I’m just going to say it up front. I don’t like purple. I’m not sure why – probably because it clashes terribly with my red hair.

When my 10 year old requested I sew him a purple quilt, I wondered could I sew a quilt with purple? Could I spend weeks frolicking amongst the purple or would it just be too much for me? (I tried to talk him into a quilt with his second fave colour, orange, but he wasn’t having a word of it.)

I’m happy to report that I was indeed able to quilt with purple. I even like the final quilt!

Diamonds in the Deep QAL

I made my purple quilt as part of the Diamonds in the Deep Quilt Along I hosted, which provided the encouragement I needed.

You can find the Diamonds in the Deep PDF pattern here in my shop.

The Quilt Along began back in July and just wrapped up, and I’d love to show what some of the participants (including me) have produced.

My Diamonds in the Deep quilt is twin size, and I made it with Kona Snow* and a purple fabric called Icon Elements in Titan Violet* by Art Gallery Fabrics.

The Icon Elements* range comes in a few different colours – they are great for the Diamonds in the Deep pattern as they have a small scale pattern that adds some subtle interest to the quilt. The AGF Decostitch range is also very pretty (and would have been my preference except they didn’t have a purple) – the low volume fabrics* are especially lovely.

The log cabin blocks for the Diamonds in the Deep pattern are very easy to sew. I recommend sewing with a scant quarter inch seam so that the blocks are a tad oversized when finished. Then you can trim them back to get very accurately sized blocks.

When you quilt with purple, what colour thread do you quilt with?

This is such a common question. I’ve made a quilt with X colour fabric – what colour thread should I use to quilt it?

The answer is almost always: dove grey.

It doesn’t matter what colour your fabrics are, dove grey (a light, flat, matt grey) is going the blend in beautifully with it. It’s especially good when you have lots of different coloured fabrics in your quilt. Or when you have a pattern like Diamonds in the Deep, which relies on contrast between the two fabrics, guaranteeing that either colour would be stand out too much on the other fabric.

The dove grey is just right – you still get all the lovely texture of the quilting (on both white and colour fabrics) but it doesn’t try and steal the show. It’s definitely become my go-to quilting thread colour (second favourite is a similar flat, matt, beigey-tan, for when I use more brown tinted neutrals).

As for the quilting pattern – I went with swirly spirals. I’m very fond of the way curves look against the angles of the log cabin blocks, which is why I chose this pattern (many thanks to Lyn of Lyn’s Quilt Cottage for the lovely long-arming).

If you struggle with choosing a binding fabric, you’ll love the Diamonds in the Deep pattern as it’s an easy one to bind. Just choose the same fabric that you use for the outer edges of your log cabin blocks and it will blend in beautifully.

I used my zigzag binding tutorial to machine bind this quilt. As is often the case, I couldn’t find a thread that matched the purple fabric exactly. One thread was a shade darker while another was a shade lighter. In these cases I tend to choose the lighter thread. To me it doesn’t stand out as much and blends in better (just my opinion).

For my backing fabric I searched for something with a touch of the purple in it. That way I knew it would match the purple binding (and thread). This wideback fabric was just the ticket. It’s called Lava Lamp and the purple matched nicely (it’s a very useful wideback – it would match many different quilt tops).

Alright, enough purple already. Time to see some more gorgeous Diamonds in the Deep quilts in other colours.

Your beautiful quilts!

Leigh also made a twin sized quilt using a mix of 8 Tula Pink fabrics that were heavy on the orange with a touch of pink. I think you’ll agree they blend beautifully to create a very orderly, scrappy effect.

Pat sewed up a lovely teal and low volume version of the pattern. I love the wee pattern in the low volume – very delicate.

Julia made a classic navy and white, with the additon of a navy border.

Leanne went for a beautifully vibrant red and white version:

Kathy also went striking red and white with a grunge style fabric:

Cheryl also made a purple quilt, teaming it with a lovely grey and multi-coloured centre squares. It’s so eye catching.

