Orange and Chocolate

Hmm - who thought this post was going to be about food, with a heading of "Orange and Chocolate"?  I have to say, the idea of orange and chocolate did make me think of orange flavoured chocolate!  Which, by the way, I happen to love, especially when it's made with dark chocolate.... mmmm.... going to raid sweet cupboard now....

Ok - back again.  My orange and chocolate story is about a quilt.  The original pattern only had 9 blocks in the quilt and I wanted to include 12 blocks.  I had started to make this quilt as a help to a friend who was struggling with the 'stack'n'slash' cutting method, so I grabbed some fabrics and cut beside her, taking her through the process; step by step.

The front of the quilt is mostly greens, with a bit of chocolate and lots of nice fresh green.

However, the back is all chocolate and orange... 

... with some teal coloured deer.

There are flowers on the back of the quilt, because when I was cutting out the flowers for the quilt front, I just kept on drawing and fusing and then my flower garden bloomed profusely.  I had to plant those extra flowers somewhere!

One of my friends did ask why I was making this quilt - she really didn't like it before the flowers went on - and my response was, because it makes me happy to be helping another quilter with her cutting and the freshness of the fabrics also made my happy.

The pattern for this quilt is available from Patchworks Unlimited.   Sorry, I don't remember the name of the pattern and it is lost in the mess that is my sewing room.

I have no idea what colour or pattern of fabric to use for binding on this quilt, so any suggestions are welcome.

Ladder Climbing

Bored, I was.  A little bit tired of making Honour Quilt blocks in my marathon session to catch up with the monthly block issues, I procrastinated by looking through some magazines.  While looking for something quick and easy, that I could make in one afternoon, I found the pattern "Garden Ladder" in Australian Quilters Companion, issue 60 (Vol 12 No 2).

In my stash I found the following fabrics:

Three of the Fat Quarters were new fabrics from a retreat purchase - the visiting shop had so many exceptionally nice pieces that I just had to have, and the others were either left overs or un-used from other projects. 

Finishing at 37in x 51.5in (94cm x 131cm), this pattern makes a great baby quilt.  I have chosen a red binding, but it'll be a while until said binding is attached because I have to quilt it first!