's beautiful and somewhat girly and it's finished!!

My Liberty Bloomsbury Quilt - started back in September 2015, is finally a finished quilt.  I made it bigger than the original pattern by adding the extra purple and Liberty border, so my quilt finishes at a large 80" square. The quilt was machine pieced, however the dresdens were all hand appliqued to their backgrounds. It is backed in a Tula Pink fabric which echoed the quilt colours and dresdens.

Bound in Liberty and hand quilted with a variety of threads (which unfortunately doesn't really show up in the photos).  A lot of the hand quilting I did last year I unpicked and re did after deciding it was too far from the edges of some of the large shot cotton dresden squares, I also had issues with some of the batting coming through with the thread when quilting.  I used a bamboo batting, has that happened to anyone else

I took this up to the Auckland Botanic Gardens for it's official photo shoot, so you get some pretty garden shots too.

Tonight it's on my bed, just in time for winter!

Scenes from my Week.

Pinterest

• A colourful view of my tropical cannas, still bravely flowering despite all the wild wind and rain.

• Slow progress on another bird for my bird dance project.  

• A tiny EPP Liberty Dresden, has been turned into a label for the Liberty Bloomsbury, hand quilting is progressing well, though I have been finding I am getting sore shoulders from doing it.  All going well, this quilt should be finished by the end of May.

• I love the vibrant green a leek turns as it it gently cooks.

• The cooler temperatures seems to bring out the colours in the Bromeliads in my garden

• Some planning is underway for the next border on my medallion quilt

• I'm not normally one for putting bible verses on my blog, but I came across this one in a book the other day and it resonated with me, which then led to me finding this blog post . Suddenly it doesn't feel wrong to not want to be a super achiever or splash my complete life story over the internet.

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend.

Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE

Now that we are experiencing the slightly cooler temperatures of Autumn, the Liberty Bloomsbury has been pulled out  again and the hand quilting has re-commenced.  There is something about snuggling under a quilt as you are working on it. It does take a little longer to do some times, thanks to my helper, who thinks the needle and thread are great toys.  I'll be having to lock myself away to quilt soon.    I have three more Dresden blocks to hand quilt and am contemplating whether to hand quilt the Liberty borders too, nothing like making more work for myself.  I can't wait to have this quilt on my bed, but I think it will have to be when Meeka is a little older and doesn't attack toes and knees through the bed clothes (of course, I could just shut the bedroom door at night).

So what have you been working on over the past few days.  Whatever you're sewing or stitching, link it up here.  Just follow these guidelines:

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching,
2. Somewhere in your post, please link to this post.
3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew,Stitch, Snap, Share links - its fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and keep blogging too.

Works in Progress

A day at home today saw me determined to finish quilting my City Sampler quilt.  After a couple of quick tutorials, the hand tying commenced, I found this rather quick and easy and so much less stressful on my shoulders than machine quilting, subsequently it is now ready for binding.

However, before binding can start, the sewing room needs to be cleaned up, so of course this means you find other WIPs that need finishing:

• Sea glass Sampler quilt - this now needs to be turned into a quilt top.  It won't be a large quilt more of a lap quilt for Miss B.

• Bird Dance - 12 blocks down, 18 to go plus the borders, this is meant to be done by the end of June - not liking my chances here.

• My Tiptoe through the Tulips test block is going to be turned into a medallion quilt, lots of planning to be done first.

• Liberty Bloomsbury Quilt - this is in fact in a usable state, however it still needs the hand quilting to be finished.  Luckily the evenings are getting cooler which makes it a much more pleasant task.

No doubt other new projects will catch my eye, but I am going to try and be good and finish these before starting anything else large.

2016: A Creative Review

It is always nice to look back and see what one has achieved in a year. I may not have been as productive this year as in others, but am still very pleased with what I have created.  Here is a review of my finished makes for 2016:

• Jeweled kaleidoscope mini quilt -pattern from here
• my first foray back into making clothing saw me make the A-line Barcelona skirt
• an EPP Liberty Sew together Bag
• A Nani Iro infinity scarf
• the quilt top for mum's reversible quilt - Morocco pattern from here
• the Rocky Shore to Sky quilt for my brother
• an EPP AMH pillow
• my second attempt at an item of clothing, the Sorbetto top
• a feather pillow for Miss B
• I finished the EPP cartwheel pillow started last year
• My big finish was my Scrappy Sampler Quilt
• my big bold beautiful Liberty Bloomsbury - has been bound, and partially quilted, so I am saying effectively a finish.

So what am I working on next year

• still more blocks for my seaglass sampler quilt
• finishing the hand quilting on my Liberty Bloomsbury quilt
• maybe another EPP project
• another hand sewn felt ornament in the 12 Days of Christmas swap with my sister
• a new applique project with my sister - this will involve felt, embroidery, fabric and no doubt a little muttering as I unpick things.
• hopefully a couple of new additions to my wardrobe.
• piecing my city sampler blocks into a quilt top 

Linking up to My Makes of 2016 at Say Little Hen

Weekending

• Could there be anything more beautiful to bind a quilt with than Liberty binding.  When I visited the Auckland Festival of Quilts a couple of weeks ago, Florence and Mary had a lovely selection of Liberty fabrics available.  I found a design and colourway,  I thought would be perfect for using on my Liberty Bloomsbury quilt and subsequently ordered some yardage. Called Pereira A, I couldn't be more pleased with how it is looking on my quilt.  And no, I haven't finished hand quilting it yet, it was just starting to fray a lot, and I had reached a point where I could bind it successfully, still a lot left to hand sew down - this is a big quilt.

• My bedside table reading pile has had a little boost this week. Les Parisiennes has been started and has to be finished cos about 300 people are waiting on it after me, so I won't be able to renew this one.

• I have been requesting a lot of Kaffe Fassett books from the Auckland Libraries too, nothing like a little colour therapy and inspiration to brighten one's day.

• This warmer humid weather means my garden finally has flowers ready to pick for small posies - I am enjoying having these through the house.

Wishing you all a fabulous week ahead.

Scenes from my Week

From the sofa

• the hand quilting continues on my Liberty Bloomsbury quilt, this is only worked on in the evenings, but I am surprised with how much I have done so far.   I am  lovinge how the back looks too.

From the sewing room

• some more blocks for the sea glass sampler quilt.  I came across this sea shell block the other day and  have decided to make it too - I couldn't really not for this quilt.
• the first 9 blocks for my City Sampler - surprisingly they don't look too bad together.

From the garden

• remember that bare garden here that I had to plant - well finally the weather has been fine and warm, so the first plants are in and mulched. Only the lime tree and manuka plants were new, all the rest have been transplanted or broken up from other areas of my garden.  Now they need to grow and then I can plant some smaller flowering plants for more colour.

One more day till the weekend. I want to do some yummy baking and a few more City Sampler blocks, what have you got planned for yours?

With Needle & Thread

  

Now that my other must finish quilting projects are done and dusted, today I pulled out my Liberty Bloomsbury quilt top and backing and finally basted it.  I always have a problem with the tape not sticking properly to the carpet so today I stuck a few drawing pin into the backing edge and tape and found that that held it nicely in place.

Almost 200 pins later it is basted and the hand quilting has started. I am using Perle 8 from Sue Spargo for the solids and for the Liberty I have a very fine variegated  Egyptian thread from Tutti.

This is going to be a slow stitching for a few months, and infinitely more enjoyable during winter, though I am starting to wonder why I thought I needed to quilt each Dresden blade.

I know when it is all finished it will be worth it