Gloria paired two tone-on-tone fabrics to give a lovely textured feel to her quilt:

I do so enjoy seeing all the different colour combinations people come up with for this quilt pattern. You’re all so clever and I thank you so much for sharing your work with me (well, with us all). Don’t stop sewing, and keep sending in those photos (or tag me on Instagram and Facebook).

If you’d like to make a Diamonds in the Deep quilt of your own, you can find the pattern here in the shop.

Happy sewing!

*affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts!

You can read all about the Snowball Party quilt pattern in this previous blog post.

You can purchase the pattern here in my shop.

Today I have some other versions of the quilt pattern to show you.

This baby size quilt was sewn as part of a new fabric release. Kristy from Quiet Play has a new fabric line, called Create, with Riley Blake Fabrics.

It’s such a bright, happy rainbow line and it was a joy to sew with.

Riley Blake sent me a F8 bundle of Create. There are 30 fabrics in the line, but the baby size quilt only has 24 snowball pairs. So I trimmed my bundle down to my favourite, brightest prints and used them in the quilt.

For the background fabric I used another Riley Blake staple, Bee Backgrounds by Lori Holt, Cross Stitch in Brown (you can also find it in a lovely light grey on Etsy).

The Snowball Party quilt pattern gives you the option of using scrappy accents in your snowball blocks, or a single fabric. I went with the scrappy option and also cut my accents from the F8s I had selected.

When it came time to decide which accent colour went with each snowball colour, I tried to keep them within one step on the colour wheel. So yellow with green, green with blue, orange with red, that sort of thing. I did swap some out when I thought I needed more contrast, but I also kinda like when they blend in a bit.

When I’d completed my blocks I laid them out in a rough colour order, progressing down the quilt.

I have the perfect red hippo fabric to use for the backing. I’m sure the resulting quilt will make a great addition to a nursery.

And now I have two beautiful tester’s versions to show you.

First up is Cynthia’s dreamy baby quilt, made from a collection of 30s/40s repro scraps she had on hand. She focussed on the purple fabrics and teamed them with an olive green solid for the accents. I think the single accent fabric does a great job of tying all the different prints together. Some of the purples are red based, others are blue based, but the single accent fabric allows them to work really well together without feeling chaotic.

This quilt is very sweet and the purple/green combo reminds me of Spring flowers in meadows. (Cynthia left the borders off this one as it’s destined for a charity with a smaller size requirement than the pattern. It still looks great without the border.)

Secondly, Julie has made a bright baby quilt from 8 FQs. She has also gone with a single accent fabric, but has very cleverly fussy cut them to match the stripes. She decided to split up her snowball pairs and went with a diagonal layout instead. It makes for a very fun, playful quilt!

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some other versions of the Snowball Party quilt pattern. There’s a lot of fun to be had playing with fabrics, accents and block layout.

If you’d like to make one for yourself, you can find the Snowball Party quilt pattern here in my shop.

Happy sewing!

*affiliate link. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts!

To purchase the Snowball Party quilt pattern, click here.

I’ve something new for you today – a snowball quilt pattern!

This snowball quilt pattern is called Snowball Party and can be found in my shop right here.

To me it looks like a room full of snowballs all chatting to each other and having a great time. Hence the name Snowball Party!

And let’s be honest, this is the only type of party most of us can have right now given social distancing requirements. A snowball party is better than no party at all, yes?

This pattern is perfect for a beginner with a few starter quilts under their belt.

The pattern has instructions for 4 quilt sizes: baby, throw, twin and queen/king.

There are two block size options in the pattern. The baby size uses FQs to create smaller blocks while the larger 3 quilt sizes use half yards.

I also have tips on how to use F8s and scraps for the small blocks and scraps and FQs for the larger blocks. So you can use this pattern to stash bust from scraps, through to F8s, FQs and half yards. You could even combine different fabric cuts in the one quilt if you want.

And there’s even a bonus mini quilt pattern included as well, to help clear out those pesky small scraps. Yay for mini quilts!

You’ll notice my quilt has scrappy accent blocks, while this mini has accent blocks all in the one fabric. The pattern gives you instructions to use either method for all of the quilt sizes.

I made my version here with a sunset selection of solids from my stash. They are a mix of Kona solids, Essex linen (candy pink) and Art Gallery Fabrics (burnt orangey-coral).

