Throwback Thursday – Blue and Yellow Quilt

When I first started quilting I joined an online quilting group called Southern Cross Quilters, a group especially set up for Australian and New Zealand quilters. To be a member of these groups you had be either living in one of those countries or an expat from one of those countries currently living abroad.

I enthusiastically joined in lots of swaps and joined various groups. One was a birthday swap group. People who signed up for this swap were put into a number of different groups with the aim being to have a spread of months of the year.  The sign up included not only your name address and date of birth (month and day only. We didn’t have to confess the year LOL) but also your colour preferences. Everyone in the swap received this information and we posted off two fat quarters in the person’s colour choices to arrive around their birthday. 

My colour choices were yellow and blue. We had recently redecorated our rumpus room in these colours and I thought I would make a nice quilt to go in the room.

In due course my swaps arrived and eventually I chose a pattern that I thought would make a nice quilt in these colours. The pattern was in a magazine (or was it a book… hmmmm) I had to make a template (just one) and all the fabric had to be cut up according to this template which was what I call a picket fence shape… a rectangular shaped block at the bottom with a right angled triangle on top. I cut up all the suitable fabric from my birthday stash.

 Life got busy, someone asked to borrow some magazines and books, I lent them, got them back eventually but by this time I had forgotten where the pattern was and even WHAT the pattern was. The cut up shapes were packed away in a plastic ziplock bag and basically forgotten about.

Fast forward to 2011 or 12 when I started my UFO challenge. These pieces were part of my UFO list. I couldn’t find the pattern… not knowing what it was like didn’t help at all. So I designed a new pattern all by my self and set about making a quilt. Back then I didn’t have a design wall – I had a design floor.

 My cats didn't always help the process.

 Eventually I got the quilt made. I had to cut some more yellow fabric as for some reason I had way more blue. I had cut some of the blue ones the wrong way around. These were ones that got trimmed up for some of the shorter shapes I needed for the design.

 I was very happy with how it turned out. At some point when going through my magazines  ripping out the patterns that I liked and thought I would use I came across the original pattern. I liked the original a lot and thought that I might try to make it again… although once again I have lost the pattern. It should be in my saved patterns so I should be able to find it without much difficulty… one day perhaps.

Linking up with Throwback Thursday @ Quiltin'Jenny 

Throwback Thursday - nine patch quilts

I started quilting in 2001 when a friend dragged me along to a patchwork class at a local shop. Soon afterwards I joined some online quilting groups including one
"Southern Cross Quilters" especially established for quilters in Australia and New Zealand, or for Australian and New Zealand quilters who were living overseas. So many online quilting groups were (and still are) dominated by quilters from North America, especially the USA. This group was to cater for the Australian and New Zealanders.

Part of what was offered were online swaps and block exchanges. The swap that was particularly for newbies like myself were the 9 patch swaps. Each month there was a theme or a particular colourway for the swap. We would send our blocks into the swap hostess and she would divide them up and send them back to us. I can't recall how many we were allowed to make but I know it was carefully done so that they would fit into an A4 envelope and qualify for the large letter rate.

I participated with great enjoyment in these swaps over many many months. The different themes meant that I had to go shopping for fabric because as a newbie quilter I dind't have a stash to draw from. I loved getting the parcels in the mail and seeing the array of blocks and the ways other people had interpreted the theme. The trouble was I was busy making the blocks and was accumulating quite a stack of them but I wasn't actually making them into quilts. Eventually I decided that rather than making these 9 patch blocks I really needed to make quilts so I stopped being part of the swaps. I intended to rejoin once I had made up some of my blocks but some how I never did.

I don't recall all or even many of the different themes that we had but some I do recall were Christams, music, jewel tones and sewing related. I recall these because the quilts that I made from these blocks I still have or I gave to family and I have photos of them.

There may have been more than one Christmas themed swap or else we were allowed to make extra blocks or I made extra blocks for myself. I don't recall but I do know that I made two small lap quilts as gifts. ONe was for my mother and father and the other was for another couple I called Mum and Dad. They were my Sydney parents when I first went to live in the city to attend college. They belonged to the church I attended and each Sunday night they hosted dinner before church for the youth group of the church. At one point I dated their son, until we both realised we were just good mates and not at all romantically inclined towards each other. (we still are mates although we don't see much of each other)

My Mum and Dad with the Christmas quilt I made for them

Gotta show you the back too

Mum and Dad K's Christmas quilt

Mum and Dad K's quilt with grand daughter Leah

back of Mum and Dad K's quilt

The musical blocks I was making in to a quilt at the time my middle son, Kombi Boy was learning the saxaphone in the school band. He decided that the quilt must be for him as he was the musical one. Not sure how he came to that conclusion as both his older siblings Fangirl and Massage Man were also in the high school band. Later his younger brother was also in the band. In fact the other 3 stuck with their music for far longer than he did. Whatever... I was pleased that he was showing an interest in what I was doing and he scored the lap quilt.


I had intended to make a cover for my sewing machine out of the sewing related 9 patch blocks but the sewing machine had a good hard cover so it wasn't needed. Later I got another machine that was a good bit larger and I have now got an even bigger one so I am glad I never made a cover for the first machine. Instead I made a bag to carry my cutting mat in. I still use it frequently.

Some of the other blocks were made into baby quilts for my great nieces and nephews and my cousin's grandchildren.

They eventually all got used. The nine patch swap was a good way for me as a beginner quilt to start to get involved in the wider patchwork community. It was a long time before I joined the local patchwork group and my support and education came from the online community. I was more meticulous when making blocks for swaps, correcting any split seams of flip overs, squaring up the blocks carefully, making sure my seams matched. It was a great way to hone some skills