Two More Easter Bunny Wall Hangings

Well, I decided not to leave the second cut out chocolate Easter Bunny until next year, only I needed two more so I cut out another one.  I didn't have much time so I decided to make two smaller wall hangings / table toppers without the border of eggs.  I found a piece of fabric big enough for both backgrounds and in wonderful Easter colours and used four pieces of fabric to make multi-coloured bindings.  The button eyes were out of my mother's button jar and I believe the ribbon was off a birthday present from my sister awhile ago.  They each finished at 13.5" by 9.5".

I gave these to my son and daughter's families yesterday as part of their Easter presents and I wanted them to receive them in person before I posted them on my blog.

Mug Rug

I made a Mug Rug this morning just for fun.  The two coordinating fabrics were left over from an iPad cover I made for my daughter.

Here's the back which shows the simple outline quilting I did.

And here's a picture of it in action.

The square in the centre of the mug was fussy cut at 3.5" and the rest of the mug was made with 1.5" strips.  The Mug Rug finished at 10" x 8", so a little on the larger side for a Mug Rug.  Good for a cup of tea and a little snack too!

Easter Bunny Wall Hanging

I appliqued the bunny to the background by machine with a buttonhole stitch and brown thread.  Then I went looking for some suitable fabric to put on the back so I could quilt it.  My drawer of green, blue, indigo & violet fabric was so messy, I had to dump it out to see what was in it.  The up side of this was that I folded everything neatly as I was putting it back in the drawer and I did find a piece of fabric exactly the correct width for the backing and in a nice Easter colour.  First, here's the nice neat drawer.

Here's the bunny wall hanging after quilting.  I used yellow thread to coordinate with the backing fabric and quilted it with my walking foot.  I quilted around the bunny, between each egg block and followed the curving line of the vine to quilt a  wavy line in the background fabric.  The pink button for the eye is from my mother's button jar.  The ribbon came off a roll of fabric.

I had one strip of striped binding left over from another project, so only had to cut one additional strip to complete the binding.  I love a stripey binding, especially a rainbow stripey binding!

After I had the binding all attached, I remembered I should have put on some hanging corners......  So out came the seam ripper and two triangular hanging corners were added.  You can see the hanging corners as well as the quilting I did in this picture.  The purple fabric doesn't match the binding, but since it is the back it won't be seen much.

It doesn't have to be a wall hanging, it can also be used as a table topper.  I had to open the Easter candy for this picture, but only four candies were harmed, the rest were put back in the bag til next weekend.  This picture was taken in natural light so the colours look slightly different from previous pictures.

I'm very happy with how this turned out.  I didn't follow a pattern, just put it together from ideas I got from Easter crafts seen on the Internet and bits and pieces of fabric I had on hand.  The question still remains as to what I will do with the mirror image chocolate bunny I cut out at the same time, but maybe I can wait until next Easter to answer that.

Squirrel! I mean Bunny!

I have almost all my Kaleidoscope / One Block Wonder half hexagons sewn together but with Easter coming up shortly I was seeing lots of Easter sewing in blog-land.  So I took a little break to create a wall hanging with a chocolate bunny in the centre surrounded by colourful Easter eggs.  I had actually cut out two mirror image chocolate bunnies, but by the time I made flippy corners on all my eggs, the piece of fabric I had left wasn't big enough for two bunnies.  As it was, I had to piece together one of the corner squares.  The eggs are made with a 2.5" x 3.5" rectangle with 1" flippy corners on the pointier end and 1.25" flippy corners on the rounder end of the egg.  I found a printable image of the bunny on the Internet.

I still need to do an applique stitch all around the bunny and quilt the whole thing.  I have a ribbon running underneath the bunny's neck which I will be able to tie in a nice bow once he's finished and I picked out a nice pink button for his eye.  The wall hanging measures approximately 16" x 20".  Now I have to figure out what to do with the other chocolate rabbit I cut out.  I really think the brown fabric does a good job of looking like chocolate!

