Quilt Love: Winter Picnic

Many of my quilts are given to friends and family and are for special occasions, but some, they are my keepers. Perhaps i've made them with myself or my family in mind, or maybe i simply fell in love with them and their pretty fabrics while i was making them. They are special to me and they are used in our home and loved for many purposes.

Sometimes we just snuggle under them while watching movies or they keep our guests warm when they come to stay. Others are used on our camping trips, in the van as we hit the road or on picnics. The Hurricane snuggles under one on his bed but he also reckons they make the best cubbies. My husband and i usually snuggle under my favourite.

I've decided to share with you on the blog how my family love our quilts and how quilts are part of our day to day lives. It's my hope you'll enjoy seeing these photos as much as we enjoy creating the quilt love memories.

It's a work in progress and i'll keep adding to it as i collect our memories, but first of all i can share some memories from our recent camping trip to South Durras, a gorgeous part of the NSW South Coast.

We often use our Summer Picnic Quilt when we're out camping or on day trips to the National Parks and Reserves near us. I still love the colours and the bamboo batting and basic straight-line machine quilting are holding up well to the regular washing and outdoor use. I'm so glad we kept it!

Jen

Summer Picnic

My Spring Summer Picnic quilt is finished. And while i didn't quite have it finished to enjoy the Australian spring as hoped, it is ready to make the most of the last remnants of summer.

For me, this quilt is all about the colours. Colours that really please my eyes and say 'take me out onto some lush, green grass and enjoy the warmth, blue skies and fresh air outdoors'. The design is simple...super simple....but i really like how in it's simplicity, it's reminiscent of the table cloths we used on picnic tables when i was young.

I was inspired to make my Summer Picnic quilt after seeing Annie's Picnic Quilt by Malka Dubrawsky (p.122 of her book Fresh Quilting; Fearless Color, Design & Inspiration) (You can read more about that here).

I also really liked the colour combinations in Kaffe Fassett's Green Shirt Stripes fabric, so while the solids are primarily shades of green, i've tended to include some prints and squares of purple and blue to liven things up a little. I've used Kaffe's Green Shirt Stripes for the binding.

Today, we headed off to the sculpture garden outside the Australian National Gallery in Canberra to take some photo's. As usual, my assistants were very helpful and the perfect picnic quilt testers; 
1. rolling on it - tick
2. munching yummy things on it -  tick
3. jumping and running all over it - tick
4. Hurricane proof? - tick.

Lesson learnt - 

Rip-Stop Fabric is too slippery to quilt using my walking foot!

One of the reasons for the delay in finishing the quilt was because i'd decided to experiment a bit with some Rip-Stop as backing. I thought Rip-Stop would make the perfect backing for a picnic quilt...giving it a bit of water/dirt proofing when the ground is a little damp. So after whipping up the quilt top, i thread basted the quilt sandwich ready to go.

My plan was for simple 1/4 inch quilting either side of the seams with my wonderful walking foot. Sounds easy right? Well, i battled and fought with the quilt as it slipped and created horrible, irregular, messy quilting lines. I persisted for several lines of quilting before i was so disappointed, i turned off my Bernina and set the quilt aside while i decided what to do.

Now, don't get me wrong, my machine quilting is far from perfect at the best of times. My main problem usually happens when dealing with larger quilts and the thread length will vary as i tug and battle with the weight and size of the quilt and i often end up disappointed and not enjoying the quilting process (for that reason i usually opt to take big quilts to my lovely long-arm friends).

But this was soooo much worse. At times like this, a girl needs to consult her Mum and she agreed that i should unpick the mess i'd made, remove the Rip-Stop, make a new backing from the left over fabrics i'd used on the top, re-make the sandwich and quilt it as planned. And, i'm very happy i did. Despite a few wonky imperfections (aka Hurricane assistance) and some of the usual variations in thread length, it's ready and raring for picnics.

I can't wait to take it out for another date. I look forward to some lazy napping, sharing yummy nibbles with family and friends and the likely job of working out how to best remove the evidence that a good time was had; red-wine, homemade beetroot dip (my favourite) and probably some tomato sauce.

Cheers to many years of picnics ahead,
Jen

Linking up with:
- Kim at Persimon Dreams for TGIFF,
- Lorna for Lets Bee Social and
- Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday

Spring Picnic

It's winter here in Canberra. The nights are cold and it's difficult to get out of bed in the morning. I'm a summer-loving type girl and i'm already longing for the change of season. In preparation for some spring picnics in the mountains and weekends away camping, i'm planning on making a picnic quilt and i know just the inspiration.

p. 122 of Malka Dubrawsky's Fresh*Quilting; Fearless Color, Design & Inspiration

Last year i saw a beautiful picnic quilt made by Malka Dubrawsky (p. 122 of her book Fresh*Quilting; Fearless Color, Design & Inspiration), and i've been wanting to make something like it ever since. Using mostly shades of green in solids and prints, i found it so fresh and when i see it, it makes me want to seek out some blue skies and leafy trees to picnic under. I love it's simplicity and focus on colours.

So, here are some of the Kona Solids i've selected in a recent fabric purchase. I like the colours, they make me happy and i think they'll work well with some of the prints i already have in my stash. For now though, we still have a few more months of winter to enjoy which are perfect quilting conditions (also good for hot chocolates, movies, snuggling under favourite quilts, sipping tea, baking bikkies, reading and playing in the sunshine that typifies Canberra winters).

Cheers to a few winter months... the perfect preparation time for a spring picnic quilt.

It's also week 2 of the Plum and June 2014 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop, so if you'd like to see some more, new and inspirational quilting blogs, here is just a selection...

Jill @ Pie Lady Quilts

Chelsea @ Patch The Giraffe (http://patchthegiraffe. blogspot.com/)

Daisy @ Ants To Sugar

Rachael @ The Floral Suitcase 

Elizabeth @ And Pins

Jennifer @ Never Just Jennifer 

Alice @ Blossom Quilts

Megan @ Sew Stitching Cute

Stephanie @ Late Night Quilter

Kelsey @ Lovely And Enough

Linking up with Gemma for I Quilt Thursdays at Pretty Bobbins and Molli Sparkes for Sunday Stash