Weekend Sewing with Quilts, Cats and 14 Creative Links

Welcome to the weekend! It’s time for another update on what’s happening here at Bonjour Quilts. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the read!

The Latest Colour News…

The end of the year is an exciting time for quilters – we get to find out all the Colours of the Year for the next year.

Pantone Colour of the Year 2025 – Mocha Mousse

I didn’t see this one coming! Peach Fuzz (2024’s colour) was a bit of a Peach Fizzle, so I thought they’d go with a louder, more colourful option this year. Instead, the Pantone crowd have throw us a warm, touch-of-pink, brown neutral. Incidentally, this is one of my favourite eye shadow colours (really makes blue eyes pop) but I’m not as keen on it for quilting.

In describing Mocha Mousse, Pantone uses words such as warmth, comfort, indulgence, sophisticated and unpretentious. I think it’s a fun challenge to work with colours you don’t usually use, so it’s worth playing around with Mocha Mousse in a quilt.

Happily, the dynamic duo of Sarah Ruiz and Elizabeth Kray are again hosting the Pantone Quilting Challenge. Details will be announced next year, so you have some time to consider how you’d like to use this strong neutral colour in a quilt.

Kona Colour of the Year 2025 – Nocturne

Robert Kaufman Fabrics have given us a deep violet purple as their solid fabric of the year for 2025. This was also quite a surprise to me, only because the 2022 solid of the year was also a purple (Cosmos). I think someone at Robert Kaufman must really like purple!

No matter, it’s a fun colour to use and one that I’ve actually come to like a lot more than I used to. Probably because it’s my 3rd baby’s favourite at the moment (after a brief fling with orange), which lead to me making him a twin size Diamonds in the Deep.

I’ve also sewn with purple with this version of Window Panes:

This cute little heart patchwork cushion (tutorial can be found here):

I quite like this deep purple matched with navy blue. Keeps the purple from getting too playful.

This sunrise on the Sunshine Coast knows how to create a gradient with Nocturne purple!

Etsy’s Colour of the Year – Lime Cream

Etsy’s Colour of the Year for 2025 is Lime Cream – sounds absolutely delicious. This could be a fun one!

Around the Interwebs…

I don’t think I’ll fit another blog post in before Christmas, so here are a few fun links to carry you through until late December. Remember to space them out over the next weeks 😀

As it’s the festive season, here are some great 3D snowflake paper decoration tutorials. I love watching these but thankfully feel no compulsion whatsoever to make one. It’s brilliant (goodness knows I don’t need another hobby)!

More holiday craftiness – woven fabric star ornaments, a folded fabric bauble and how to make a 12″ quilt block into a place mat for your holiday meals.

This is one of my favourite little handmade stop-motion videos, just in time for the holidays.

One of those “who on earth thought of doing this” instances – but I’m glad someone did because the outcome is beautiful.

Remember to include yourself on your Christmas list. After something small? Try the 12 Days of Christmas daily sales at Fat Quarter Shop. Ready to spoil yourself? You’ll love this incredible art and craft-infused tour of Japan (book for 2025).

Some beautiful baskets, aerial embroidery and the gorgeous quilts that QuiltCon rejected.

Some pertinent reminders on how to encourage your creativity.

And finally, a couple of interesting but non-quilting links: the Wildlife Photographs of the Year winners and the history of the modern playing card deck.

Reader Quilts…

I always love to see quilts you’ve made from Bonjour Quilts patterns so please keep sending them in! Either email (Kirsty at BonjourQuilts dotcom), or tag me on Facebook or Instagram.

Evie sewed this beautiful modern version of the Slip Stitch quilt.

Cassia used the Adori Quilt Block tutorial as the base block for this fun square quilt. I love her blue background fabric.

Tandy sewed up a great version of The Plus Side – note the use of purple, in line with Kona’s Colour of the Year!

Bev put the When You Wish…baby mat tutorial to good use with this bright and beautiful version. I love those greens!

Chez Bonjour…

It’s been a rainy, humid week here in my part of Queensland, Australia. My coastal walks have been drizzly skies and churning seas.

Mothageddan….grrr.

The overcast weather has been perfect for weeding and generally getting the garden in shape for the hot summer to come. While tending to one of our raised flower beds we noticed that all was not well with our once lush Penta flowering bushes. Healthy Penta:

Our Pentas:

The dirty little culprits:

Sphinx moth caterpillars. Grr. Did you know gardening is a blood sport? My body count was about 80 caterpillars, across 21 bushes. All plucked off by hand and quickly thrown in a bucket of water with dish soap. *insert cut throat action here*

I offered my husband ONE MILLION DOLLARS to drink this caterpillar tea. He would not. Such a baby.

Those caterpillars are very hungry indeed – they can devour the whole plant overnight. Some research on Google taught me the Gaura bushes (seen on the left, below, before our infestation) are a favourite egg-laying spot for Sphinx moths. How silly are we for planting their favourite food right next to their nursery!

Eat, Prey, Leaf

My darling, non-caterpillar-tea-drinking husband is moving the Gaura to the opposite end of the house as we speak. (Hopefully that will be far enough away.) I’m on dawn and dusk patrols of the Pentas until we can eradicate the caterpillars completely. Who knew gardening could bring such drama?

Ready for 2025

In happier news, my 2025 Quilter’s Planner arrived in the mail last week. I’m excited to do some dreaming, sketching and planning in my Planner as the year comes to a close. It’s still not too late to grab one for yourself over here.

Kitty-Cat Corner…

The cats, Tigger (orange) and Lulu (brown) would like to wish you all the very best for the festive season. They hope you get to eat lots of tuna-flavoured snacks and have unlimited naps. Perhaps a few chin scratches, too.

Tigger and Lulu were the reason I bought this super cute 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. It’s good quality with cute artwork, and it’s fun to put together (just the right level of difficulty). 500 pieces is also such a good size for when you want a quick puzzle fix without it taking over your life (I get super-obsessed when I do a 1500 piecer).

Also, here’s my helpful tip for when you buy a new puzzle. If it comes with all the pieces in a bag, just clip a tiny corner of the bag off and then you can shake/drain out all the saw dust that you usually find in the bag. Beats tipping the whole thing, dust and all, out onto the table!

All the best for the rest of 2024!

I really can’t believe there’s only just over 2 weeks left in 2024. I had some big plans for this year, but life had other ideas. I could be upset, but what’s the point? Honestly, given all my perimenopause issues I’m grateful to have made it to the end of the year in one piece! Hopefully 2025 will be a much more hormonally-balanced year for me, thanks to my doctor.

I had plans to finish up some WIPs (works-in-progress) in the lead up to Christmas, but truthfully I don’t think I can be bothered. I’m going to hunker down in the air-conditioning and enjoy some quality family time. Christmas is at our place this year so I have plenty to keep me busy.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this somewhat eclectic newsletter (hormone problems, who me?). Plenty to read and ponder (brown quilt…hmmm) and perhaps something will inspire you to fit some sewing into your holiday schedule. But no biggie if not. This is the time for love and gratitude, and that includes shining that grace back on yourself, too.

Enjoy your holidays and I look forward to seeing you back here at the end of the month.

All my best to you and those you love,

Kirsty x

P.S. these photos are oldies from the Christmas markets in Aix-en-Provence, France (we lived near there for 3 years back in 2010-2012). Three of the best years of my life. I was thinking about that the other day – for the majority of those 3 years I was breastfeeding (3rd child), then pregnant (4th child) then breastfeeding again. No coincidence that the best 3 years of my life coincided with me having extra hormones surging through me. No wonder we have a hard time when all those hormones fly north for the menopause!

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