My Birthday Present to Myself

July is my birthday month.  As all good quilters will do, I treated myself with something I have had my eye on for a few months.  I have admired Australian Quilter Jen Kingwell's quilts around the internet. There are a whole bunch of bloggers working on her patterns.  There have been quilt-a-longs for several of her other designs.  She is quite a talent in the quilt world.

Everything about her style appeals to me. It is the simple applique. It is the use of many scrappy colorful fabrics.  She uses color and low volume background in very clever ways.  Lots of polka dots and stripes. It is a lot about making one block and moving on. It is a challenging combination of applique and piecing.   It is a sampler quilt. I have never made a sampler style quilt.  

She has published several patterns and books but I chose her Green Tea and Sweet Beans. I got mine here.   

I have been wanting to make clamshells.  The pattern calls for 21.  I made them. That is about all I want to make for a while.  

I feel the same way about hexagons.  I also feel the same way about that hand pieced Squared Daisy.

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In all honesty, even though the designs seem basic you need some background in making templates, hand piecing and quilting to understand the written directions.  I had a few start overs on that daisy.  But I stuck with it and it turned out pretty cute.   

Lots of these little oval flowers are scattered throughout the pattern. I adapted this flower basket to make a mini quilt for my mom.

This quilt will develop your quilting skills no matter what level you are. The pattern looks delightfully simple. But there is a lot going on here.  Creativity. Color and texture applied to design.  Hand piecing. Template making. Hand quilting.  These are skills I have been concentrating on improving in 2015.   Check out Pinterest for progress on other Green Tea and Sweet Bean quilts.

Find some time to stitch today!  Thanks for stopping by!