Holiday Sewing

At Last the Wheel of Fortune quilt top is finished. It's not very big but those diamonds were such a pain, I was glad to see the last squares being stitched in.

I had about 20 squares left and a few diamonds and I laid them out and arranged them in a neat little square with the diamonds acting as a border. My no. 2 son, who loves tessellations, asked if he could play with them. He created a fantastic new pattern that I have never seen before. I spent the next day cutting more fabric to complete his idea. Now I will have to be working with diamonds again. I'm not showing his lay out yet. I need to psych myself up to drawing all the seams and pinning them all together. May be a few months away yet.

I also made a square block which I will be sending to Japan to be part of the Tokyo Quilt Festival. It was originally blogged about by Ayumills . The thing I like about this idea is that the block will be joined to other blocks, sent in from around the world. The blocks will be made into quilts which will be shown and then auctioned off with all proceeds going to the tsunami victims. Last show they put together 86 quilts!

What else have I been doing these holidays besides freezing?

I've started a quilt using some of my 30's reproduction fabrics. They have been sitting on the shelf for way too long. I have 19 blocks finished and 11 half done.

I made a couple of pot mitts for a teacher friend who just got married. The teachers all pitched in with money for a big present but I just wanted to add a little something extra for her on a personal level as we team teach our class and I was dying to use some new fabrics I bought.

I added an extra pocket at the back to fit your fingers in to get a better grip but stupidly quilted the mitts vertically whereas had I done it horizontally the mitts would have folded in your hand much more easily. Live and learn.

Diamond quilt is being hand quilted and it is looking beautiful.

Snowball Quilt is stretched.

I guess that is where most of my sewing time has gone. I can't believe I go back to work on Monday. I do have a crochet class to look forward to on Monday night though! Wish me luck.

Binding On

The binding is on and the quilt is already being used. 

A few of the old quilts are now on our beds acting as insulators to our doonas. The weather has been so cold.

I have to go to a wedding today and it's going to be freezing. Hard to look glamorous in this weather. Actually I think I am going to be rushing so much I will get warm.
I promised to drive some friends to Sunspun in Canterbury Road. It is a gorgeous shop that carries a full range of Kaffe's fabric, the most incredible selection of wools, tapestry kits and pattern books.
Then we are heading to Maling Road for lunch. It's a quaint suburban shopping strip with all sorts of interesting stores and cafes.

I have to be back home in time to pick up a friend to go to the wedding ceremony (in nice clothes) by 3.30pm. It's in Brighton - the other direction from where I have been.
Back home again till 7pm for the party where I really have to dress up.
Lots of driving. I think I better buy some petrol.

Signed, Sealed and Hopefully Delivered

I finally finished all the hand quilting on this autumn quilt.

In most of the plain coloured squares I hand quilted outlines of some of the leaves in the fabrics.

I took lots of photos of it because this may be the last time I see it! It's in a postbag, on it's way to Sydney.

So I have signed and sealed the bag and hopefully it will arrive safely soon.

I have never really given away a quilt that has had so much work put into it and I have to say I feel really pleased. I become very attached to all my creations and have always felt like a part of me would be missing if I gave it up yet in this case I am so excited to be sending it off to a family I know will love it as much as I do.

Hand Sewing and some Machine Quilting

It's been a weekend of nothing new.

But also a weekend of working on.

This was the first time I put the binding on a quilt by machine. It was just something I had to try. It looks okay but I think hand binding is so much nicer and for me, it gives me a chance to say good bye to my quilt. I love the final process.

I've been spending every chance I have hand quilting this too. I have decided to give it to my son's girlfriend's family. He has been living with them for the last 5 months in Sydney while he has been studying. They have had to put up with his mess, washing, and for sure, his commandeering of the TV and couch. The have had to watch Aussie rules instead of NRL and I think they are saints. They already had 4 kids and took my boy in without blinking an eye. He took my Marimekko comforter up there and they were saying how they were going to miss snuggling under it while watching TV so I am excited that this quilt will fill the gap. When he comes home in August, this will be finished and in it's place.

I started machine quilting the Bicycle Quilt.

Another round is on the Wheel of Fortune.

I guess it's been a good weekend.

New Skills

I have been a long time admirer of this quilt.

And I have been watching with envy this little baby growing on Cabbage Quilt's Blog

I have little patience for paper piecing but Cathy's quilt was so tantalizing that I kept thinking about it.

On a visit to Amitie,  Judy assured me that if I was very careful and accurate with my templates there was no reason why I shouldn't be able to run this up on a machine.

Here is how it is going.

Not all the joins are perfect and it is still a massive amount of work but it's moving along nicely. I am not sure if I am crazy about the colours. They are just being added from whatever I have in my stash.

Anyway I have learned lots, particularly that where there is a will, there is a way. The friendly unpicker has had a good workout, in fact I think it is blunt and I need a new one.

Waste Not

You know all those corners you waste when you snip off the corners on a snowball?

They make great borders!

