Christmas in Kinglake

An early Christmas lunch in Kinglake. Most of you probably know of Kinglake because of the terrible fires in 2009. Many quilts were donated to the survivors - not only those who lost their homes and possesions, but also to those who lived through that terrible time and were equally affected by it.

The day before yesterday we travelled up to Kinglake to visit my aunt Margaret, a nun and pastoral worker who had been involved in the area prior to the fires, and was up at dawn, the morning after the fires hit, serving breakfast to those who made it out.

Margaret has continued working in Kinglake helping to hold a community together. When a house became available, one of the few that survived, she moved there. On Thursday we spent a wonderful day visiting her there and meeting some local folk. Thankfully, there has been plenty of rain this winter and early summer, and the forests of burnt trees are dressed in plenty of green.

Heavenly stars

Heavenly Stars crib quilt top. Yet to be quilted. I have an idea for quilted circles in the wavy pink background, and concentric rings in the pink striped background. I am looking to this book for inspiration.

Heart wreath

Heart wreath. My design. Began as a cushion cover and grew to a crib quilt - hence the sawtooth border.

I've challenged myself to create an Advent of Christmas related posts inspired by Pine Ridge Quilter's 25 days of Christmas. Mine will be bits and pieces of quilts, crafts and Christmas related things. Thanks in advance to everyone who has offered to help - I couldn't do 25 posts on my own!

I had to post this one early because tomorrow things will be a little bit up in the air - literally:)

Looking for the heart

I was following a 'blog trail' starting from Wonkyworld to Black Threads a few weeks ago where I came across this book  'Stitchin' and pullin': A Gee's Bend Quilt'. I was struck by these words;

"Look for the heart....when you find the heart your work will leap to life...."

I started piecing together fabrics randomly from my 'use-it-up' box (fittingly the heart fabric was chosen by a friend of my daughter, for a dress last summer, and the quilt is going to her soon-to-be-born sister). 

I randomly machine pieced the fabrics together and once I had a block I placed it on an upterned crib quilt that I already had, for idea of size. I like to think that quilters would have once worked like this, back before rotary cutters, printed patterns and design boards.

Once I had four blocks, I cut strips of the sashing fabric with large dressmakers shears. This was all done by eye - I was surprised at how accurate you can be, with a decent pair of scissors.  There was just enough sashing fabric - the top and bottom borders are pieced - with practically no fabric left over. This quilt just seemed meant to be. The whole quilt went together in about four days - if you have been following this blog then you know that is a real departure for me.

The back is pieced - I didn't have anything large enough - and these were scraps I wanted to use up. The top and back were done in a few hours. I was so enjoying seeing a quilt go together so quickly that I pin basted with safety pins, and quilted freehand lines without a hoop, using perlé 5 thread (no reason - it is just what I had).

I have never done a pieced binding before but I am really happy with how it turned out.

I thought it was fun to photograph these two quilts together. One neat and one free. Next I would like to do something in between.

Double wedding ring

I bought these Double Wedding Ring pieces some months ago on e-bay. I am always attracted to unusual things that no-one else is bidding on - I feel justified purchasing something that may risk ending up as rat fodder in someone's garage, or worse. (Wonder what happened to that little segment missing in the upper corner of the photo?)

I sent a photo to Barbara Brackman after reading this post which mentions that the double wedding ring didn't appear until around 1920. The fabrics in these Wedding Ring pieces seemed earlier than that to me, and definitely different to the typical pastel fabrics of the 1930's when Double Wedding Rings had their heyday.

Today Barbara Brackman has published a new post specifically about the history of Double Wedding Ring quilts.

Keiko Goke's modern rendition of a Double Wedding Ring (featured in Barbara's post) has appeared all over the internet. I can see why - I adore the free pieced sections and wonky corner posts. Reminds me of the wonkiness of my own set of pieces above. Made me wonder if I could turn them into a wonky little wedding ring quilt - or should I just preserve them for posterity, as are?

More autumn colours

A new cushion to brighten up the coming winter (from Tiny Happy) and a new quilt - the second of these quilts....

....mud fun.... 

....and a November sky.

Autumn colours

I don't know if I will ever make a quilt in these colours, but my youngest - brown haired, brown eyed - daughter looks lovely in them.

The top was found in my  local second-hand boutique (no thrift shop bargains in my neighbourhood). The fabric is Liberty. I traced off the pants pattern from a favourite pair of pants. The contrast trim on the inside of the waistband was a last-minute length adjustment. The button was a happy find from the button box.

I actually sewed these pants last winter, but as they turned out a little large, they weren't used much - just as well, because they fit my four-year-old perfectly now.