Home Sweet Home quilt #1

Home Sweet Home

I started this quilt a few years back.  I saw a model finished up in the quilt store in Kelowna and bought the book because it was so beautiful.  It is called Home Sweet Home and was written by Barb Adams and Alma Allen.  I cross-stitched for many years and Blackbird Designs was well known to me.  I had not known that they did quilting designs as well.  The book itself has several quilting patterns that I plan on making in addition to the Home Sweet Home quilt.  I just need more hours in the day!  I also really like the "lifestyle" chapters where they visit a friend's home and show how they decorated for different holidays.  Lots of beautiful things there.  I've read it several times - it's like a beautiful magazine you look at again and again.

Anyway, I digress.  I started the quilt with raw-edge applique using blanket stitch on my machine to stitch them down.  I thought they looked great, and made four blocks.  Then I got distracted with Lollypop Trees, which I worked in needleturn applique, and realized I wanted to work Home Sweet Home in needleturn applique.  I made one block with needleturn, realized that it wouldn't look like the others, and set it aside.  I decided to finish up these four blocks into one smaller quilt.  I'm labeling it #1 because I am going to work #2 quilt someday!

Other designs from the book are pictured below.  Isn't it beautiful?

   

 

 

Double-sided Quilt completed... for my sweetie...

Paisley Stars

My ever-enduring husband, Brad, humors my many hobbies and always has a positive word about my needlework.  I made him a quilt years ago when I first started quilting and it's starting to look a bit worn.  He picked this Paisley Stars quilt out of Kaffe Fassett's Country Garden Quilts book.  The Jungle Stripe fabric used in the original design is out of print.  I thought the Paisley Jungle fabric looked similar so I purchased a bunch from Glorious Color and Island Quilter.  I had to fussy cut it in a different way than the instructions but it worked out beautifully.  (To fussy cut the Paisley Jungle, I cut 5.25" wide strips of the fabric.  I made plastic templates and fussy cut the repeats, laying out each star to get the best coloring I could.)

When I finished the top, we picked a pattern that would work for the back.  It needed to be a pattern that wouldn't have to line up exactly because I knew it would go on my longarm frames.

Zig Zag

Zig Zag quilt is in the same Kaffe Fassett's Country Garden Quilts book, but this quilt was designed by Liza Prior Lucy.  I used my leftover bits of Paisley Jungle, then I also purchased Millefiore, Aboriginal Dots, and the Spots colors recommended in the pattern. It's a little more orange in person - less pink than is showing on my monitor.  I fussy cut the Paisley stripes and Millefiore stripes on this quilt as well to try and get the most color variation.

These were a lot of fun to make.  I ended up with two extra stripes of ZigZag so I might make a bag.