More about Amish Bars

I have tried to take pictures of "Amish Bars", but the expanse of black has pretty much defeated me. The colours of the bars seem fade as the camera adjusts for the black, and getting any view of the texture is pretty much impossible.





The quilting on the green shows up better than on any of the other colours. Each of the coloured bars has different styles of freehand feathers quilted on them.

This shot shows a little of the feathering (if you really use your imagination) and some of the quilting on the black.

The black has blocks of freehand machine quilting. Each 6.5 inch square uses a different quilting design, mainly sourced from Dijanne Cevaal's "72 Ways not to Stipple or Meander" and "72 More Ways not to Stipple or Meander".

A few came from or were inspired by some of Leah Day's designs, and some were my own designs, especially in the odd shapes at the side.

The 6.5 inch squares are set diagonally, with unquilted "grouting" between the "tiles".

The quilting shows up better on the back, though the dalmation print still makes it difficult to photograph.

The Whittlesea show. Lots of quilts on display, hanging along the walls above the display cabinets and from the rafters. The "Hearts and Flowers' quilt that I entered in the name of Southern Cross Quilters is fourth from left in this photo, and won second prize in the section for quilts made by a group.
Well done to Kate Jones and her elderly friend, Sue, who paper pieced the hearts that are the foundation for this quilt.

Here's some more of the quilts hanging from the rafters over the cookery entries. The gorgeous New York Beauty was the worthy window of the pieced/patchwork quilt section. On its left is my "Amish Bars circa 2010", which won second prize in that same section - an unexpected surprise for me. I suspect the judge likes free-motion quilting. This quilt has feathers in the coloured sections and nearly 50 different free hand filler designs arranged in diagonal tiles in the black areas, most from Dijanne Cevaal's '72 ways not to Stipple or Meander', and '72 more ways not to Stipple or Meander'

And the last two entries' prizes were less of a surprise - the two journal covers were the only two entries in the free hand machine embroidery section, so it wasn't a big surprise when they won first and second prizes.

The blue one has several different filler designs, some more from Dijanne's books, but also some of my own design, and the "JOURNAL" text.

The black and white one has a big pink daisy with 3D petals, only attached to the cover by the central vein, and an orange centre. But they chose to display the back (I guess so they could show the prize card, or because I had pinned the section card to the back??) These items were all under glass, so there's quite a bit of reflection.

Golden Anniversary Quilt - completed

It took a long time, but the Golden Anniversary quilt was finally finished two days before Auntie 'Lyn's (and Mum's) 80th birthday party so that I could give it to Auntie Lyn & AK at the party and only four years and three months late.

The quilt is made up of 50 "golden" blocks on a sky blue background with a darker blue border.

The border quilting is an undulating feathered chain.

The quilting on the blocks is a feathered wreath.

The backing is the same fabric as the border, except that I didn't have enough so I inserted a band of strips from the "golden" fabrics.

The label used a photo from 28th January, 1956 of the beautiful bride and handsome groom (doesn't he look like Humphrey Bogart?)

Golden Anniversary Quilt

This is a quilt that was started in January 2006, for my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. It has 50 different "golden" prints - 49 arranged in a 7 x 7 grid, and the 50th one set on point in the border. (You can just see it in the photo).

At this stage on Saturday afternoon the quilt, backing and batting are all pinned out, ready to start quilting.

Now I've started the "easy" quilting - the long straight lines quilted "in the ditch" while I think about the border and block quilting.

Ashley's Art Deco Lady

This quilt actually dates back to 2005/6, but Ashley only received it a couple of weeks ago for her 13th birthday.


The design is from an Art Deco Stained Glass Windows book (copyright free), and the central design is done using the stained glass technique.

Most of the coloured sections use hand-dyed fabrics, though some of hair sections are tone-on-tone prints.

The lady is set diagonally, with a double cross-hatching in the background of the central diamond. Each of the four corners has a feathered wreath, with single cross hatching background in the opposite direction (which overcame the issue of how to get the cross hatching to match up across the black "leading" between the sections).

"Hearts & Flowers" completed

This quilt is now pretty much finished. It should have a label, but since I'm not giving this one away, that can wait a bit.

I finally decided that I did need some additional quilting in the paper pieced heart blocks, and added a heart shape in the centre of each, and around the outside.

Although I photographed this on our bed, it won't stay there - it would get too grubby(!)

The last two photos are to show the corner quilting and how the corner motifs meet at the centre of the edges.




As mentioned in a previous post, the paper pieced hearts were a gift from a Squilter - Kate - and her friend Sue. So I think the full name of the quilt may be "Kate & Sue's Hearts & Flowers"

Quilt in Progress - Hearts & Flowers

This is my current "work in progress" - a quilt that is built around a set of 12 floral paper pieced hearts sent to me by two ladies as part of a wonderful group of "Comfort Hearts" sent after the bushfires. The remaining hearts are all appliqued and I plan to piece them with pieced borders to make two single bed quilts.

This is called "Hearts and Flowers" because I took the floral theme from the hearts and found all the floral fabrics I could in my "stash" for the 2.5" (2" finished) squares that make up the Irish chain design, with the paper-pieced hearts between the chains.


It has a narrow (1" finished) purple inner border and a wide (7") outer border in a cream on cream print.

So the point of these photos is to show the quilting in the outer border. I designed an undulating feathered scroll design that runs around 1/4 of the quilt, from half way along one side, around the corner and to half way along the next side. So there's 4 sets to complete the border.

This is the first time I've tried a double spine, and I filled the spine with free-hand circles.

Now I have to decide whether any filler is needed around the feathers. I could extend the diagonal lines from the quilting along the chains out into the outer border (skipping the innter border), or I could do a "pebble" fill that would be similar to, though less regular than the fill in the centre of the spine.

Of I might just bind it as it is - light purple binding, same as the inner border.

Questions for next weekend - should I do some additional quilting inside and around the pieced hearts? I'll take photos of some of the hearts soon.