The final quilt has been completed for C's wee group of friends. Baby S comes from a family who are infatuated with their sausage dog appropriately named Frank. Therefore it was only fitting to design a quilt around the pup who will eventually become Baby S's bestie.

I found this great paper piecing pattern for the Mini Doxie Dachshund's from The Tartankiwi . I have a love/heart relationship with paper piecing but am thrilled with how this turned out.

The fabric is a selection of Prima Homespun and low volume scraps. Nothing fancy but I am pleased with how the bright colours have turned out so cheerfully.

Quilting wise I wanted to free motion echos but when I went to create some straight line 'fences for the cat to walk along' as Leah Day would say I found that it wasn't going to look great on the back. In the end I settled for an all over diamond design which I am happy with.

So I have been kind of busy lately with the arrival of wee baby girl "C" in early September, she is delicious but keeping me very busy.

One of the things since her arrival which makes my heart sing is getting to pull out and use some of the quilts I have made for her. These are being used for tummy time and as play mats. I am looking forward to making something a bit more heavy duty in the future for Teddy Bears picnics outside and then getting in to making her some big girl quilts for when she grows a little (well a lottle)... at 8 weeks I can not believe how much she has grown already.

I am a big fan of Craftsy, I think it is a great platform to enhance your skill set. Especially if you live in a location that lacks a big range of quilting options like I do or have time restrictions on you with regards to getting to classes. One of the thing I like about Craftsy classes is you have the class forever and do not need to do everything at once. You can treat it like a skill library and pick up the chapter you want when needed.

I purchased Camille Roskelly's class 'Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple' a while ago as I am a big fan of the Bonnie and Camille range by Moda. I got so far as doing the Half Square Triangle chapter and knew instantly this would be a great project for a charm pack I had bought on impulse (like so many of my fabric purchases). My newly found appreciation for the humble HST is now off the charts, such a versatile building block and I look forward to whipping up many more HST quilts in the future.
(This class also comes with a tutorial for Camille's lovely Swoon quilt which is on my 12 quilts in 12 months list for next year)

The following was made using "Miss Kate" from the Bonnie and Camille Collection and backed with Britten Nummer from Ikea and quilted in the ditch.

This is one of those quilts that I am slowly chipping away at.

Whilst I am not sure how it is going to come together (is it going to look too cluttered? have I left enough space for seam allowance? what direction should I place the peels?) I absolutely LOVE it already.

The focus fabric is Best Day Ever by April Rosenthal for Moda which I ordered online from the Fabric Patch in the form of a Jelly Roll.  

I LOVE LOVE LOVE precuts. So much variety for such a competitive price (although I must admit I keep thinking "argh I am going to run out of Best Day Ever" but that is not going to happen. This Jelly Roll appears to be forever lasting. The low volume fabrics are those I have been collecting for when I finally make 'Paint by Numbers' by Sarah Fielke in her "Hand Quilted with Love".

This is some of my progress to join the rest of the pile.

This quilt is slow going as there are so many steps involved compared to my usual slash and stitch approach but super relaxing, enjoyable and every little square is a joy in itself. 

Whilst I am pretty confident at quilting these days actual sewing which require calculations are still a challenge for me. Its especially weird since I am actually pretty good at math. I think I just over think sewing calculations to the point where I mess up.

Therefore I have learnt to buy practice fabric and do a trial run before chopping in to my good fabric. My 'Good' fabric being Buck Forest in Mint by Bonnie Christine for Art Gallery Fabrics as part of her Hello, Bear line. This was an online order from Fabric Pixie who I was stoked to see has super competitive postage. Not knowing if Baby K is a boy or girl we are trying to be as gender neutral as possible.

So I popped along to Spotlight expecting to buy some cheap/yucky fabric which would serve the purpose of a trial run. However happy surprise! I was able to buy a metre of "Tribal Animals" at 30% off bringing it down to about $10!! Whoop Whoop.
Super affordable fabric which also looks good!!

I followed this Tutorial (and by follow I mean read every second word and looked at the pretty pictures then tried and cross referenced it with a half a dozen other tutorials).

I must say I am pretty happy with the results for $12 (fabric + elastic + thread ) and an hour of my time.

So a few years ago I purchased my first Charm Pack (or  little packet of squares of fabric as I knew them back then) whilst lurking in the local Darwin quilt shop. That charm pack turned out to be made up of Printemps by 3 Sisters for Moda. It sat in my fabric pile and then it sat a little longer... and then it sat for a bit longer. Until one night when Mr K invited people over for dinner and and it turned out we did not have enough of my home made place mats.

I made these back in 2013 when I was starting to get in to quilting, Pretty sure this was the first time I just 'free styled' it after looking at some photos on pinterest.

Anyway back to the semi present, I sewed up these 2.5 Inch squares in to six place mat tops, quilted two and put binding on one. Then in true quilter style I moved on to another project leaving this one unfinished.


Another year down the track and Baby K is on his/her was so a clean up of my fabric creep (you know, creep on to every free surface and cupboard). I piled all my half completed projects in to a box and have place said box next to my sewing machine with a commitment to get some all these projects finished.

A week later and my first project out of the box is complete!!