Hooray!

Hooray! In the nick of time I have finished my 'Family Tree' quilt, ready to give it to my Mum as a birthday present today. (It's not her birthday for another week, but I'm seeing her today, so it seemed like a good idea.)

Here is the finished quilt. I really enjoyed making it, as it was fun choosing the fabrics for the various people, and quite a challenge to make it up, to get it square and flat! I have put people's names and dates of birth next to them, for future reference, using a Pigma pen, and quilted with my favourite meander with hearts.

Here is a close-up of me, where you can see the details. I just quilted round each figure, as I didn't want to obscure them.

There is another reason for the 'Hooray!' as this is my 100th post! I can hardly believe it, but would like to say a big thank you to Jane who encouraged me to become a blogger in the first place, and all the lovely people I have met on the way.

As a thank you, I will be giving away a copy of 'Patchwork Quilt tsushin' (it's all in Japanese, but the pictures and diagrams are very clear), four blue batik fat eighths and a surprise. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before midnight on Wednesday 19th September, and I will draw a name out of a hat. Good luck!

Family tree and love

Since my mother's birthday is in September, I have been working hard on my Family Tree quilt, and have finished the top!

I'm really pleased with it. The colour gradation wasn't intentional, just resulted from dyeing several lots of blue fabric in the microwave, but I'm quite happy with it. The letters were free pieced, then cut wedge-shaped and the whole section was added to the top of the quilt. Thanks go to a technique I learned at a Pat Deacon workshop for sewing curved pieces, and Dawn Cameron-Dick for IMA. And of course, many thanks to Christine Thresh for inspiring me with her gorgeous paper pieced people in the first place!

And now to the love. I was immensely flattered to receive this picture of a LOVE quilt made by another Linda from Ontario, Canada. She had seen my LOVE quilt on Tonya's blog and decided to make one of her own! Her colours are less sugary and more sophisticated than mine, and the hand quilting with baptist fans is awesome! Thanks for sharing, Linda.