Aurora Update #6

I had a couple of weeks without much desire to sew. I guess I needed the break.

 But now I’m back at it and loving it again!

My centre square is now sewn to the outer square. I’m not 100% happy with my Y-seams, so I’ll go back and redo those once I’m finished with the spiked border pieces.

Once the Y-seams are fixed and the spiked borders complete there are just two small borders to attach  and my Aurora will be complete. My goal is to have it done by September 8th.

Aurora Update #5

I think I was subconsciously avoiding working on this quilt this week, thinking that the 4 Y-seams would be a nightmare. But, it’s going along great. I have two of the four sides attached and it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had feared. Circle of Life had 16 Y-seams, so maybe that makes this feel easy-peasy.

My goal for the coming week is to get the other 2 sides attached.

Aurora Update #3

I’m still having a great time slowly working on my Aurora quilt.

All the New York Beauties are now attached to the Flying Geese units.

My goal for this week is to sew in the 8 semi and quarter arch units into the middle star unit.

Aurora Update

Now that Circle of Life is finished I can focus on completing “Aurora”, the other quilt I started during my time with Jacqueline de Jonge.

I used fabrics that I had on hand. Some of the batiks have prints on them which have resulted in a “riot”of colour. While this chaos pleases me I notice (with disappointment) that it distracts from the technical aspect of the quilt. It’s hard to see the perfect points, etc when the fabrics are screaming for attention.

I do like it, but it the future I’ll shy away from busy fabrics when I want the piecing to shine.

The goal for this week is to get the last New York Beauty arc done and to get four semi-circles sewn in.

Circle of Life Completed Quilt Top

Two weeks ago I was very, very fortunate to spend 6 days with Jacqueline de Jonge!!! Wow! What a dream come true!

The session was being taught at Nancy’s Calico Patch in Newport News, VA. It was almost 1200kms from my house, but it was the closest course I could get in to with Jacqueline before 2019. So, I made the trek and it was well, well worth it.

I can not say enough about Jacqueline. She is an amazing designer AND teacher.  I am planning on taking more classes with her as soon as I can.

As I was staying for 6 days (two 3 day classes) I brought two quilts to work on; Aurora and Circle of Life.

Below is my completed Circle of Life quilt top. I had all the components completed before class. They just needed to be sewn together. I thought it would be quick and that I could move on to the second pattern I had begun earlier in the week.

Well, I discovered that I had made several critical mistakes with Circle.  But, with Jacqueline’s help all were addressed successfully and now I have a beautiful and flat top.

As always, I learned a TON through the mistakes and the corrections and I’ll be a much more competent quilter as a result.

Thank you, Jacqueline, for all your help! Can’t wait to take another course with you!

White Brilliant Beauties of Joy Finished

i just got back from my spring retreat. My friend and quilter brought my white Brilliant Beauties of Joy quilt back. She did a wonderful job and it looks stunning.

This is a Jacqueline de Jonge BeColourful pattern called Brilliant Beauties of Joy.

I had the binding ready to go and it is now a complete quilt.

This top was a joy to make and went together so well. I made a black version previously, you can see it here.

I love the pattern so much that I am thinking about making it a third time.

Mod Flamingos Finished!

I’m happy to report that after a year of languishing in the UFO Pile, my Mod Flamingos is finished!!!

A year ago I got confused and overwhelmed by the instructions and put it away.

When I decided to finally finish it, it went really fast and was so fun that I couldn’t believe I didn’t finish it sooner.

It’s finished and I’m delighted with it! I’m also thrilled that I now have an empty project box. Yeah!!!