Are you ready for an adventure?

The TotallyTriangleQuiltalong will begin on January 7th 2017

Over the next few weeks I will be posting information about what you will need!

Watch this space for details........

This week I have been fussy cutting hexagons for the new triangle blocks I designed. I wanted to share with you the really easy technique I came up with. I'm sure this must have been done before but I haven't seen it around.

For the new blocks I released last week I have decided to use Tula Pink fabrics. There are so many wonderful motifs just perfect for fussy cutting and I wanted to explore this for the triangle based pieces in my quilt.

Here's the hexagon I cut out with just two cuts:

Isn't it cute?

So here is how I did it:

Step 1:

My hexagon needs to have a finished height in the quilt of 4". I cut a 4 1/2" strip, fitting in the pattern I wanted:

Step 2:

Fold the strip of fabric in half - note, the fold is at the bottom of the photo.

Step 3:

Place your 60 degree ruler on top of the strip. Line up the centre line of the ruler with the centre of the pattern you want to fussy cut.

If you have a ruler with a tip like the C&T ruler here, put the 4 1/2" line on the fold.

If...

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...

The #totallytrianglequiltalong has started! It is so much fun to see the blocks that are being made. I hope you will join in. This is my first block, the Triangle Nine Patch.

You can see other blocks in the triangle quilters facebook group - anyone can join even if you just want to take a look for now. You can also see them on Instagram.

I will be posting more blocks on here as well as some tips for sewing with triangles as we get further into the quiltalong.

It can be a bit scary trying something new, but everyone who has tried these blocks seems to get into them really quickly and enjoy making them. You can get the pattern from Quilters' Lane, or from my Craftsy store. Why not have a go?

Though you may feel a bit like I did when I got back into going for walks in the bush last year, and was faced with walking across this swingbridge for the first time....

....just take a deep breath, be brave, and you never know what fun is to be had on the other side.

Here's my Lonestar...

2017 is going to be my year of the Triangle! Will it be yours too?

Triangle patchwork blocks are so much fun to cut and sew - they come together really quickly and are a lot easier than they look!

I'm also excited that the Sampler quilt has been accepted into Quiltcon, so if you are going to Savannah in February do look out for it.

To celebrate the launch of my pattern, I am running a Quiltalong on Instagram starting on January 7th 2017. See further down this entry for details.

The pattern for the Modern Triangle Sampler is now available in my Craftsy store here and also from Quilters' Lane at www.quilterslane.co.nz. I will have physical copies available in the shop also.

The pattern is about 80 pages long and includes detailed instructions on how to cut all the shapes in the blocks, 25 block patterns and also finishing instructions for putting together a sampler quilt.

Welcome to the Totally Triangle Quiltalong!

 Join me on January 7^th 2017 for the start of...

Since the 2016 Mystery Reveal I have had a lovely break away, doing a little traveling around New Zealand.

You may have heard the news about the large earthquake that hit the South Island. There are lots of photos in the news of the damage to the roads and infrastructure there. Although we only felt relatively little shaking here in Masterton, a lot of damage happened on the other side of the mountain ranges in the Wellington area.

source: stuff.co.nz

This is the Queensgate mall  which was closed for a couple of weeks and is now only partially open. I travel past here when going to my Capital Quilters meetings, and when I went last Saturday it was eerily quiet - usually at this time of year it would take ages to drive through the town. Buildings are being demolished and there is a lot of work going on to get things back to normal.

Meanwhile back in Masterton, I am preparing lots of exciting things for next year.

MYSTERY 2017

We had so much fun making the 2016 Mystery quilt. I'm...