Bloggers Quilt Festival

               It's the Blogger's Quilt Festival and here is my entry.

The quilt was originally a kit.  It came with instructions and the most glorious range of fruity fabrics and checks and stripes. 

I didn't know many tricks of the trade so it is full of mistakes. The knots from my hand quilting are still visible because I didn't know how to hide them between the layers and the binding was put on back to front with awful corners. I didn't use perle cotton so the stitching thread is not as soft as it should be but I don't care!

The kit was was given to me for a birthday by my sadly missed sister-in-law Susan, who died  a few years ago. We used to go to all the craft fairs together, did our first quilting classes together, had sewing afternoons, knitted, stitched and shopped together. We both had a total love of textiles. 

Susan bought me this kit from Patchwork on Central's stall at a quilt show. She knew I couldn't afford it and bought it for my birthday. It's very special because it reminds me of our fun together. 

Blogger's Quilt Festival

The life of this quilt all began in May this year. I bought a large collection of blue/green Kaffe Fassett fabric and had no idea what to make with it. This is a normal thing for me. Fabric needs to be looked at on the shelf prior to cutting.

Meanwhile, amongst other things, I made a yellow quilt for my niece as a wedding present.

As much as I wanted to get started I could not think of a way to use the blues. On one of my 'reading other people's blogs days' I found a fun block on Be*mused that stuck in my mind.

With that as inspiration and a whole lot of scrap yellows from the wedding quilt, the new quilt began. I put yellows and blues together - something I would never do. I decided that this quilt could be as mismatched as I liked.  For me, it was a big step away from safety. In the past, picking fabric from the same theme always saved me from thinking whether colours would match or not. Although I only used Kaffe fabric for the quilt, they were opposites in colours.

Here are some of my first blocks. Yuk!

During the same time I found a Facbook page that had Kaffe Fassett comment on your quilts. When the quilt top was finished I posted it to the page and waited for a comment from Kaffe. He did, at last, post a comment. "There is more contrast in this quilt than I usually like but I like the cool pallet and the setting is stunning, best wishes Kaffe." I was so excited that he wrote to me but I think he liked my back yard trees better than the quilt!

Anyway, with many projects happening at the same time, the quilt was basted but lay folded in my lounge, awaiting the final touches for 5 months.

When I saw that Amy's Creative Side was running her Bloggers Quilt Festival I decided that now was the time to quilt and bind my experiment together.

The garden has grown so much in 5 months with all the rain we have had recently.

I call it my Yuk Yum Quilt.

One block was not made correctly but I kept it as it was. Surprises are fun if you don't think of them as mistakes!