I wasn’t sure I’d have a good selection of such colours in my stash (as I’m more a blue/green lover). But shock horror, it would seem I have more fabric than I thought in that cupboard! (Can you hear my husband rolling his eyes from there?)

My background fabric is called Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Oyster (here on Etsy*). It’s a dreamy not-quite beige, not-quite grey colour that changes depending which colour fabrics are next to it. A lovely, super useful neutral.

When it came time to quilt such a loud, happy snowball quilt pattern I felt I wanted to keep it simple. I went with cross hatch quilting, using the corners of the snowball blocks as my guide.

I did use my hera marker to mark some lines in the borders as I felt I might list off course a bit without them. I’m really happy with how it turned out. (Do you see that little tuck in the quilting of the orange block down the bottom? There was a time that would’ve driven me wild. These days I’m like “aw, go out there and live your best life, tiny tuck”. 2020 has mellowed me out, man.)

For binding I considered scrappy binding with the leftover solids, but decided on a Carolyn Friedlander tangerine cross hatch fabric.

The binding fabric is also appears in my quilt backing which I pieced primarily from orange low volume fabrics from stash. As an aside, you know your stash is getting out of hand when you can separate your low volumes into colour groups!

I didn’t have time to hand bind this one so I used my zigzag binding tutorial to finish it off.

I pulled out some orange thread first but actually found it a bit too bright. The baby pink was much more subtle and the look I was going for.

This method of machine binding is very forgiving and also very sturdy. A win-win in my eyes.

Oh, there’s also a colour-in sheet in the pattern for those who like to audition fabric colours before sewing. You could also use the colour-in sheet to play with the number of blocks in your quilt, in case you want to add a row/column or two.

Here’s two alternate layouts I considered with my blocks before settling on my random layout.

This one is just each colour on its own line. I quite liked this one, actually. It would look really great in a rainbow colour scheme, too.

This second layout was more of an ombré effect. I started with the blocks in colour order (like my fabric layout order you saw earlier). I filled in the layout from the top right corner down to the bottom left. It’s not a perfect ombré, but it does look pretty groovy.

But in the end I went with random (where random = blocks auditioned endlessly in position to make sure they appeared random).

Feel like making you own snowball quilt? Put your scraps or stash to good use and grab yourself a copy of the Snowball Party quilt pattern, right here. The shop listing also shows you the quilt sizes and fabric requirements.

I’ll have another post shortly showing a rainbow version I’ve also sewn, as well as some gorgeous pattern testers’ versions.

Until then, happy sewing!

* affiliate link. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts!

It’s so much fun when a blogging buddy releases a book!

Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts, a fellow Aussie quilt blogger, released her first book at the end of 2019. It’s called Mini Masterpieces, and as the name suggests it has a lovely array of mini quilt patterns for you to sew.

The projects start with simple blocks and progress to more complicated blocks. Each project teaches you about the base block before introducing you to the mini quilt that can be made from it. It’s a lot of fun, with a lot of variety to choose from, and very educational to boot!

Where to buy Mini Masterpieces

If you’re in Australia/NZ you can buy the book directly from Alyce here. (Recommended given how slow international post is at the moment.)

If you’re elsewhere in the world, you can find the book here on Amazon*.

When I joined Alyce’s book tour she allocated me the flying geese block. I did a post on the block in 2019 and you can see that over here.

Today I’m showing you the mini quilt pattern from the book made with the flying geese block. You can see the flying geese mini quilt in the photo above – it’s the rainbow one in the bottom left corner.

Whenever I’m asked to make something from a book for a book tour I take it as a personal challenge to make something as different as possible from the example in the book. (But still using the pattern, obviously!) I figure it’s as good as showing you how to make a different quilt from the same pattern – and everyone loves a twofer, right? Right!

My fabric choices

I decided I wanted to create a very low volume background from most of the flying geese and add a couple of colourful, statement blocks.

This entire mini is made with Alison Glass fabrics. The background is a grey and white low volume, with solid white geese.

