A pair of patchwork pillows

I'm linking up with the Elm Street Quilts February One Monthly Goal finishes and the 2018 Finish-a-long link up and sharing my completed goal for this month. One of my proposed finishes for quarter 1 was to make a pair of patchwork pillows for my friend who celebrated her birthday this month. I may have finished them on the day of her party, but I got them done!

I'm please to report that she loved them, and even more pleased to be able to tick a few more WIPs off my long list.

Time to start thinking about what I'm going to make for my MIL, who birthday is in a few days!

Kat

February Scrapbooking Top 50 Aus challenge

Just a quick post to share some cards that I made for this month's SBT50 challenge. This month we have a pretty graphic to be inspired by.

I was inspired by the colours (pink, green and yellow), the floral wreaths and the love sentiment to make a set of greeting cards.

All the challenge details and DT examples are on the SBT50 challenge Facebook page. Entries close at midnight tonight, so there is still a bit of time to play along if you are a last-minute crafter like me :)

Kat

February beehive blocks

Gosh! I can't believe it's almost the end of the month already! Although I made them a while ago, I forgot to share the blocks I made for my quilting bees this month.

First up are some Tic Tac Toe blocks for Jospehine. Josephine is making a quilt for her daughter and requested a variety of different pinks. Pinks are plentiful in my stash so these were fun to make.

I also make a pair of Fizzy blocks for Maree, who requested greys, navy and yellow.

I'm excited to see these quilts come together.

Kat

February One Monthly Goal

Today I'm linking up with the Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal for February. This month is a busy month for my family. Mr. 5 is starting primary school ( how did that happen???), we've got transition sessions for the babies at childcare and I'm getting ready to go back to my full-time job at the start of March. So, this month I'm not setting any lofty quilt-finishing aspirations and instead just aiming to finish off a few small projects.

My goal for this month is to turn these WIPs into a pair of matching cushions for a friend who celebrates her birthday in a few weeks. I also hope to make the most of my last month of maternity leave (sob!) and get in as many baby snuggles as possible.

Kat

January Beehive blocks

This year I'm participating in a couple of quilting bees. Not only are they a great way to connect with other quilty peeps, they encourage me to work with blocks and colour schemes I wouldn't normally choose. They are also perfect because they provide the thrill of pulling fabric and making a new block, without having to break my 'no new projects' rule. These Double Star blocks were made for our January queen, @curlyquesue, who chose a refreshing colour palette of navy, emerald green and pale grey.

I've actually been thinking about using this block for my month as queen, but in a different colour palette. I'm not exactly sure yet, but I'm not queen until November so I've got plenty of time to make up my mind.

Kat

Ripples quilt

I've finished my first quilt for 2018! This quilt was made mostly with blocks sewn by the lovely members from my 2017 quilting bee. For my month as queen bee I chose the Ripples block in saturated colours and a scrappy low volume background. I love that every single block I received contained prints I don't have, resulting in a quilt with hundreds of different pretty prints to look at.

I'm so happy with how it turned out. Despite some blocks being made with slightly off colours (e.g. peach instead of bright orange), the blocks all seem to work together perfectly. It's light and bright and scrappy, which is just the way I like it.

For the backing I chose a Cloud 9 print from the Brush Strokes collection by Holly De Groot. I had this print put aside for another project, but when I saw it while hunting through my stash, I knew that it would be perfect for this quilt. And as the old saying goes, "a quilt on the bed is worth two in the stash" (or something like that). I can always buy more fabric later, right?

I'm linking up with the Elm Street Quilts January One Monthly Goal finish and the 2018 Finish-along as this quilt was on my list of proposed finishes for quarter 1 and my specific goal for this month.

Kat

January Scrapbooking Top 50 challenge

This year I'm thrilled to be staying on the Scrapbooking Top 50 Aus Design Team for another year of fun challenges. For January we have a fabulous sketch challenge to play along with. You can find all the details on the Facebook page. We are also trialing loading entries to our Facebook page instead of the blog this month to see if that makes things easier for everybody.

For my Design Team example, I made a layout about the difficulties in taking photos of twin babies. I started with the mixed media background, but scraped big lines or acrylic paint rather than the splatters pictured in the sketch. I also moved the smaller cluster from the top left to the bottom right, but hopefully you can still see the bones of the sketch on my layout.

I really liked the way my background came out so I kept the embellishments minimal to let it shine. I also didn't want to take away from the photos too much - just look at those facial expressions. Priceless!

This weekend looks to be a scorcher in Melbourne so I'll be locking myself in the craft room and playing with paper - anything that doesn't involve turning on the iron. I hope you find some crafty time too.

Kat