Welcome to Saturday Sunday Quilting Bring & Share 😉 This week’s post is a little late as we enjoyed a very special day out on Saturday – more of that below. There’s still time to bring along your project(s) and share in the generosity of ideas and endless inspiration supplied by members of our World wide Quilting Community.

First to that day out. We drove 1½hrs west of home to visit the National Arboretum at Westonbirt.

There was plenty of blossom to admire – both on the specimen plants and the native plants growing wild on the woodland floor.

Such a great place to spend a day and lovely to see families and dog walkers enjoying a day outdoors. We agreed Westonbirt is definitely worth visiting again but on this occasion our attention was more on our companions than the location. So lovely to have such a relaxed, memorable time with our DD and SIL 🙂

These soon-to-be-parents discovered the Gruffalo’s Child in the woods! Maybe not quite what they are hoping for… 😀

Back home and the woodland theme carries into the sewing room where I have begun quilting the squirrel project!

I’m using two Aurifil 50wt threads, the green is #2888, the dark gold is #2975. I’ve kept the green in the bobbin as it blends very well with the backing fabric. So my aim for the coming week is to complete the quilting, make and attach the binding… Will I have a finished quilt to share by the end of the week? I do hope so!

Here are the links into our Worldwide Quilting Community:

I know I’ve had links to scrap sorting advice plenty of times before but I think this one by Amy Smart is well worth a look – even if you are in the happy position of having your scraps sorted and under control 😉 Amy’s scrap sorting ideas are peppered with images and links to a variety of scrap quilt patterns – plenty of inspiration to be found in this one post!

Have you ever worked with shot cotton or maybe steered away from these fabrics for fear of coming up against a host of problems, not least fraying? Shot cottons are quite fascinating as they are woven with one colour thread in the warp (the lengthwise threads on a loom) and a different colour in the weft (the threads woven side to side through the warp threads). Several years ago I had the chance, via a magazine, to work with cottons made by Oakshott Fabrics. I didn’t encounter any big issues but I would have benefitted from following the tips and advice shared in this post on Suzy Quilts website.

Curved piecing has been de-mystified by many bloggers and just about everyone I know who has tried machine piecing curved blocks has been surprised by how quickly they can learn the techniques to create very neat blocks. In this tutorial Lynette ditches pins altogether and uses glue to keep the pieces together as she stitches. There’s a template to download so if you’ve yet to give curved piecing a try click on the link to find resources and tips all in one place 🙂

Wow! Anorina’s ‘Midnight at the Oasis Quilt’ was a long time in the making but so worth the effort. It’s a medallion style layout and includes traditional patchwork blocks and applique all finished with big stitch quilting.

Plus quilts were very popular a few years ago and still pop up every now and again – especially as scrap busters. Diann chose to hand piece her Plus blocks and has off-set them in rows to make an attractive scrappy quilt.

Krista shares a seasonal quick tote bag make-over using raw edge applique. I like her tip to use a lengthened triple stitch as a decorative way to stitch the fabrics in place. In a later blog post Krista shares a great way to use a fabric panel along with some coordinating fabric yardage – she’s created a simple, eye-catching quilt with very little waste.

I’m about to embark on some machine quilting using 28wt thread – something I’ve never tried before – so discovering Melissa’s post comparing the use of heavier and lighter weight threads in machine and hand quilting was very timely 🙂 On the same subject Suzy has posted her top tips for using 12wt thread in a domestic sewing machine. I didn’t even think that was possible! Look through the comments at the end of the post to find some more helpful tips shared by other readers.

Here’s a helpful post – with a free download – all about standard quilt sizes. Melanie Collette has written a guest post on Amy Smart’s blog site that de-mystifies and clarifies. My go to quilt size is ‘throw’, 60″ by 72″, big enough to snuggle under, not too big to quilt on a domestic machine!

The Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt design is definitely a perennial that pops up year after year! Cathy has completed hand-me-down blocks with an open setting and hand quilting.

Happy Stitching!

Allison