Kaleidoscope / One Block Wonder Quilt

The first thing I want to say is that this is not the start of yet another new quilt.  I started this Kaleidoscope quilt several years ago after the purchase of some very interesting, colourful, good quality, sale fabric.  The reason it was on sale was because I purchased it at a store closing out sale, not because it was so ugly no one else wanted it...   I worked on it for a bit but then it became a UFO as I was not feeling so great about my interesting fabric.  When a class on making a One Block Wonder Quilt was offered by our guild, I decided it might be what I needed to finish my Kaleidoscope UFO.   Here is a picture of some of the fabric and some half hexagons sewn together as well as the basket of ones yet to be sewn.  You can decide for yourself if it is interesting and colourful with some potential or just plain ugly...  I may banish any hexagons that end up with the blobs that look like poorly made pizzas to the back of the quilt though.

Kaleidoscope quilts are just made out of hexagons.

One Block Wonder quilts have the option of adding in cubes that look three dimensional and are made out of coordinating fabric.  Here is a copy of the cover of my book which shows a finished quilt using this method.  At first, I wasn’t really interested in adding cubes to my quilt, but the idea has grown on me.

Funny observation:  I didn't notice until pasting a copy of the cover of my book into this blog post that the colour scheme of the quilt on the cover of the book is similar to mine, albeit minus some of the colours.  I'm starting to feel better about my interesting fabric and about my decision to banish the pizza blobs to the back of the quilt which will eliminate the colour orange from the quilt!

I went looking for coordinating fabric for the cubes this past weekend and was very surprised to find that all the colours I chose to look for could be matched up with Kona solids, which means to me that the colours themselves can't be all that ugly!  I was able to get a light, medium and dark fabric in a green to teal to blue combo and also in a mustard to rust to brown/burgundy combo.  As well, I also bought some mauve fabric the same as the background colour.  I'm feeling even better about my interesting fabric.  I actually really like this picture with all of the fabrics together!  Minus the pizza blobs in the bottom right hand corner of the print...

I am hoping that the addition of these solid fabrics help to tone down the mishmash of colourfulness / ugliness of the actual fabric and result in an interesting quilt.  I don't think everyone will love it, but if someone loves it, I will be happy!

Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mystery "Good Fortune" - Adding Additional Border(s)

I auditioned some additional borders for the Good Fortune Quilt in January, but didn't like any enough to proceed.  I then decided I would just make the quilt the size Bonnie designed with just the addition of a small neutral border so there would be space between the last border and the binding. Here is an example of one of  the borders I was trying out.

Recently I watched a bluprint class on adding borders and was inspired by one of the examples using four patches because I had one-quarter of the red and white four patches I would need already made.  Gotta love that.  Here is a mock up of the corner of the quilt.

In the quilt itself, the red and white four patches are arranged so that the white squares chain.  The border is the opposite with the red squares chaining.  It will add 4" to each side of the quilt and if I add another neutral border, I can add 6" to each side taking the quilt to a finished size of 88" square.  I think I will put this plan into action.

Dear Jane Quilt - K3, K4, K5, K6 & K7

I was away and didn't get to my Dear Jane group meeting in February, but I made it to the March meeting.  After a frustrating start with paper piecing the first block, I found my grove and finished two and a half blocks by the end of the meeting.  Over the next couple of days I finished the third block and made two more and even though I finished the fifth block on April 1st, I am calling these my Dear Jane blocks for March.

D-3  I chose to make five rings instead of four as it worked out better mathematically.  I chose to piece this one.

D-3 closeup

D-4  I used Susan Gatewood's paperpiecing patterns for this block.  The little wiggle on the bottom will be hidden in the seam allowance.

D-4 closeup

D-5  I used Susan Gatewood's paper piecing patterns for the diamonds.

D-5 closeup

D-6  I also used Susan Gatewood paper piecing patterns for the central X but not for the outer border.

D-6 closeup

D-7  I made a freezer paper template from Susan Gatewood's pattern for this one.

D-7 closeup

I am still enjoying these blocks, although I like the pieced ones more than the applique ones.