You’ll notice that my background geese don’t always follow the small-medium-large order that Alyce has in the book. I’d like to say that was a design choice, but it was actually because I messed up the order. I chain pieced about 5 blocks and then realised my error, so I made the decision to let it be. To be honest, I quite like it like this! (I made the same number and sizes of flying geese as per the pattern, it’s just my order of sewing them together that was rogue.)

The colourful blocks were a proper design choice. I pivoted two of the flying geese trios to face each other and create that middle diamond shape.

Quilting the Flying Geese Mini Quilt

I mused over this for a while. I originally wanted to try some hand quilting but I didn’t have any suitable blue/green perle cotton on hand.

What I did have, however, was a nice little collection of almost-spent blues and greens in my machine threads. This mini quilt was the perfect opportunity to clear out some of these not-enough-for-a-big-project spools.

Because I had so little of the lime and green threads left, I used my standard light grey thread in the bobbin. I then used the lime/green bobbin remnants for top thread as well as the spools.

I love a meandering, wavy quilting session. It’s very therapeutic creating the wavy lines and it’s virtually impossible to get it wrong.

Here’s a short video of my wavy quilting technique:

(If you pay attention you’ll see I messed up a little and lost grip on the quilt for a bit. This method is so forgiving that you can’t even notice on the quilt. I love wavy lines!)

I used all my colourful threads over the colourful flying geese portion.

For the areas of low volume flying geese I used light grey thread – visible but subdued, like the background.

I really like the effect and think it turned out rather nice.

My backing was a yard of Kona in Peacock that I found in my stash (purchased from Pink Chalk Fabrics, back in the day).

Binding the Flying Geese Mini Quilt

For binding I chose another Alison Glass fabric in a vibrant cobalt blue.

I wanted to be sure to get a cross section of all the colours in the fabric around the quilt binding. If I had cut my binding strips from selvedge to selvedge (cross grain), they would only contain a single emblem colour. Instead I cut the strips on the lengthwise grain so the strips contained some of each colour in the pattern motif.

I included a little snippet of the lime green flying geese fabric in the binding as well.

I sewed this binding on using my zigzag binding technique. It’s a quick, easy and very secure binding technique.

And here’s the completed mini quilt. A very modern flying geese quilt pattern. It’s quite a big ‘un, finishing at 30″ square. This could easily turn into a baby quilt with another couple of rows of flying geese or a border.

I hope you enjoyed seeing what I made with Alyce’s new book.

If you’d like to sew some minis yourself, be sure to grab a copy of the book either in Alyce’s shop or on Amazon*.

Happy sewing!

*Amazon affiliate link – thank you if you purchase through this link. It helps offset my hosting costs.

I have a Zed quilt to show you today – this one is twin size.

My Zed quilt pattern was published in 2018 and includes instructions to make a throw size quilt. You can find a blog post on that rainbow coloured first quilt here.

The pattern has now been amended to include the twin size instructions as well, yay! Two for one.

Zed is a fat quarter friendly pattern and is a great introduction to making half rectangle triangle blocks. The HRTs are 2:1 size ratio and easy to trim either with a Bloc_loc HRT ruler or with a standard ruler (instructions are given for this).

The twin size can be made with half yards if you are careful. A half yard will make one colour row, as long as you don’t make any cutting mistakes.

When I write my patterns I always make sure to bump up the fabric requirements to include the ability to cut an extra of the widest strip required. This is so if you make a cutting mistake you’ll have enough fabric to cut that one strip again. (If you mis-cut 2 strips, you’re on your own 😂)

I don’t know about you, but when I’ve had 3 glasses of wine and decide to start a new project, I’m always grateful there’s a little fat built into the fabric requirements. (Are you the same, or does it annoy you? I hope you can see that it comes from a place of love!)

This is why you’ll see the fabric requirements show 5/8 yd for the single color row of the twin size quilt – just in case you need that little bit extra. But if you’ve only got half yards in stash, know that you can make 9 different colour rows from 9 half yards in a pinch.

