Bali Mystery Wheel

I just finished sewing the binding onto this quilt yesterday. Yea, another quilt finished. It's also from a quilt kit by John Flynn called Wheel of Mystery. I made this quilt last year for my mom and she loved it so much that I thought I might try doing another one. The curves seemed to come together even easier this time. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the colors in this quilt until I put the green border around it. The ugly green fabric seems to tone down the other colors. This was a good lesson that ugly fabrics can work. I did the quilting as well by stitching in the ditch following each of the circles. This will probably be another gift quilt.

Gridlock Progress

I am slowly making progress on Gridlock. Yesterday I realized that in order to make the size quilt I would like (King), I will need to make 81 blocks. So far I have only made 12 of the checkerboard blocks with 28 more to go before I can start the other 40! I think this is going to take a while! It's fun creating each block one at a time and trying to decide which colors to use as I go. Well, I better get back at it!

Gridlock

I've started a new project! Lately I have been obsessed with Kaffe Fassett designs and fabrics and I especially like this photo of Kaffe's design called "Gridlock" sewn by Liza Prior Lucy. I bought some Kaffe Fassett stripe and shot cotton fabrics from http://www.gloriouscolor.com
and have started sewing. I plan to make this quilt as King size, so it will be a long project. I am excited! I will keep you posted on the progress of this quilt.

Rainbow After the Storm

These are pictures of a quilt I recently finished. It is from a precut kit by John Flynn. http://www.flynnquilt.com I really enjoyed working with the Storm at Sea pattern, especially since it was all precut for me! The colors were a bit on the pink/orange side for me, but I still think it would be a fun quilt for the right person. The borders were my choice in fabric and my husband chose the backing fabric! I quilted this by stitching in the ditch on my Husqvarna (6030)! The back wrinkled a bit, but not too bad--I've had worse. The quilt measures 40" by 52" with the borders included.

Coral Reef

I took these pictures today of the first quilt I ever made. It is the quilt that we currently use on our bed and probably one of my favorite quilts thus far.

I started my adventure in quilting in December 2004, when I was still living in Michigan. One of the local fabric stores had a large stock of batik fabrics that made me want to do something with them. My best friend has been a quilter for over 10 years and looking at her work with her love of batiks inspired me to make my own quilt.

I am a huge fan of batiks, I love the way they feel, the fact that both sides can be used and the brilliant colors they display. Blue is the color I am most often drawn to, so picking out these fabrics I chose as many cool toned colors as I could find. The lady helping me was very helpful and said she liked the choices I was making. I remember thinking that the blue/purple colors looked very nice together, but that it needed a kick. She helped steer me into the oranges, which was strange for me because at that time I generally tried to stay away from orange. I had no idea about color wheels or values so I am still very thankful for her suggestions.

I cut these fat quarters into 4" squares and designed them in a repeating pattern using every bit of fabric that I had purchased. I sewed this quilt on my mom's old Singer Genie that she had from the early 70's. I think I never swore so many times! I had never used a sewing machine before and had no idea what I was doing. The thread would break every couple inches and I threaded that machine hundreds of times! There was no way I was going to be able to quilt it one the Genie, so I sent it off to be quilted. It was quilted in a beautiful edge to edge swirl pattern that inspired me to name it, "Coral Reef". In all it was a pretty good first quilting experience.

Getting Started

Today is the day I finally enter into blogland. I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while but not knowing anyone that blogs, I have been intimidated.

I would like to focus this blog mainly on my latest obsession, which is as you can tell from the title, quilting. I am new to quilting, I started two years ago, but have made at least a dozen or so in that time. I would like to use this blog as a way to get in contact with other quilters as well as provide a place where I can show my friends back home what I am doing.

"Gone Aussie" simply means that. I am an American recently married to an Australian sheep farmer and have moved to Australia this year. I am learning what it is to be "Aussie" and a sheep farmer's wife. We'll see how I go...

My quilting style is varied. I am mostly obsessed with color and often times I make a quilt because I feel a need to work with a particular color for a while. Sometimes I find it to be therapeutic to work with a color even if it is not necessarily a color I am normally drawn to. I like to use patterns, magazines, other people's work as a springboard and come up with my own "version". I am generally not obsessed with sticking to a pattern or worried about making mistakes. My belief is that life is the journey and quilting is about the process.

I don't want to put too much here. I think you will get the idea of what I am about if you read my blog and maybe I will too!