Tennis quilt, love all

Mild level of panic when hubby announces that DS2 snuggle quilt for the couch is too small and bit young for him.  DS2 is turning 12 in June and I really panic when I realise that I have NEVER made him a bed size quilt.  In fact his snuggle couch quilt was made by his grandmother. Luckily hubby was straight to the point, he likes tennis so can you make him a tennis themed quilt!

Phew, now I have a idea for a quick quilt and the not so local quilt shop, I have discovered has great novelty fabric range, so after a little bit of googling and some messaging and a parcel of tennis themed fabric is on its way.  In the meantime I drafted a pattern (stuffed up maths) and when fabric arrived I started cutting and sewing. 

Opps.  Stuffed up the math, sort by one 8.5" square :( 

In the meantime I got a full time job!  But as I am now working a 30 minute drive from the "local" patchwork shop (instead of a 1.5 hr drive), she arranged to have her daughter deliver my extra fabric on her way to work so I didn't need to pay postage, sounded like a good idea.  Except it took all week to arrive and when I did get the message I had to pick it up at the butchers!  LOL it was bad enough having to tell my new employer that I was expecting a private parcel to be delivered to work, then I had to ask where the butcher was located in town, but he didn't seem fazed about being a fabric parcel drop off/pick up point!

So this was the result, two rows of tennis rackets, one row of tennis balls and one of grass fabric (because he plays on lawn) combined with a dark blue, two light blue and a row of orange.  I got all the fabric from the Little Desert Patchwork shop except the orange.  I purchased a red fabric but it was the wrong shade when it arrived and in such large pieces it looked terrible.  Luckily Spotlight had the orange which as the same tone on tone print as the bright blue so it was meant to be! 

Then even more luckily my dear friend Vicki, kindly long arm quilted it within two days as she likes to do an all over pattern between custom quilt jobs.  I didn't put the binding on, just trimmed it and gifted it for this 12th birthday.  He was happy enough....just took me another month to get the binding sewn on, but its done now!

Happy quilting Sue.

Finishes x three

I think this is Vivid Grid # 3!  Top was made out of 2.5" stash fabrics, just pulled out the red, blue and yellow for blocks and beige background.  I was seriously short of yellow but a lucky find of yellow scrap bag at Periwinkle Patchwork solved that problem.  I enjoyed diagonal quilting this, quick, easy and looks great!

I have been on a quilting roll!  This charity quilt got made at camp in May from some already made eye spy four patches I found in my stash.  A fun musical print was used as sashing and a cheerful orange print that I purpose purchased to brighten this quilt up.

This Eye Spy quilt became very very blue, but I still like it!  I tried a white sashing and it just didn't work.  So I just went with blue.  It used more precut stash and a bunch of left over blue binding strips from past projects.

Hopefully it makes a sick child smile.

Happy quilting Sue.

Kids quilts for charity

There is nothing like a deadline to make you work that much harder!  I had a few hours to spare on Friday and this quilt had to be added to the pile to be donated on Saturday.  Binding by hand is my preference and it was nice to have some brainless handwork for in front of the TV. 

A friend helped me out with a quick picture in the car park before handing it over, this is called the Jungle quilt.  I got some great bright blue fabric at Spotlight to make binding that matched the loud green and blue striped borders.  All the rest of the fabric came from my stash, but the jungle prints were given to me by my friend Elaine.  Nice to finally use them up, as she intended me to, in a charity quilt. 

I handed over five quilts, but this Eye Spy (single bed sized) is the other quilt I had not shown you completed.  A good friend Vicki quilted it for me.   It is was one of the biggest quilts I donated and I used a scrappy binding, whatever bright colours I had in the 2.5" strip box, which worked out well.  Again all the other fabric came from my stash of novelty prints which I have cut up into squares...well mainly!  Still plenty in the box and our trip to Robe resulted in lots more to play with!

As you can see I lashed out on this vivid rainbow strip for the backing, it was on sale!  Pity about the join on one side, but there was no spare to play with, hence the yellow stripe.  All fun, for a fun quilt.

Happy quilting Sue.

I Spy kids quilt top finished

After resewing all the four patches into their background colours I laid them out as a top. 

I did not want sashing that was too light or too bright.  The polka dots was just right!

 And the stash revealed 2.5" novelty squares perfect for sashing, some of which had previously been fussy cut - others were just too cute to throw away, even if I did cut off half the kite!

 

I auditioned a few options for borders, but it had to be red in the end!  

Ta dah!  A lovely kids quilt - not large, but the majority out of my stash.  And although incoming fabric (sashing) was more then outgoing fabric (completed top), the sashing will go towards another top in the same style, but next time with bigger squares.

