Do you love big blocks and big quilts? I love a quilt that covers the bed and doesn't get fought over on a cold night!

Topsy is a quilt that is great fun to make and comes in two lovely big sizes, but if you're not into big quilts  I have drawn up options for making it in a smaller format (see below for two bonus formats).

 This was one of the few quilts of mine that got it's name really early in the process of making. The blocks grew so fast I was reminded of the saying 'growing like topsy'

This is a great quilt for mixing and matching unexpected prints. Stripes look great as the 'petals' in the blocks, and they also work in the sashings. Bright pops of colour for the central parts of the blocks are fun as well. Try combining spots, stripes, large and small prints. The important thing is to get contrast in each block.

I used a half yard pack of Art Gallery fabrics from various lines for my quilt. The teals and pinks worked beautifully together and there are stripes,...

With the launch of my new Creative Grids Half Sixty ruler I have designed a number of patterns to go along with this great tool. One of these is Slice it Up, a really easy layer cake (10" square) friendly pattern.

At Quilt Market in Houston last October I purchased a pack of 10 inch squares of Gridwork, the gorgeous new range by Christa Watson @christaquilts for Benartex. This range is just hitting the shops now, so it's a great time to nab yourself some of this lovely fabric.

I started designing Slice it Up by cutting blocks and playing with them on my sewing room design wall.

Nice - but I always like to let me blocks 'sit' for a while before finally deciding how to put them together. So a few days later I tried this idea, this time with the whole set of blocks in my living room where I am very lucky to have an 8 foot square design wall. Now that is much more dynamic!

With the addition of a solid colour, I was finally happy with the design and got the quilt completed, and...

How exciting! My episode of The Quilt Show is up and you can now watch for free until December 15th 2019 by following this link:

I hope you enjoy watching!

I had a fabulous time at Quilt Market in Houston introducing my brand new Matariki Block of the Month pattern to shops.

I designed this quilt in two colourways - this one is called Spectrum, and it uses Violet Craft's Modern Classics fabrics from Robert Kaufman. What fun getting to pose with Violet for a photo!

The other colourway uses Jennifer Sampou's Chalk and Charcoal fabrics, also by Robert Kaufman. Jennifer happened to be in the booth right next to Violet, so I got photos with both of these lovely ladies!

This block of the month pattern is divided into ten parts. Each month includes the patterns for two blocks.

All of these are made with the Creative Grids CGR60 triangle ruler, using the techniques from my book Quilts with an Angle.

Month 1 includes all the instructions you need for cutting the shapes with this great ruler. You will learn to cut triangles, trapezoids, hexagons, diamonds and parallelograms, all using the triangle ruler plus a straight ruler.

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I had a lovely weekend teaching my Triangle Block Party class to the ladies of my local quilt guilt, Wairarapa Quilters. For the first time we stayed at Waimanaaki, a great venue at Riversdale Beach for groups to stay at.

Half of the class decided to make the Modern Triangle Sampler quilt, and half worked on smaller blocks to make a table runner. We soon had a full design wall.

The students did a fantastic job and worked hard all weekend as well as having lots of fun with beach-themed dressing up, quizzes and lots of eating!

Here's Rosie with her quilt blocks, trying to get everything in the picture

Adie made all these blocks in the two days

I loved Sue's use of Alison Glass Sunprints light for her backgrounds

Kattrina was using Karen Lewis Wayside fabric to make her runner

While Martina went for a bold modern look

We also designed a brand new block, especially for the Wairarapa Quilters

I love teaching this class and seeing my students realize how easy these...

I'm so excited to announce the re-launch of my Modern Triangle Sampler pattern. It's been an amazing journey since I made the original quilt. It prompted me to write my book, has appeared at Quiltcon and has given me many happy hours of teaching students how to do triangle patchwork.

Since I wrote the original pattern I have figured out new ways to make the cutting easier, and I wanted to share these with you, so I have re-written the instructions in easy to follow step by step format complete with colour illustrations. My friend Kristy at Page and Pixel has done an amazing job on the design and layout.

The new pattern is now available in my payhip store as a pdf download, and I will will have printed copies available soon. If you haven't tried triangle patchwork yet now is a great time to have a go!

As a special offer for my blog followers, you can get 25% off this pattern until the end of April. Just enter the coupon code mysteryquilter

BUY NOW

I'm really excited to introduce my latest pattern..

This Nine Patch Crossings table runner is easy to make and would make a great gift for family and friends. The flanged binding is sewn down by machine, so you won't have to spend hours hand sewing!

Made with Morris Holiday fabrics by Moda, but it would work with any charm squares you have.

I have launched the pattern today in my Craftsy Shop, click here to buy

I hope you enjoy making this runner, do post a review on my pattern page if you like it!

After a busy 2017 it was lovely to be able to close the year with a walk to my favourite place by the Atiwhakatu stream.

The perfect companion was Silver Fern, one of the colourways for my 2017 Mystery Quilt 'All Aglow'.

This pattern is now available in my Craftsy store

The Silver Fern is an emblem of New Zealand and can be found everywhere in the bush. It is also the emblem of our mighty All Blacks rugby team.

The weather has been mixed this Christmas but New Year's Eve was a beautiful day, with a light breeze (which means quite a strong breeze in the Atiwhakatu valley!) and lots of sunshine.

The place by the stream is about half way to the mountain hut, about an hour and a half's walk from the car park for me and enough of a good stretch after not doing much exercise all year.

I love taking  a quilt with me, they have so many uses! This time it was a great cover-up against too much sun as well as the biting sand flies.

Eating my lunch by the stream I heard a pair of Kereru...

The last few months have been really busy with the New Zealand Quilt Symposium plus a trip to Quilt Market in Houston where I was lucky enough to meet up with Kristy Lea of Make Modern Magazine. When I got back home I was excited to see the launch of Issue 19 of the magazine which contains the first block of my Mini Wonders sampler.

This sampler is made using my 60 degree patchwork technique, which is also the method for my Modern Triangle Sampler quilt.

Make Modern is a digital magazine, which is fabulous as you get a huge amount of content in each issue and can just print out the patterns you are interested in. Subscribe to this magazine by following the link on the right hand side of this page.

I hope you will have a go at Mini Wonders. I love the beautiful Alison Glass fabrics in the project, the ones in the photo are Sunprints, and I am now making another using her latest Diving Board range. Another really exciting part of going to Houston was meeting Alison, and I came...

This year's southern hemisphere summer is drawing to a close, and it's been a bit underwhelming. Usually we get weeks on end of long, hot days when all you want to do is lie under a tree and take a nap, but this year there has been rain, and days when the weather has blown in a big chill from the Antarctic.

Officially we are now in Autumn (New Zealand classes its seasons in complete months - in England it wouldn't change until the equinox). However, this weekend we had blissful summer weather - not too hot to go outside, it was just calling me to make the most of the warm weather.

The quilt taking an outing this weekend was Candy Drops. I designed this quilt for our Shop Hop last year, and the pattern was published this week in the digital magazine Make Modern, Issue 15.

It's surprisingly easy to squish a quilt into your backpack - this is quite a small pack that my Mum bought me for a significant birthday. It holds all the necessities - emergency kit, spare layers, lunch, tea...