Chloe's Quilt

The story of how my first quilt, Chloe's quilt has come about is as follows.

My name is Carla and I live in Tropical North Queensland outside the small town of Bartle Frere. My husband and I have a small farm there.

Beginning 2011 we had cyclone Yassi come through which did a lot of damage outside, but most importantly took out a small vanilla plantation.

A few months later our beloved dog Chloe, at only 4 years old was diagnosed with a malignant colon cancer which was a terrible blow. As my husband has to work away from home a lot I decided I needed to do something for myself to help me to deal with this situation.

Inspired by the movie Julie & Julia I thought to teach myself something new, challenging and give myself a year to do it. (Like Julie in the movie cooking every recipes from Julia Child's book within the year)

A quilt I thought and stumbled on the Glorious colour website, could not look at any other option but Roseville Album by Kim Mclean, was it even possible to make something so beautiful? A starters pack and pattern was ordered and I started my quilt June 2011.

What a journey it has been, I kept going and going coming to the end I decided to take the first 3 blocks out and rebalance the quilt.

Hand appliqued, machine pieced, hand quilted and finished early this year. Last but not least Chloe is happy and healthy which is just a miracle!  Without the inspiration of Kim's stunning work and designs and all glorious applique contributors I feel I would not have pulled it off. 

A big thanks to you all. 

Carla 

As shared with me from Carla! It's positively AMAZING!!! And, so...sew GLAD to learn Chloe is well!!! : ) Piecefully, Pam

Well, I have completed more than I realised!

I was ready to organise my next couple of blocks for appliquéing and I  thought I would put the completed ones on the design wall. I hadn't realised how many I had finished. The photos are not the best and the layout is a bit random at the moment.

Not a good photo, but these are the right and left side panels unpressed. 
Thanks for the info re: trimming them to size.  I have two borders left to stitch.  I had started working on the border after completing the center squares rather than leaving all of them to the end. 

You thought I forgot, didn't you

As you can see, I finally finished my Lollipops. It already hang at a local craft exhibition.
I spent an incredible amount of time thinking about how to quilt it. In the end, I just opted to machinequilt around the shapes.
I changed the way the binding was done, because from the very start that small line around the quilt bothered me. I feel it didn't fit all the squares and the busy quilt. So I added rectangles instead of squares at the exterior and used those to finish of the quilt. I have to admit the upper one does have a tendancy to faint but I can live with that, since the quilt is meant to be used.

I am very happy with how it turned out.

And thinking of which one to make now, since I enjoyed it so much.

Have fun,

Françoise in Belgium

Question

I am just completing my last panel of the Roseville Album quilt.  I am wondering what is the best method to use in trimming the panels to the finished size. 

Mary

Well, I finally finished the redesign of my in-laws 50th anniversary quilt.  It took me about 18 months to figure our how to redesign the quilt, and then accomplish the redesign.  I am getting ready to send it out for quilting.  It is pieced and appliqued, so I have considered both machine and hand quilting.  Any thoughts about it would be appreciated.  Also, I wrote a poem to go with the quilt, not sure how to incorporate that into this heirloom.  Again thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks Kim for all your inspiration.

Roseville Album centre blocks finished

It has taken a while, but I finally have all 9 centre blocks completed.

The are not stitched together yet so the arrangement may be altered.

I am happy to be back laying with all these gorgeous fabrics!

Now for the 4 corner squares.

Miriam

At last, Kim's Mariners Compass Medallion pattern is ready.  It is a beauty. It will test your skills at applique, paper piecing, English paper piecing and more.