For my twin size version I used a sunset colour palette with white-on-white background fabric. It’s a bit hard to see here but I used a mix of several different low volume Carolyn Friedlander fabrics that I’ve had in stash for a while. You can find similar fabrics on Etsy here* and here*. They give interesting texture to the background, but because they’re white on white they don’t detract from the colourful piecing.

I sent this quilt out to be longarm quilted as I just wasn’t up to the job. Above you can see the large scale looping script-like pattern I chose. I thought it was a nice counterpoint to all the angles.

The backing was a Carolyn Friedlander wide back fabric* in the perfect purple. I used the coordinating Kona solid (in Geranium*) for the binding.

There was good long strip of the wide back fabric left over after quilting so I used it to put together a complementary cushion.

I used my Scrap Magnet pattern for the cushion front. (The pattern includes instructions for a stand alone block, perfect for cushions, as well as the throw quilt pattern).

I chose a cheery centre square of the yellow fabric from the quilt.

Quilting was a simple cross hatch design through the diagonals (no need for marking lines of any sort).

I made a plain fabric (unquilted) cushion back from the wide back fabric and used a black zipper. I love how easy envelope cushion backings are, but I always feel they are a little insecure. Putting in zippers isn’t my favourite, but I think it’s worth the time.

The twin size Zed quilt and matching Scrap Magnet cushion are now in their new forever home, on the bed of my lovely niece.

You can find the Zed quilt pattern (throw and twin size) and the Scrap Magnet pattern (quilt and single block) in my little shop. Happy sewing!

Kirsty x

*affiliate links – thank you for your support of Bonjour Quilts!

I made a scrappy mini quilt from my Scrappy Posie quilt pattern.

You can see the larger baby mat I previously made and download the free pattern for it over here.

The original baby mat version finishes at 42″ square. This smaller, scrappy mini quilt version comes in at 21″ square. It’s perfect for a table topper or to make an oversized cushion cover.

And of course, it’s a great way to use up some scraps!

I quilted my Scrappy Posie with wavy, diagonal lines. There was no need to draw any lines – the corners of the squares are more than enough guidance.

These organic waves are very easy to sew and quite therapeutic to complete.

I had planned to put together a scrappy binding but found I had quite a long length of one of the fuschia fabrics.

Those are special binding clips shown above. I’m often asked if they’re hair clips, but they’re not – they are stiffer and stronger. They also hurt when you use them in your hair (as my daughter found out the hard way when she was little!) You can find these binding clips here on Amazon. *

This mini quilt is currently doing duty as a table topper on our deck, but it’ll move inside soon. I’d like to put him on the wall next to some of my little Fleur mini quilts (one shown below). They’ll look very cute together.

If you have a surplus of scraps, perhaps you’d like to sew a scrappy mini quilt of your own.

Happy sewing!

* Affiliate link – thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts 😀

I have a free baby quilt pattern PDF download for you today.

The pattern’s name is Scrappy Posie and it’s a beginner-friendly baby quilt pattern. So if you have a scrap pile to reduce this should be useful.

If you’d like this baby quilt pattern, just put your email address in below and I’ll email it to you (and you’ll also receive my news updates via email. If you’re already receiving my newsletter, don’t worry, it won’t send you double.)

I made my version in rainbow colours. I chose 3 warm colours and 3 cool colours for the outer layers and kept yellow for the flower itself.

This is an easy baby quilt pattern – just squares and half square triangles (HSTs).

This pattern uses slightly oversized HSTs which are then trimmed back to size. I used my trusty Bloc_loc HST rulers to give me perfectly sized blocks. You can find them here* on Etsy.

It’s very satisfying to see so many scraps finding a new home!

For the back of my quilt I used a hippo print which I bought at IKEA about 10 years ago. I bet those hippos thought they were never going to see the light of day again.

When it came time to quilt, I knew I wanted a cross hatch design. The great thing about square based quilt patterns is that you often don’t need to draw any guide lines. Just using the corners of the squares is enough to keep the straight line quilting on track.

In the Scrappy Posie PDF pattern I give you 6 options for straight line quilting. Of course you could also use any free motion quilting design you like as well.

Once quilted, I bound this quilt with a half yard of a navy print. I considered using a scrappy binding (and I give instructions in the pattern for this) but in the end I went the lazy option. Although I do think a single fabric binding can be helpful in settling down a super scrappy quilt.

