Guest Blogger Laura from Quokka Quilts

If you are looking for the Terrain giveaway click here.

Today's guest blogger is Laura from Quokka Quilts. Laura volunteered right away when I put a call out for Guest Bloggers, so having her as my first guest blogger for Kate Spain month is very fitting.







Good Fortune review and a block tutorial 

Hi, I’m Laura and I’m very happy to be doing my very first guest post here at Craizee Corner. I blog at Quokka Quilts, which may give you a clue as to where I live. If not, hop (hint hint) on over and have a look at my About page. 

A few weeks ago, a layer cake of Kate Spain’s NEW line, Good Fortune, arrived on my doorstep. It’s due out in January - lucky, lucky me! What I didn’t know was that Good Fortune comes with FREE good fortune! I’m convinced. A heap of good fortune befell me at the same time as the layer cake arrived. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, sapphires were involved. And an iPad. Enough said? Order NOW. 

I’m going to give you a quick review of the line as it’s so new.

Kate Spain’s Good Fortune fabric features a heap of symbols that are significant or lucky in one or several Asian cultures (in my non-quilting life, I have a Bachelor of Asian Studies). Dragonflies, lotus flowers, cherry blossoms, bamboo... The colours are a gorgeous mix of blues, purples, peach, orange and green with some grey thrown in for tone.
That’s the factual bit of the review. 


Now the whimsical bit. I think some fabric has personality and there are introverts and extroverts in this particular line of fabric. The introverts are quite happy in their own company - they're quite happy around others, but they really can stand alone and shine. I can see this one on the left humming quietly to herself (of course it's a she) as she swishes around on a skirt, quite oblivious to any other fabric.

Other fabrics are extroverts. Extroverts prefer the company of others to their own. To start with, I found a few fabrics such as this one didn’t quite click with me. UNTIL I REALISED - they were extroverts! They were sulking alone. When I put them with another fabric, they SANG! Every good party has the extroverts and these are the party animals that make it all happen. 

The Block 

As well as having the symbols in the fabric, I wanted to make a block that symbolised Good Fortune, so I googled, and I remembered something I’d forgotten...

One of the oldest and most widely used symbols of good fortune (which appears in Hindu, Buddhist and a number of other religions and cultures) is the swastika (yes, the Nazis stole it and made it infamous). You can see it all over the world, especially in Hindu areas such as Bali (see traditional examples here). The original has been adapted and used numerous times in many different cultures and religions. I took one of these adaptations and made this block.

I’m sure it’s not original and I’m sure someone will be kind enough to tell me the proper name of it, but I just cut and played and I’m calling it Good Fortune. 

With a 10" layer cake, cut 2.5" off two sides first, then off the top and bottom of the remaining part, then cut the remaining part in half, thus (I've numbered the cuts for you):

Now you need your contrasting fabric cut in a 5" square and a 2.5" strip. From the 2.5" strip, cut two 2.5" squares, and two 3.25" long strips and join like this.

Join your contrasting 2.5" strips to each end of two of the 5" long Good Fortune 2.5" strips, press then cut down the length of the strip.

 

Attach the other 2.5" Good Fortune pieces to the centre block. You can see that the side pieces are a little long, so trim them back after cutting.

 

Sew the shorter thin sections on top and bottom, then the longer side sections and there you have it! I've already shown you the finished block so here are some others.

You'll see the last one is my 'yang' block to balance out the 'ying' ones. If you'd like instructions for that, hop on over to my blog and let me know! 

And finally, as my Good Fortune layer cake arrived the same day as my iPad, what better way to put the scraps to use than an iPad case! It's official - I've fallen in love with this line!

Thanks for having me Sharon!

 

Thanks Laura for that great tutorial on an adorable block! Make sure to check out Lauras blog today and tell her Sha sent you! Come back tomorrow to see Tiffany from Another Pie In The Sky share her Fandango project!

Have you got your hands on any Terrain yet? Do it today...it's so popular I am sure it will go fast. The Fat Quarter Shop has some great patterns to go with the Terrain fabric!

Sha :)