I'm BACK! Grab a cuppa!

Where have the last few weeks disappeared?  If I am not regimented and post on a weekend... somehow it ends up being a new week... and sometimes even a new week again.

I've been plugging along quilting the Baby Bunting Quilt.  I had hoped to have this finished in time to exhibit at the Waimate North Agricultural &Pastoral Show last Saturday (think lambs, cows, horses, produce, floral, hand crafts and baking competitions), but by Wednesday I knew that it wasn't going to happen.  So over the last week I finished up the last of the quilting and the scrappy binding - now just the threads to cut, and a little bit of hand applique to tidy off the bit that I missed with the machine.

The stipple quilting has made the applique and star points pop - plus provides a lovely all-over texture.

I also disappeared off to The Auckland Festival of Quilts with Charlotte and Mathea... a mere three hour one way journey (time for lots of girl talk... and oh, the range of topics discussed!)  We walked and walked... looked and looked... and shopped and shopped.

I took a series of random photos - mostly to remind me about something in particular rather than showcasing the gorgeous quilts that were on display.

I really liked how this double wedding ring quilt included this applique border.

I really like this somewhat Hawaiian applique style  - stylized pohutukawa pattern.

It also had some wonderful quilting.

While I'm not usually a fan of diamonds, I did quite like this log cabin like arrangement.

And this one also had a great quilting pattern in the background space.  It can be hard to fit daisy like flowers together, but filling up with pebbles seems to work well.

 And I don't think I even took a photo of the rest of this quilt - but was fascinated by the precision quilting... computer aided I am sure.

A variation on a disappearing nine patch block.  This had a really interesting setting.

A nine patch sliced somewhat off centre... very clever!

This panel was just interesting...

Combining both machine and hand quilting.

I still gravitate somewhat towards the low volume backgrounds... also the soft colour variations in the feature areas.  This one very cleverly had a graded colour wash of plus shapes - something not noticed until viewed from a distance.

Similar but different...

Check out Charlotte's blog  here for more FOQ (really, do you think this abbreviation will catch on... after all, how would YOU pronounce it?) pictures (of some actual full quilts) plus more links to other blog photos.

In the shopping basket I have some new thread to try... plus a new (unphotographed) quilting ruler.

 And what's a quilt show without some new random fat quarters?

Adding to the wee random collection I had purchased from The Country Yard at their exhibition a couple of weeks ago...

Random + Random = a new wee bundle.

Ahh... love these soft soft colours...

On the agenda

As one project comes to an end, it is a natural progression to start thinking about what is going to appear on the agenda next.  Something new and exciting.

Just not quite yet.  I have a couple of projects that I have committed to... the Baby Bunting Quilt which I was commissioned to do for a baby due to appear in December, and quilting a top that was a group effort - made by my old Friday stitching group (only old in that now that I work 5 days a week, I am unable to attend) from stash of one of our members who passed away - with the intention of donating the finished quilt to Hospice in her honour.  So really, I am not free to pursue my own creative dreams yet.  But when I am... watch out... I have plenty to get off my mind!

This week has been spent blanket stitching around my applique shapes.  Somehow I managed to miss this one!

And today I started the FM quilting - just stippling, but exactly the look I wanted.  This is my Ronan Keating thread... (you quilt it best, when you quilt nothing at all...) a very fine polyester Wonderfil thread, that practically disappears, but leaves all that lovely texture.

All the background fabric areas are quilted the same... it really makes the applique and star points pop.

Even though I started this quilt with no intention of keeping it... I could SO keep it!  Although what I'd do with a cot size I don't know, and NO - there will be no more babies in this household!  But with my queen sized quilt obsession... I could do four blocks with different applique patterns in each, set in a four patch with sashing and corner stones... and the beautiful applique around the outer border.  This would come out to about 85 x 80".  Maybe one day :o)

We've also been making progress in Nadia's room.  With a very clever husband, it only took a day to knock up a headboard - it finished off this view of her room.

The angle to the left shows that every thing has a place... and it's just a matter of someone putting all those things back into their right place to keep things tidy.

And the mirror did get hung...