Initially I thought I might machine sew the binding using this zigzag method. But given all that’s going on in the world at the moment, I took the opportunity to sit and enjoy some hand sewing.

If you have some scraps that are dying to have a second life, you should make a Scrappy Posie baby quilt too.

Pop your email address in below and you’ll get your free baby quilt pattern.

If you do make a Scrappy Posie baby quilt of your own please share a photo with me. You can send me an email (just reply to any of the emails I send you) or tag me on Facebook or Instagram.

There are so many possible colour variations with this pattern, I’d love to see yours!

Keep well and happy sewing!

Kirsty

*affiliate link. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts

I love using up scrap fabric as much as I love a zipper pouch, so this project makes me very happy.

My daughter asked me to make her a zipper pencil pouch for the start of the school year. (Let’s pretend that it’s still January, when we start school here in Australia!) She wanted a cute pencil case, but larger than the last one I made her. Design requirements included an internal pocket for her calculator and the colour yellow (her favourite).

Due to time restraints, I suggested that HSTs would be a faster option than English Paper Piecing. I drew a sketch and she gave me the go-ahead.

I’m sure everyone has their own favourite zipper pouch tutorial so I won’t go through the minutia of sewing a lined pouch. But if you like the outer patchwork design, I have outlined my steps for this below.

To help get the project moving faster, my daughter sorted through my yellow scrap fabric and found a good variety of yellow prints in low, mid and saturated value.

The outer panels of the zipper pouch consist of HST units set on point. There was a bit of maths involved as we needed to reverse engineer the HST size required to give the panel size we wanted. I got my daughter to use Pythagoras’ Theorem to work that out for me (my tax dollars finally bearing fruit!)

Sewing the HST panels

To form the two panels I cut 45 squares 2-1/2″ x 2-1/2″. From these squares I sewed 90 HST units, which were trimmed to 2″ squares.

I wanted to create a bit of a colour gradation across the zipper pouch. I made sure there was a good mix of light/light, light/mid, mid/dark, etc fabrics across all of the HSTs.

For the top and bottom edges of the panels I used plain 2″ squares (they are lopped off when squaring the panels). You’ll need 28 of the 2″ squares in total.

Shown below is the layout for the two panels. The HST units have dotted triangle lines, the plain 2″ squares are in yellow.

Once you’ve laid out your HSTs and squares in your preferred colour order, you can sew them together. Sew the diagonal rows together first and be sure to press rows in alternating directions so that the seams will nest.

With the patchwork panels sewn together it’s now time to quilt them. This is a great way to use up batting offcuts.

I like to quilt them fairly densely as it adds strength to your patchwork seams and also gives the pouch some body. I did a simple crosshatch quilting design, using the seams as a guide for my walking foot.

Once you’ve quilted both panels you can trim them back to give two identical rectangle pieces.

My two panels ended up being 8-3/4″ high by 13-1/2″ long.

The zipper pouch lining

As well as the two outer panels, you’ll need two fabric pieces for the lining. My daughter chose this cute birdy fabric from which I cut two rectangles 8-3/4″ x 13-1/4″.

With quilted pouches I like to reduce the lining panel width by a quarter inch to accommodate the bulky seam of the outer panels.

You may recall my daughter asked for an internal pocket in the lining to store her calculator. If you can talk your child out of this, do so now. Consider using chocolates, head scratches or a trip to Disneyland. The internal pocket was a pain to put in and you will regret it immensely if you agree to it.

I, unfortunately, did agree to it. Sigh.

I used this Youtube tutorial by Lisa from Andrie Designs to learn the process behind creating such a pocket. She uses a different sized bag for her tutorial so you won’t want to follow her fabric sizes. For my pocket I instead used another 8-3/4″ x 13-1/4″ rectangle as well as an 8″ x 11-1/2″ rectangle (as I didn’t want the pocket to go right to the bottom of the pouch). I used a 10″ zipper for the internal pocket.

I worked nice and slowly and paid extra attention to making sure my birds stayed right side up.