Snowball Stress

I've had some Philip Jacobs fabric sitting around for about a year now. I really didn't like it when it arrived and didn't know what to do with it. So yesterday I started cutting it up to make a snowball quilt. I sewed for hours and at the end of it realised how disgusting the colours were that I had chosen. Not the Philip Jacobs but the pink and eggshell blue corners I had sewn around it. It really was awful. All hideously pink and baby blue.

As I slept on it, the family tiptoed around it in disgust. 

Today was unpicking day. Most of the pink and blue had to go. It was replaced with browns, greens and denim blues. 

The unpicking took hours. It was so wasteful but worth it. It's still not my favourite but at least I can look at it!

I hated all the waste from the chopped off corners so I've started sewing them together to add a border.

Echino Bike Quilt

One of the beautiful fabrics my son brought back from Japan was some Echino bike fabric. It is so special, I have been a bit scared to cut  into it. I chose a few fabrics that highlighted the colours of it.

 I cut them into 7.5" squares and made 9 sets of 9 patches.

Cut each 9 patch into quarters,

 rearranged them, and sewed them back together.

It's a bit random but I finished it in an afternoon. I really needed to get something done because last weekend was almost a right off for sewing and I was pining all week.

In between all the grocery shopping last weekend I snuck off to Patchwork on Central . 

"It was on the way home"

They were having a sale.

I had been searching for a backing fabric for my diamond quilt for a few months now and I think I did well.

It's the green one in the middle. $32 a metre reduced to $10 a metre.

Should go well with this:

I bought these too. Not sure what for.

Fabric is getting cheaper to buy in Australia, but I do love a bargain.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

               It's the Blogger's Quilt Festival and here is my entry.

The quilt was originally a kit.  It came with instructions and the most glorious range of fruity fabrics and checks and stripes. 

I didn't know many tricks of the trade so it is full of mistakes. The knots from my hand quilting are still visible because I didn't know how to hide them between the layers and the binding was put on back to front with awful corners. I didn't use perle cotton so the stitching thread is not as soft as it should be but I don't care!

The kit was was given to me for a birthday by my sadly missed sister-in-law Susan, who died  a few years ago. We used to go to all the craft fairs together, did our first quilting classes together, had sewing afternoons, knitted, stitched and shopped together. We both had a total love of textiles. 

Susan bought me this kit from Patchwork on Central's stall at a quilt show. She knew I couldn't afford it and bought it for my birthday. It's very special because it reminds me of our fun together. 

I've Fallen Weeks Behind

I've been so lazy with my blogging these last few weeks. I had a marvelous school holiday and even escaped to the beach for a couple of days. It was crispy autumn weather. We went to Point Nepean. On the left is the peaceful bay and on the right is the open ocean. We walked through the park and caught the shuttle. It used to be an old army base. There were some very cool rusty relics.

We sat on the beach and walked and drank coffee and ate yummy food.

The boys are studying for their mid years. Hard Life!

I took my hexies with me. They are so portable.

There is no plan with these guys. I am just adding on scraps as I go. No paper piecing. I'm just drawing the lines and sewing them together with running stitch. My textile teacher way back at uni would be horrified but it works! 

I loathe to throw away even the tiniest bits of fabric which is why I am getting so much pleasure out of this project. I also have been using my scraps to make these.

I got the idea from One Shabby Chick. I have linked her straight to her tutorial on how to make these little purses. They are so easy to make and use up lots of scraps.

I think they will make great end of year presents for some of the teachers I work with.

During the holidays I had to baby sit Phil, my class pet. When I first introduced him he looked like this.

During the December holidays he lost his exoskeleton and now looks like this.

He is no longer brown and 'twig like' but green with yellow horny legs and hard to find amongst the eucalyptus leaves. He is also nearing the end of his days. I found out that he is a Goliath Stick Insect which makes sense because he is probably 10" long.

I finished Rivka's quilt for her brother. It really is fun. It's binding was from Denyse Schmidt's new range. Although I can't say I love the range, the colour was perfect for the binding.

I think there is still more to tell but that is for another day.

It Works Upside Down

I am going back to work on Monday. I'm so sad because I love holidays. In a frenzy of, 'I must make more before I go back,' I started working on a quilt. I wanted it to be quick and I wanted to use up some of my old fabric and combine it with some beautiful stripy fabric I bought on sale.

In about four hours I had it all pieced together but it ended up being totally warped! (Excuse the concrete background). I know in photos the base always looks wider but this base really is wider, about 8 inches on each side. I have never made this style of quilt before so I am not sure if it was the stripy fabric, which is not standard cotton and a bit stretchy, or the style of the quilt that has made it sag in the middle.

I took a photo of it upside down and the shape is perfect - no distortion despite the angle.

My sons think it's awful. "Sorry Mum, but it's not one of my favourite ones."

It feels really soft and cuddly and I used up some really lovely linen fabric.

I am going through a phase of not trying to be so exact in my work and enjoying the liberty. 

More Show Day Stuff

There were a couple of other quilts that I really liked. The close quilting lines gave them a lovely extra dimension.

The first was called 'Bush Walk Flora #4' by Anna Brown.

The second quilt was called 'Design Line #7 Lust in the Log Cabin' by Brenda Gael Smith.