Just a bit of a close up of the headboard... made from off cuts of our lounge-room laminated flooring - with a timber trim.  Fab!

End of Holiday Roundup

Well, as Sunday rolls around, with back to school and work tomorrow; checking through The List, I achieved some of my goals for this holidays.  Woohoo!  Unfortunately I never did catch up with the washing pile - it just seemed to get bigger no matter how quickly I tried to fold it, and the floor got vacuumed several times, but never mopped.  I swapped around my room and cleaned one of the windows... but never quite got everything tidied away or that other window cleaned.  We didn't finish Nadia's room renovations, but I have paint, and will finish the furniture repainting another time.  Perhaps Christmas?

Some of the smaller projects did get finished for her room - after looking all over for a pretty mirror, I ended up painting the ugly orange varnished wood one that she already had - and applied some pretty chipboard 3D scrapbooking stickers to make it pretty.  On the schedule for this afternoon is to get hubby to hang it (I do know my limits).  We also made up a small Kaisercraft chipboard/cardboard drawer unit which I painted and decorated with pretty papers.  This is supposed to be the new home for all her hair ties and clips.

There were a few new things I wanted to buy, and was lucky to find this purple bedside table and funky flower rug... we are getting there!

On the quilting list, I wanted to get the applique border quilted on my Bluebirds and Berries quilt, and the quilt top constructed for the Bunting Baby Quilt.  Woot!  Finished the quilting on the applique border today - and didn't run out of thread!

 When I started quilting, I kinda forgot that the bottom border was wider than the other three borders.  It took forever to get this border half quilted (using the vine as the dividing line) and I really despaired of getting this finished.  But once I got used to weaving in and out of the applique, and changing between the different quilting elements - it sped up heaps, and I could get half a side done in a day.  So pretty much eight days of quilting dedicated to this!

The ruler is there to remind me that the side and top borders are 8" (looks like a quarter inch has been taken up in the quilting)... and the bottom border (shown side on) is 10".  Now I just need to wait for the thread to arrive which I'll use for the narrow dark green border and the outer printed border.

I haven't quite finished the Bunting Quilt construction (would have if I hadn't added the extra applique) - but I've made good progress with getting the applique stems attached.  On the top vine I started on the right hand side and attached one side of the stem all the way around to the other side; then coming back I am up to the black spot almost in the middle.

And I've attached one side of all the stems on the bottom border.

I had another Amy Gibson Sugar Club BOM day, and worked on this lovely block.  Not the easiest to construct - well, more not the easiest to press nicely - there are a few lumpy seams hence the ripple in the photo on the right.  But it is a lovely looking block.

Right, that's me for another week.   Catch you next time...

What a difference a few days makes!

After pulling some weird muscle in my back this morning (no twisting, so no FMQing), I've spent the day recuperating, but also getting the applique shapes fused and cut out for my Bunting Baby Quilt in little bursts throughout the day.  I decided to add a narrow 2" finished border to both sides, a 4" border to the top, and an 8" border from a different fabric on the bottom.  This achieved two things - one was to add extra length to a square quilt - because we all know that cots are rectangular and it makes it much more practical.  It also meant that if the quilt becomes a wall hanging at some stage in the future, the darker fabric adds depth to the bottom, helping to give a bit of perspective to the whole arrangement.

The quilt now measures 40" wide x 48" long.  The applique is just sitting there at the moment - no gusts of wind please!

 I love the fact that the applique gave me extra places to add even more fabrics - more pinks, more oranges, yellows and greens... I think I've delivered on the pink and girly request.

I really like this border, and would love to have it on a queen sized quilt sometime... I'll have to add it to my already extensive list.

I've also been reading and am on the last book in the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.  I started reading this author through her Highlander series... modern/historical romance crossover, with a bit of the supernatural/fae thrown in - humorous... sexy... big braw Scottish men with all their (extremely large) bits in the right places.  The series (which could easily be read as stand alone books but also interlink if read in the right order) ended rather suddenly without a satisfactory conclusion.  Then I started on her next series, expecting something similarly light and enjoyable.  The Fever series is set in modern times in Ireland, where the dark Fae escape imprisonment when the faery walls come down, and take over the world - killing and causing havoc.  It's a bit dark and troubled... but I'm looking forward to finding out how it all finishes.

