Pages

29 September 2012

a few finishes

I tidied up and got a few finishes done today so that I could start on sewing the down under doll quilt tomorrow - its been on the wall for at least a month so it will be good to get it finally sewn !!



I finished the two care at do.good stitches blocks - fabulous wonky churn dash blocks using fabric foundation.

 

I also sewed up the craftsy drunkard's path blocks - they're a bit uneven so I might have to look at them a bit closer when I put the quilt together but I'm pretty happy with the first time curves :)


 


and I finally sewed the binding on a little mini quilt that I made back in April for a blog hop - its the one that had the red dye issues so wasn't finished in time and I'm not sure why I've been so slow in getting it hand quilted and bound ! I hand quilted lines in the sashing with red variegated Perle 8.


I put little pocket hangers on this one which is a technique I saw on Amy's Stitchery Dickory Dock blog earlier this week so its already on the wall !


have a great weekend - we're lucky to have a long weekend this weekend and the weather is perfect for sewing - cold and raining !!

26 September 2012

my fab little quilt arrived

my little quilt in the fab little quilt swap arrived today - its just so cute ♥


it was made by Nichol from Las Vegas who blogs over at A Desert Quilter - she stalked me so well - half square triangles and gorgeous millie's closet !

it was such fun watching this quilt come together even though I had no idea it was for me !

Nichol also included a charm pack of Lucy's crab shack which is just adorable - and do you see the tiny daisies on the card - way too cute :)

thanks Nichol - I love it :)

24 September 2012

conquering those curves!

on the weekend I decided to tackle the curves of the totally groovy quilt.

amazingly, the craftsy bom blocks for September were drunkard's path too so I thought I would practice on those first.

I have a curvemaster foot and was pretty confident that I knew how to use it - I'd watched a few video tutorials and it looked kind of easy .... I should have known better !

So I cut out the pies and crusts of the drunkard's path craftsy blocks and started sewing them together and had issues straight away - none of them were ending well and I kept catching the inner circle when I was sewing.


the first one will be interesting as I try to sew it together - as not many of the seams line up !



hopefully they'll sew together ok though !

doing the blocks for the second one I actually did one almost perfect block !



and the rest turned out a bit better - at least I didn't catch the bottoms



but I'll probably still have issues trying to sew the block together !



when I cut out the totally groovy blocks I noticed that the inner curve template was way smaller than the craftsy one so I was a little worried with that - I think I'd heard somewhere that starching the fabric would help with stretching so I starched all of these blocks - I sewed a few and while one turned out ok the others were wonky and had seams extending - oh well - there's always tomorrow !


so I went to bed on Sunday night thinking that I couldn't do curves with the curvemaster !

anyway, not to be outdone by a sewing foot, this morning I tried again but it wasn't pretty !


they either didn't sit right or I was catching the inner curve !



So it was time to do something else !

There were a pile of papers on my cutting table that I needed to sort through so I started that - about half way through I saw a curvemaster tutorial that I'd printed out and read through it and discovered what I might be doing wrong - I think instead of holding the top fabric straight up I was kind of holding it to the side so I jumped on the machine and tried another curve as I still had about 18 to sew !!

well the first one turned out not too bad - the difference between these two is quite amazing !


the final lot that I sewed turned out really well too - I was very happy - I think I might have conquered the curvemaster - yippee !!



hope you had a great weekend !

23 September 2012

ez dresden quilting challenge

a while ago I came across the ez dresden quilting challenge being run by the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild and I put the button on my blog thinking that I might make something ! wishful thinking that is !!

well, the entries opened at the beginning of September and although I made two dresden blocks for my Craftsy BOM recently I didn't enter anything!

The judging has been done and all the entries are on the Salt Lake mqg blog which I checked out on the weekend - and its worth a visit - the first prize quilt is just amazing - I love how different all the quilts look even though they all used the same dresden wedge ruler !

so if you've got a few minutes you might want to take a look as well  :)

19 September 2012

fab little quilt finished !

I've been busy all week finishing up my quilt for the fab little quilt swap.

after looking at it on the design wall for a few days I finally sewed it up on saturday - ready for quilting on sunday.


I decided on hand quilting with perle thread and using a Kona solid called crocus for the backing and binding - after quilting a few lines I checked the back and discovered that some of the stitches hadn't gone through all the way which really stuck out like the proverbial with this fabric !


so I unpicked the stitches and replaced the backing with a spotty purple fabric that wouldn't show the stitches as much - a way better idea !



my mum always said that hand quilting and binding takes a lot longer than you think it will - but I always seem to forget that :)


with the deadline looming I made a little label in the same diamond shape and buttonhole stitched to the back ...


then made some magnets as well.  I also sent a tote bag that scrunches up into a little strawberry bag - my partner loves anything to do with strawberries !



I really love how the quilt turned out - I was very hesitant with my original fabric choices but its amazing how they've really popped mixed with some white.  I went searching to see if I could find a name for the block design and found out that its called "depression" which I figure is because its from the depression era as it would be a great block to make use of scraps.

Its on its way over the big seas and hopefully to a new owner who will love it as much !

so now onto getting some swap blocks done and also starting on the totally groovy quilt along which is about to finish up !