Now back to stash browsing to find a backing!

Happy quilting Sue.

Rainbow Scrappy challenge - Sea green progress

The declaration that February's colour of sea green/ aqua - colours not quite blue and not quite green, sent me into a spin!  Immediately I could picture the polka dot aqua I had used as a background, so I knew there were scraps, but a variety, absolutely not!  Liar, liar, pants on fire, I found a good variety when I went digging - not huge pieces, but enough for the job :)

 I decided to use my scraps wisely and just make star blocks. I already have blocks made in RSC from 2015, but definitely not in aqua. 

 I managed to squeeze out four star blocks from my scraps.

 Digging through my endless boxes stored around the house I found more UFO's!  These 7" four patches made to use up my novelty fabric - bits of aqua here!

I took to them with the unpicker and re sewed them into "colours".  I just find "I spy" quilts so much easier on the eye when laid out like this.  

 So without intending to, I have unearthed a forgotten UFO and resurrected it - just need sashing now but nothing suitable in the stash - opps more shopping!

It is hot here, really, really hot.  Too hot for anything except mindless piecing under the struggling air conditioner.  

Happy quilting Sue. 

Just a quick finish on a Kids quilt

I made a tumbler quilt in September last year from novelty fabrics.  I found the process of trying to get all the fabrics to line up the same way a bit frustrating.

Then I started using the left over tumblers as leaders and enders.  Lately I rediscovered them lurking on my sewing table, unfinished and tangled.  I sorted them out, decided on a finished row size and set to making the rows the same length.  I did not focus too much on keeping any sort of uniformity, just fun brights and novelty fabrics.  

Then made a few more rows to get it to a decent length and cut a border out of my stash of plain colours.  I tried red, but it was too overwhelmingly bright.  Dark blue (not so dark in the photo) gave your eye a rest.  Very happy to have finished a UFO flimsy (not that it is really old) and used up some more stash. 

Happy quilting Sue.  

Kids Quilts

Not quite sure what has driven this recent obsession with starting more kids and cot quilts, but I can assure you I am not pregnant/nesting! I have precut a large amount of squares out of my novelty stash.  When I want some "mindless" piecing I open the box and go for it.  

I love four patches, and even though the animals heads sometimes get cut off, 2.5" squares in the smaller prints looks effective.  I didn't have enough of the little squares to make a whole quilt, so I teamed them up with the 4.5" cut squares.  While I like this layout and it uses up some more stash, it is a very busy pattern.

So I thought I would make one in a split nine patch format with some colour to break up the pictures.  But I couldn't work out how to make "the pattern" AND keep the animals up the right way.  I am not sure that this layout is anymore soothing to the eye!

SO I found one novelty print (which I swear I did not buy - must be from Mum?) and teamed it with some left over pinks out of my stash.  There is not a lot of pink in my stash so I was pleased to have a "girl" quilt.

AND THEN I found my 2.5" strip and square box.  There were some orphan pink and white four patches in there.  That started a whole new sewing session of four patches.  Which then lead to this quilt top!  So while I now have four new WIP, I think will consider it a glass half full - because there is a whole lot less fabric sitting in my stash!  

Next step is to find them all borders and backings....from the stash!

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

Unexpected presents!

A few weeks ago a good friend dropped in and gave me this lovely bag.  It has a special pocket inside which includes a pen and notepad.  I had forgot to show it off, because I am too busy using it!  I think this lovely print (purchased in Africa)  helped the revived interest in Zebras at my house!  Although I don't think any more poor zebra have been sacrificed to feed the lions...I found the lions drinking milk...from the "milk tanker" out of the Thomas train set!

On Sunday I enjoyed a lovely afternoon sewing with a few friends, one who had recently cleaned out her stash.  I have plenty of novelty prints in my stash, but happy to take a few more on board, just to help out a friend of course!

Then on Monday a parcel arrived unexpectedly, with presents for me - a cute key chain purse,

 followed by some magazines and lots of matching fat quarters!  These cute kids prints are going to make a great quilt!  Can you see the great butterfly pattern I have already ear marked, I don't do enough cute girls cot quilts and I had seen a picture somewhere in blog land of this butterfly and now I have the pattern!

 And there were presents for my two boys, two super cute pillow cases each - all from my friend Karen.  The boys loved their new pillow cases and we had to immediately put them to use ; )

Then tonight DS2 told me he needed a library bag...apparently library day is tomorrow! He requested lion and zebra fabric, and surprisingly I had some that fitted the bill!  

So this is my first finish for February.  But I have been enjoying everyone else's hard work and generosity!

Happy quilting, Sue SA.