Well, that's week one of the holidays over and done with... roll on week two!

The Wheels of Design Keep Turning

{where one thing leads to another, which leads to another... which leads to another}


The baby quilt I'm making started with a fabric - the bunting...

 Which lead to a bundle...

Which lead to a design - an 18" block... crying out to be enlarged into a 36" quilt...

Which lead to a central square large enough to fit some applique...

Thank you my Gail Pan Bluebirds & Berries quilt for offering some design assistance... it's always handy to reuse patterns for something else

 Which lead to something that started to look a bit like this - all glorious 36" of it!

And those 8" finished corner squares got me thinking that they were big enough to fit some applique in them too... in fact, the large background triangles were a decent size too...

Hello library books... (that I got out yesterday!  Timing!)

And inside the Hand Quilted with Love book by Sarah Fielke, there was this pattern... check out that applique border... wouldn't it a version of look fab around my star?

Of course, this wasn't part of the original plan, and I don't have enough background fabric to squeeze out any sort of border.  But, with a bit of imagination and some artfully placed stems... I can see it!  Can you?

Monday Morning

OK, so really today is the first day of the holidays (edited to add, it really was morning when I started this post - somehow turned into afternoon by the time I got to the bottom).  I have a huge agenda... cleaning, decluttering, redecorating, sewing and quilting.  I know I do best with a list... but I've been putting off writing this one, because there is so much I want to achieve.  Partially because last holidays were so sucky (remember, storms, no power, all roads blocked so no fabric shopping), and nothing really got done. Partially because I'm just sick of the way things are at the moment, and it's time for a change.

First up the redecorating plans.  Tied up with Nadia's birthday, we decided to redecorate her bedroom.  We have a small house, and when we shifted in five years ago (I know, unreal aye?) the smallest person in our family fitted best into the smallest room.  She had a lovely twinkly light fitting and pink striped curtains.  A nice girly bedroom that I could still live with - not being the pink girly type myself. 

Does anyone remember the shelves and the small gremlin?

Then we decided to put both the kids in the larger room with bunk beds, and the small room turned into a studio/computer room... that lasted only a short while because it didn't really work having the two kids in the same room.  Then Dylan moved into the small room, taking his charcoal curtains and orange spaceship looking light fitting, and I moved my studio into the larger room with Nadia.  It stayed like this for quite a while - before my studio moved into the converted garage outside, and Nadia took over the whole large bedroom and proceeded to make a complete mess.  Finally she decided earlier this year that she wanted to move back into the small room, where she had some hope of keeping it clean.  This was just wishful thinking on her part - she makes a mess wherever she goes :o).  After all this jiggling around - Dylan had ended up with the pretty light and pink curtains... and Nadia had the spaceship and the charcoal ones.

This photo was taken on her birthday... 

...I think it's time she had a big girl room. 

It's slowly changing... there's a new light and blind, with some filmy white net curtains, but I'd like to get the rest of her room sorted over the break.  I actually have a whole list of things I want to achieve in her room.  Watch this space.

On the sewing front, I managed to get half of the quilting finished on the first applique border.

Then I started on the baby quilt applique - well, choosing fabrics for the key elements... one of the best things about fusible applique is that you can make changes right up to the last minute.  For those of us who are visual designers, it's the perfect technique.  I needed to cut the pink star points to assess just how pink it was going to be.  Even though it is destined for a home somewhere else - I still have my pink limits :o).

I quite liked didn't hate the pink on pink... but maybe just a little bit too much pink?

And I quite liked the deep blue basket with the pink rick rack... but maybe too bottom heavy?

Finally a compromise...

A last little note about stem making tools.  I'm not huge on specialty tools, but I love my Clover bias stem maker.  This is size 9, which makes a 1/4" stem (I think) which I use for just about everything.  I cut a 3/4" strip and feed it through the gadget, using the iron to set the shape as it emerges - folding the two edges under nicely - all ready for a bit of hand stitching.

OK, I'm off to start that list.