Eventually I had the pocket formed and was able to sew the lining and outer panels to the zipper. I used a 10″ zip here as well as it was all I had on hand, but I would have liked a 12″ or 14″ if given the choice.

And remember to always open the zipper before you sew around the edges of the lining and the outer panels. Otherwise it’s a nightmare trying to turn the thing right-sides-out again!

Phew, it was quite a journey, but I got there in the end.

I even learned a new skill.

I missed the start of school by over a month, but my daughter was very gracious as she knew I was sweating over that pocket. Best of all she loves her new cute pencil case, which has a spot for all her bits and pieces.

Thank goodness for that!

It’s been a rough start to the year for many Australians. Bushfires are still raging across many areas and have caused devastating loss.

It’s hard to watch the destruction of human life and property, as well as the large scale loss of native animals and their habitats.

The team at the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild (WMQG) are putting together quilts which they will distribute to families who have lost everything in the bushfires.

They have chosen the theme of trees for the quilts. Those who’d like to contribute have been asked to make tree blocks that are 12-3/4″ square unfinished. (The blocks will then be trimmed by the WMQG to a uniform 12-1/2″ and sewn into quilts.)

Please check out all the details (block requirements, postal address, etc) in this WMQG Facebook post.

Folks are welcome to make any sort of tree block they like. I have a tutorial here for a tree quilt block for anyone looking for ideas.

The Tree Quilt Block

This full and happy tree has 4 leaf fabrics, a trunk fabric and a background fabric.

Please make life easy for yourself and choose non-directional print fabrics (or solids) to make this block.

You can use scraps (or a 10″/layer cake square) for each of the tree fabrics.

For the background, you’ll need a fat eighth or some larger scraps.

Cutting Instructions

Cut the following pieces from your scraps/fabric:

C1, C2 and C4: 2 squares 3″ x 3″ and 1 rectangle 2-1/2″ x 4-1/2″

C3: 1 square 4-1/2″ x 4-1/2″, 2 squares 3″ x 3″ and 1 rectangle 1-1/2 x 2-1/2″

Trunk: 1 rectangle 2-1/2″ x 3-3/4″ and 1 rectangle 1-1/2″ x 2-1/2″

Background (BG): 2 rectangles 3-3/4″ x 5-3/4″, 2 squares 3″ x 3″,

1 rectangle 1-3/4″ x 13″ and 2 rectangles 1-3/4″ x 8-1/2″.

If cutting your BG from a fat eighth, I’d do it like this:

Sew the HSTs

HST method: Select two 3″ squares. Use a pencil to draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of one of the squares and then place them right sides together. Sew a scant quarter inch from either side of the marked line. Cut on the drawn line to yield 2 HSTs. Press as directed and trim to 2-1/2″ square.

Using the method shown above, pair the following 3″ squares to make the required HST units:

1 BG and 1 C1 square to give 2 BG/C1 HSTs. Press toward C1.

1 C1 and 1 C2 square to give 2 C1/C2 HSTs. Press toward C2.

1 C2 and 1 C3 square to give 2 C2/C3 squares. Press toward C2. (One of these HSTs will be surplus.)

1 C3 and 1 C4 square to give 2 C3/C4 HSTs. Press toward C3.

1 C4 and 1 BG square to give 2 C4/BG HSTs. Press toward C4.

As mentioned in the HST method, trim all units to 2-1/2″ square.

Sew the Trunk

Sew the long edges of the 3-3/4″ x 2-1/2″ trunk rectangle to one edge of each of the 3-3/4″ x 5-3/4″ BG rectangles. Press both seams toward the trunk fabric. See below (I was making 2 blocks at the one time, your eyes aren’t playing up. You’re only sewing one of these units.):

Now sew the C3 1-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ rectangle and trunk 1-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ rectangle together along their longest edges. Press as preferred. You’ll have a 2-1/2″ square once sewn. See below (again, I’m making 2 blocks so you’ll only have one of these):

Lay Out the Tree Quilt Block

Now that you have the 9 required HST units (remember there is one surplus C2/C3 unit) and the two tree units, you can lay out the block as it needs to be sewn:

The shorter BG strips go to the sides and the longer strip to the top. Check your HSTs carefully! If you look at the HST to the right of the trunk above, you’ll see I got it wrong. Luckily I caught it when laying out my 2nd block.

