Gradient HSTs quilt a.k.a. Dawn to Dusk

It started with some fabrics....

Carkai (and some Doe) by Carolyn Friedlander for Robert Kaufman

Karen Lewis Textiles and Blueberry Park (the latter for Robert Kaufman)

...and inspiration from this mini I made in the Blueberry Park swap (and now famous as featured in Australia's Make Modern Magazine, issue 12)

I LOVE how well Karen's and Carolyn's fabrics wrk together. For this quilt I excluded all fabrics with flowers as I wanted a more "masculine" look to it. Having been a regular customer of Karen's including signed up to her fabric club, I still had plenty to chose from.

Along the way, there was on casualty....

Testing various layouts in the blue section

All sewn together

I am trying to decide if I'll add a border, as I did on the mini version, and then this one is going off for longarm quilting. It'll be too much swearing involved if I was to do this one on my own machine. 

Links:
Karen Lewis Textiles,
Blueberry Park, Robert Kaufman,
Carkai, Robert Kaufman

Blueberry Park mini swap - the HSTs mini

This was the second mini I made for the Blueberry Park mini swap. Thanks to a very active partner, I got lots of encouragement along the way; she even selected the binding colour for me!

I am still amazed how well turquoise, peach and purple work together. Not the colours I would mix personally, but when you get a number of favourite colours from your partner, you have to go for it, haven't you?!

Coincidentally, my partner for this was Sandra, (http://rubylovesred.blogspot.com) who designed the other pattern I used for this swap. For a while I was tempted to send her the mini based on her own design, but then decided not to.

There's still a limited number of minis making their way to their new homes across the groups, but we are very close now. Fingers crossed!

The pastel polaroid shadow mini quilt

My selection of colours based on my partner's likes and dislikes at time of sign-up

The polaroid blocks are done and trimmed to correct size.

The shadow effect has been added. Trying different layouts...

Top pieced.

Quilted and binding added, but still need to be hand sewn to the back.

I even managed to add a label on the back, BEFORE wrapping up the mini to send it off to my partner!!!

This mini is currently making its way to its new home! 

Polaroid shadow mini quilt

Pattern by: Sandra Cassidy

http://rubylovesred.blogspot.com

Quilting inspiration from 

Dorothy Hill

www.instagram.com/dahill15b

One of my two minis for the Blueberry Park mini swap.

November 2015 to March 2016.

ScandiBee for December - X marks the spot

Looking through the posts on the blog, I realised I haven't actually blogged about the ScandiBee blocks I've made SINCE FEBRUARY!!!! Everything has been shared on Instagram, but nothing on the blog. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; Instagram really kills my blog!

For December, Hanne asked us to make the "X marks the spot" block, in any colours we liked.  It is not a difficult block, but it is rather time consuming.

28 HSTs, four smaller solid squares and one larger patterned square, for each of the blocks. That's a lot of cutting and trimming.....

As I had cut the first two blocks in scrappy coloured fabric, and the instructions later was confirmed as exactly five fabrics plus low volume for the background, I ended up making four blocks. The yellow and blue are "as per specifications", whereas the red and pink are using too many fabrics. Still, the red one is my favourite. 

Each block ends up at 12 1/2 inch square. For the instructions head over to Sew Crafty Jess.

Blueberry Park mini swap - the groups

For the Blueberry Park mini swap I have the pleasure of being joined as swap mama by Karie (www.instagram.com/karie_twokwikquilters) and Michelle (www.instagram.com/mrees2511).

Karie is looking after a group with ladies mainly living in the United States and Michelle has Australia, whilst I'm having mainly Europeans in my team. 

Below are our main group images.

#blueberrynina   #blueberrymichelle   #blueberrykarie   #blueberryparkminiswap