Doll Quilt and A Little More

Woo hoo I finished (not) the Cheddar Cheese and Crackers doll quilt! I spent every evening last week piecing this beautiful and challenging CC&C doll quilt. This quilt was a quilt along project hosted by Lori of Humble Quilts. I loved it even more after I saw one hand quilted by Janet. DH was away on business trip this week, so I spent that time concentrating on piecing this quilt. It's not a hard quilt to make, but you really need to concentrate on the colour connections from block to block. I'm pleased to say that I finished piecing all the blocks without any mistakes. Putting the blocks together should be easy enough...! 

You need a designer's wall for this quilt. I don't have one so I hung a piece of flannel over my curtain rail and used that as designer's wall for this project. With superb instructions and photos from Lori it was easy enough to follow.

I took the designer's wall out on the deck this morning because I want to show you a bit of our grape vine that is in autumn colours. It's a beautiful time of the year. I love the deep orange of all the vine leaves. 

Remember the mini tumbler quilt I took with me to Japan? I started quilting a bit there, but only finished it after I got back. I didn't put a lot of quilting on, I just stitched in the ditch through the top and added a small branch around the border. I love it a lot now that it's finished. I'm planning to make a bigger one soon. Kathie is a great inspiration for me to make a bigger quilt. 

My interest in Japanese crafts started a long time ago, but it got more intense since we visited Japan in March this year. I have seen these cute thimbles displayed in fabric and Kimono shops in Japan, but not knowing Japanese I didn't know what they were until I came back and read Janet's blog about them. Janet had made a few herself and told me that I can get a starter kit from Ma Mercerie. You can see my first Japanese thimble made from the kit. It was really fun and I will make more myself from scratch, I hope. There is more information here if you are interested. 

I mustn't forget to mention about Blogger's Quilt Festival starting from May 21-28. If you are new to blogging, this is a great event to take part in, you will meet other bloggers, and make lots of friends this way. Click on the above image to visit Amy's blog  and sign up. Hope to see more of you at Blogger's Quilt Festival this year.