Sew the Tree Quilt Block Together

Now we’ll sew the units in each of the 3 rows of the tree top together.

Press the top row toward the left.

Then press the middle row toward the right.

Press the third row to the left except for the righthand trunk seam. Press that seam away from the trunk so that it will nest nicely with the bottom trunk unit.

Now you can sew the three tree top rows together and press seams as preferred:

Sew the side BG strips to each side of the tree top patchwork unit:

Then sew the top BG strip and bottom trunk unit in place. Be sure to nest the trunk seams.

I pressed the top seam toward the tree (to prevent a seam shadow on the white background) but it feels quite bulky that way. You may prefer to press toward the background so the block lays flatter. I know some people are willing to die over shadow seams, so I’ll let you choose for yourself. 😁

Trim the block to 12-3/4″ square. The lovely WMQG folks specifically asked for a generous 12-1/2″ block therefore I’ve made the block slightly oversized. This gives them some wiggle room when putting the blocks together.

I made 2 tree blocks because I couldn’t bear the thought of that left over C2/C3 HST feeling glum over the lost opportunity to comfort someone in need.

To make 2 blocks at once, you just double all the cutting amounts except for one less C2 and C3 squares (so only cut three C2 and C3 squares, not four).

I hope you get the chance to sew up a tree quilt block for a family affected by the Australian bushfires. You can find all the details for postage, etc at the WMQG’s Facebook Page.

Other Ways to Help

If you don’t have time to sew a tree quilt block, consider a donation. There are many organisations doing good work for the people and animals affected by the fires. Here are 3 that I’ve supported:

Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery fund

NSW Rural Fire Service

Wildlife Victoria

Thank you and stay safe, wherever you are.

Kirsty x

I really can’t believe it’s already been a year since I published this Christmas Tree mini quilt pattern!

You can find the first version I made of this Christmas-themed mini quilt (called Candy Christmas) over in this post here.

I wanted another version of this mini quilt in a red colour scheme for the Christmas table. (All these little gingerbread flavoured morsels are my downfall, I love them so much. And the fruit mince pies. Mmm.)

All the fabrics are from stash and my scrap pile. The tree and trunk fabrics feel like they were designed especially for these purposes. The Alison Glass Sunprint low volume* has sweet little motifs already on it. And the taupe, flecked neutral* is very bark-like.

I used a feathery satin stitch to appliqué the tree and star to the background.

Wall hangings and table toppers are a great way to use up offcuts of batting. It also feels like a low risk opportunity to sew smaller pieces together as home decor items usually receive less wear-and-tear than a quilt.

For quilting, I went with simple straight lines, using the patchwork piecing edges as my guide.

For binding I used the outer most fabric, cut at 2″ to create a more narrow frame. The backing was another sweet red print from stash.

This mini quilt was a super quick sew and will be adorning our Christmas Day table.

If you are a fan of embroidery and/or beading you might like to embellish the Christmas tree on your mini quilt.

I have a short, 5 min video below showing some embroidery stitches that look great in either floss or perle cotton thread. Use plain or metallic threads to sew little decorations and garlands on the Christmas tree after quilting.

If you’d like to sew your own Christmas Tree mini quilt then you can find the pattern here in the shop.

I hope you’ve made all your silly season preparations. I think we’re finally done, just a few more presents to wrap for under the tree.

This year I actually bought my own presents (which I heartily recommend – you always get exactly what you want). I’m having a love affair with jigsaw puzzles at the moment after working on this amazing puzzle* at a friend’s house. I loved the quality of the puzzle and humour in the illustrations, so I’ve ordered this fun French kitchen version* for me for Christmas. And I guess I’m now officially a crazy puzzle lady as I bought one of these organisers*, too. So easy to slide under the couch!

Wishing you and your families all the best for the holiday season. I hope you get to take some time for yourself and enjoy some sewing!

Cheers,

Kirsty

*affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts!