Australis - New Beginnings Part 4

Sewmiriam Australis is finished. 

What a joy this quilt has been to make! I have loved the colours, the way it has taken shape from the central block and then evolved round by round until its completed size of 70" x 70".

You can read about the making of this original Sewmiriam quilt in previous Sewmiriam blogposts
by clicking

                  here for  Australis -New Beginnings Part 1

                  here for   Australis - New Beginnings Part 2

                  here for   Australis - New Beginnings Part 3 


The colours really reflect the Australian landscape and the seas that surround our great island nation.

My good friend Jo-Ann Philips from Quiltwise has long arm quilted Australis beautifully. The following photos show the swirling quilt pattern . Having blocks of solid colour in a quilt top really helps to showcase a quilting design. The solid colour  enhances the textural and visual impact  a carefully chosen quilt pattern can have on a pieced quilt top. Because Australis is constructed with predominantly squares, triangles, and rectangles, I wanted a circular quilting pattern to complement the piecing.

Many of us have fabric scraps left over from quilt made for others . I had some special pieces of Australian Indigenous fabrics left over from a quilt I  made for my Father who sadly passed away last year. This quilt contains these pieces, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Quilts are often so much more than the sum of their parts. They are memories. They are love. They  are joy. The are celebrations of life's journey. For whatever reason you make a quilt - they are precious. 

Happy sewing , love Miriamx 

Australis -New Beginnings Part 3

 There is a real nip in the air today in Sydney. The autumnal tones of the Australis  quilt suit this weather to perfection. Welcome to Part 3 of this growing quilt series. Australis is now too big for me to photograph well, so get ready for a few giggles when you see the finished quilt top towards the end of this blogpost. Photographic perfection is not my forté. I tend to favour the "before the makeover" look. At least I am authentic.

Let's start by revisiting the Australis quilt in my previous posts. You can read about the creation of the quilt in the New Beginnings blogpost by clicking here  and the Australis - New Beginnings Part 2 blogpost by clicking here .

In my last blogpost the log cabin variation round had just been added.

I chose to next add another neutral 2 inch border to frame the log cabins. To upsize the scale of the next pattern round I decided to add a wonderful large scale flying geese round. I mixed up all the fabrics   and  used a Marti Mitchell ruler to cut  the flying geese triangles. There really is something easy and delightful about using a purpose built ruler when making a quilt.  The   corner squares were created by  putting 2 flying geese units together pointing away from each other. 

To make things easier for myself I cut out a whole stack of central and side triangle units and then mixed and matched them at my sewing machine. To ensure that the sides fitted perfectly I  added thin solid colour strips to the short edges of each side panel to frame the corner squares. 

Australis still needed to be balanced, so another neutral border was added but slightly wider this time  being 2 1/2 inch when finished.  To frame the quilt perfectly I decided that it needed a border of squares.  The square border consists of 2 rows of 2 inch finished squares. The first row is made from print fabrics  and the second row is made from  plain fabrics.

Ta Da!!!!   The Australis top is finished. Here it is complete with very fine "model hands." Thank you Evan and Cameron. Thank goodness I have a tall husband and son who both have  loads of patience and tolerance for my crazy crafting ways.

Australis is now patiently waiting to be professionally long-arm  quilted by my friend Jo-Ann Phillips of Quiltwise Quilting.

In the meantime I can play around with the elements of this quilt .

I like the idea of  large flying geese strips and log cabin elements framed in a contrasting colour.

It's always fun to play and free ourselves from the constraints of patterns. Blessed are the pattern breakers!

I hope you have been able to find some time for yourself to pause, reflect and create.

Happy sewing, love Miriamx

Australis - New Beginnings Part 2

Some quilts have a strong will and a mind of their own!  Australis is such a quilt  it seems. 

Here it is so far. 

When I started this I really just wanted to make a happy block to celebrate Australia Day. 

When that block was posted on Instagram I thought to myself - well now what are you going to do with it?  Out came a few shot cottons, a few indigenous prints, a few modern prints, a bit of Gwen Marston inspiration and the quilt Australis  began.  I am sure that this quilt has a mind of its own. I am learning so much and I am happy to share the journey with you. You can read about the first stage in my blogpost New Beginnings 

So now we are up to the next row of the Australis medallion quilt. After the lovely round of colourful shot cotton half square triangles shown above I decided that a neutral tone on tone print round was needed to balance  the quilt before adding more colour.

Next I decided to make some simple log cabin blocks. I gave careful thought to fabric placement and decided that I would make sure that a shot cotton was placed along the left hand side of each block and also along the right hand side as shown in the following photos.  Keep on reading to find out why.

I made a whole bunch of these blocks so that I could play around with placement to find the perfect balance of colour.

I specifically placed the fabrics this way on the blocks so that when you place them around the quilt as shown below with the plain colours joining, you will end up creating the illusion of a "round" row of coloured rectangles. 

I also added rectangles to the ends of each group of 4 log cabin blocks as shown below

Finally I added the corner square to the top and bottom rows before adding them to complete that round of the  Australis Quilt . 

My thinking cap is on now for the next round . Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Thank you for stopping by. Life is busy and always full of surprises. I hope you are finding a moment or two for some time for yourself to recharge your batteries. We always put others first, but remember that you are also important. We have one life - make each day special.

Happy sewing , love Miriamx