A rainbow of gemstones

Before I show you the package that I sent winging off to Helen last week, I must remind you to enter the giveaway I’m currently running.

You could win a copy of Christina Cameli’s book “First steps to Free-motion quilting”. Entry is simple….. all you have to do is click HERE for the giveaway post, and make sure you are signed up for my newsletter HERE. I will be checking entries against the newsletter names. Please double check your email, as you will need to click the newsletter confirmation email you get to ensure you are signed up. Entries close Sunday night, Adelaide time, so be quick!

I couldn’t resist an Australian only Mini Quilt Swap as a great way to add something new to my Blind of Awesome! I am still waiting on my parcel, however I can show you the mini quilt and extra goodies that I created for Helen in Sydney.

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I planned ahead and inserted hanging triangles and my quilt label under the binding to help secure them. I couldn’t resist the gemstone based backing fabric for this quilt.

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I layered two pieces of poly batting into the quilt sandwich, to give the gems a lot of puff! Quilting started with stitch in the ditch around and through all 9 gemstones, using silvery glide thread that has a bit of shine to it. I added a second line of quilting in the front facet of each gem to continue the angular effect. Background stitching on the charcoal consisted of tight hooks and swirls. I wanted to flatten that sandwich as much as possible to increase the puff on the gems and add to the textural contrast.

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Of course, the black diamond warranted some special treatment so I freehanded some feathers in the same silvery glide thread arcing around the block. I wanted to make it look like it was laying in a bed of, well, feathers! Or white fur/velvet. Having some knowledge of behind the scenes in the jewellery business, there is a reason they mostly use black velvet for displays. Plus, as we all know, presentation is everything! I did minimal marking for the feathers, counting on using the previous stitch in the ditch for spines. I marked the 1/4″ border where the binding would sit, so as to keep my feathers inside the frame, and did a simple line to mark where the middle was at the top, to aim my final curls in to that spot.

I had a LOT of fun making extras to go with this quilt – keeping with the bright rainbow fun theme I had started.

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A fairly simple hoop of my own design. The clouds are stitched with two shades of grey and a white inner line, which continues down to the beads and crystal rain droplet. The rainbow is a selection of different embroidery stitches for a bit more dimension.

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I also made this rather adorable pincushion using a scrap of Amy Butler fabric as the colour inspiration. It was an instant hit on Instagram, and I have promised to write up a tutorial for it the next one I make. Stay tuned!

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Added into the parcel was a little striped gemstone shaped pouch, some beautiful hand crafted fabric covered buttons and hand stamped gift tags. Of course, I had to include some tea, chocolate and lollies too!

Igminioz wrapped

Half of the fun of receiving swap parcels is opening them, so I wanted to make sure that Helen got the maximum enjoyment out of her mail – red tissue paper, doilies, ribbon and bakers twine along with another hand stamped card to finish it all off.

If you are interested, the paper pieced Gemology quilt block is by Sarah Rose Quilts, available from Craftsy HERE. The gem pouch was a free download also from Craftsy HERE, however be warned. It isn’t symmetrical so you need to be careful which way you place your outer and inner pieces to get a smooth result. I didn’t discover that until too late, so I wasn’t overjoyed with my finished result.

I had so much fun putting together this parcel. What would be your favourite swap item to receive?

Happy Crafting - Cassie.

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8 Responses

  1. Raquel

    The black diamond set off on it’s own is brilliant. Your quilting really did add extra dimension to those gems! I bet your partner was delighted to recieve such a “gem” of a mini.

  2. Mary

    I couldn’t get the click here button to work for going to the other site.

    • Cassandra

      Hi Mary. Thanks so much for letting me know about the broken links. I have no idea what happened to them, but they are fixed now! You still have lots of time to enter the giveaway 🙂

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