12 September 2012

fab little quilt swap

so over the past few days I've cut and sewn half square triangles for my little diamond quilt for my swap partner in the fab little quilt swap.


my partner likes purple, blue, and green and when I put my fabric choices together I wasn't really sure about them.


but after putting this little quilt on the design wall, I think it looks pretty nice together!  I did swap a few of the fabrics - used some navy blue rather than the lighter blues which I think works better.


I also thought of doing the same quilt but with aqua and red as I thought I would love that combo more  and my partner has an aqua sewing room - so I cut and sewed those little hst and put them on the wall too.


and you know what - I'm not sure I like this half as much !  I think the first one is a much better combo - maybe its just the design and the use of two colours - so I think I'll play around with the aqua and red a bit longer - chevrons maybe ?

I've just noticed on flickr that my partner left a comment that she loves the first one (surprise, surprise!) and hasn't even left a comment on the second one ! both photos have had about 43 views but the purple, green, and blue has 21 comments and the aqua and red only 5 - so I think the people have spoken as well!

07 September 2012

sarah's quilts

I bought some quilts recently from Sarah Fielke and they arrived this week !


Sarah is a very well known Australian quilter who has written three books, designs fabric for Leicien, and teaches both in Australia and overseas.

To make room for the quilts from her fourth book which will be out in April next year, she recently had a sale of some of her mini quilts and also bigger quilts.

I was very excited to be able to purchase the geese around the world mini quilt as its one I have actually made (twice!) and to be able to hang Sarah's original up in my sewing room is so fabulous :)

This mini is from Sarah's Quilting from Little Things book and is featured on the back cover along with her gorgeous little pooch, Madam.  The Australia and US versions have different front and back covers !


and of course as soon as I saw this red triangle and polka dot mini - I just fell in love so I had to buy it as well - its just so gorgeous and I love the prairie points too :)


Sarah has co-written two books Material Obsession and Material Obsession 2 with the fabulously talented Kathy Doughty and these books have so many gorgeous quilts as well ! Of course I have both of these books but I haven't made anything from them yet - but they are just so beautiful to look at !


You can find Sarah at her blog - The Last Piece.

We have local government elections tomorrow so I'm working from 7am to 7pm - phew long day ! hopefully I'll be able to get some sewing in on Sunday :)

have a great weekend !

05 September 2012

weekend sewing

I had a fairly productive weekend of cutting and sewing last weekend.


I'm making an interlocking wonky stars quilt for the down under doll quilt swap - I cut and sewed all the wonky star blocks - its going to be fairly big at 20 inches square.  Its up on the design wall where it will stay for a little while until I'm happy with the final layout before I sew it all together.


I also cut out the blocks for the June, July, and August blogger's block of the month - it finishes soon so I'm happy to be up to date with this one - well, after I sew all the blocks together that is !

and I finally sewed the blades of the traditional dresden plate block together and then made the circles for both the dresden blocks from the craftsy bom - using the perfect circles templates that arrived last week.


I'm really happy I bought those little circles - its a quick and easy way to get a perfect circle !!  they're now pinned and ready to be appliqued to the backgrounds.


Oh, and before I go - I've actually done some more hexy flowers for the hexy MF quilt-along - 9 done and only 65 to go - gee - they really are slow going :)  you may have seen this photo before as I used it in my august fresh sewing day post the other day.


I think I need to up my sewing rate otherwise I won't be finished this one until the middle of next year ... on second thoughts ... maybe I should just make this a 12 month project so I don't worry about how slow I'm going - you know, I think I'll just do that :)

03 September 2012

fresh sewing day

I'm pretty happy with how many finishes I had in August - due to a big boost with blocks of the month.

1. july ratz swap - needlebook, 2. ratz needlecase embroidery, 3. double star, 4. ohio star, 5. modern dresden wheel, 6. trad dresden plate, 7. octagon, 8. greek cross, 9. modern log cabin, 10. August care at do.good stitches, 11. August care at do.good stitches, 12. july long distance quilting bee, 13. july long distance quilting bee, 14. july long distance quilting bee, 15. august long distance quilting bee, 16. bloggers bom - march, 17. bloggers bom - march, 18. bloggers bom - march, 19. bloggers bom - april, 20. bloggers bom - april, 21. bloggers bom - april, 22. bloggers bom - may, 23. bloggers bom - may, 24. bloggers bom - may, 25. Craftsy BOM - hexagons, 26. Craftsy BOM - hexagons, 27. hexys basted, 28. hexy mf
I'm also pretty happy to be almost up to date with the blogger's bom and craftsy bom blocks - it means that I'll be able to finish on time and might have a couple of quilts done by the end of the year !!  wouldn't that be a shock :)

I'm liking up with the wonderful Lynne from Lily's Quilts - why not link up too !

Lily's Quilts

01 September 2012

sunny spring

a big welcome to the first day of spring !

the daffodils are out - I've been watching these little bulbs in the park across from my house - its so nice to finally see their pretty little faces :)


but mother nature certainly let us know it was the last day of winter yesterday with a little bit of snow !


that settled for quite a while on the hills ...


but at least it was a nice sunny day today and I'm really hoping it will stay that way :)