Eastwood Stars Wedding quilt, finished!

In late 2004 we moved from country Victoria to Sydney and I attending the Hunters Hill Quilters.  Then I got a job and had to find a night group.   So I joined Eastwood Patchwork Quilters, who are sufficiently large enough to warrant one night and two day meetings, weekly!   We got married in 2005, so I hadn't been a member very long, but these generous ladies presented me with 50 blocks to help celebrate our wedding.   The four pointed starts are largely hand pieced (a specialty of many of the Eastwood quilters) and the theme was "country", so you can see some blocks have chooks and others houses, all very appropriate as DH had chooks before we moved! 

 I was so thrilled with the blocks that I went especially went to a hand quilting class, thinking that I would hand quilt the top.  But squeezing in a class BEFORE I got married was a bad idea, as I was so busy organising a wedding (in Victoria) from Sydney that I didn't even get started on the piecing.  And then I came home from our honeymoon pregnant!  When I was six months pregnant we got given notice to move out of our apartment, a blessing in the long run, but a double dose of stress at the time. So before DS1 was born I went on a sewing frenzy (he was late) and finished and started lots of projects.  I brought a red/beige print and pieced the top together on the diagonal.  It looked awful, so it went into the cupboard and waited.  It waited there while we moved to Adelaide, spent 12 months looking for a house to buy, got pregnant again and moved into our now home just a few months before the arrival of DS2.  Somewhere during this time I unpicked the blocks, brought another print (red again), started cutting out the blocks and again put it aside.  

 Needless to say its been a thrill to finally finish this quilt.  The journey of this quilt will always be dear to me, because it is a record of our first five and half years of marriage and the friendships I have made as a quilter.  All fifty of the stars are included in the quilt, with the 50th forming part of the label - because it was the only one with dark background, which worked out perfectly with the backing I choose. 

 I love the backing, it has a lovely small print in the same blue/grey as the top and it shows up MY quilting very nicely.  My machine quilting isn't fantastic, but I was determined to quilt it myself and I knew that any attempts at hand quilting  would drag out for another five and half years!

The final part to this story ... this quilt won me the Presidents Encouragement Award at the South Australian Quilters Guild meeting for show and tell last Thursday night - our president said that she could relate to the story of this quilt!   

Happy quilting Sue.

Quilts for Japan

 This was the easiest quilt to make, nine different transport fabrics, sew into a large nine patch.  Cut into four, turn blocks, sew back together and add borders!    As posted previously I had made the mistake of stippling it in dark colour which looked awful.  I pulled this out and re quilted it in straight lines in mono filament and I was much happier with the end result. 

 I was very happy with this quilt, Bright Stars, it is bright, cheerful, I got to practise my FMQ on it (LOL!) and I finally got over my fear of using white fabric!  You cannot tell but the white background actually has little black stars all over it. 

This is the cot quilt that started me on the long long journey of UFOs!  I had always intended this quilt to be for the child of one of my oldest friends, who resides in Japan, married a Japanese man and had her first baby 10 years ago!!  So when I finally finished it in February it was certainly my intention to send it to Japan to keep someones baby warm.  The scenes of the tsunami sweeping across landscape will haunt me for a long time.  It is those feelings of hopelessness that make me grateful I am a quilter, because I know that apart from donating money, I can make a quilt, which will in a small way enrich the life of someone else.   I found these words on the Internet, kindly translated into Japanese, which I printed out and included on the label of my three cot quilts;
"May this quilt keep you safe from harm,
may it be your good luck charm,
I do not know your name or the mountains you face,
what you hold in your arms is a quilters embrace."
Words by Cathy Miller, The Singing Quilter - who gave her permission for the words to be included labels of quilts for Japan. 
A special THANK YOU to Kristen who saved the day by taking these photos as I was on my way to the post office to meet the deadline to get these quilts to Japan. 
Happy quilting Sue.

Celtic Quilt, four down, one to go

This morning I got some time to play with the camera...I am a bit excited as I finished the fourth Celtic block last night.

So now I am wondering how to put the 12 blocks together...this would be nice but small (48" x 64").....

 But if I add some green sashing it makes the blocks "float" and will make the quilt bigger...

 But perhaps a blue sashing will make the indivdual blocks stand out more?

Or I could put them on point ... with blue or green setting triangles?

 OR the final and largest option - on point with plain blocks in between with some feature quilting?  I quite like this layout (not necessarily in the blue) but some of these blocks look a bit funny on point (last two on the right hand side)?

Food for thought... 

This afternoon DS2 had a nap (fell asleep playing on the floor!) so I got to make the bias I needed to make the LAST block!  Happy quilting Sue.

Catch up time

This past week DH has had an unsolvable Internet problem which only seems to affect me when I wanted to access my blog.  In desperation this morning I had to sneak in via my other blog... don't think I have told you about my other blog, but you can find it here - Quilts from the Heart SA  which is a pictorial record of the quilts our group make for charity.  I haven't spent much time on it lately, but hope to bring it up to date soon, when our IT issues are resolved! ANYWAY I wanted to update you on what I have been doing over the last month, so here we go...

 This Celtic block is half finished... a little bit more hand sewing to go!  I completed this one (underneath) while we were visiting family interstate.  Should have given it a press before taking a photo!  There is only one more block to make and then I will have them all finished.

This is the library bag I made DS1.  He came home (in the first week) with a notice Wednesday that they needed a library bag for Thursday...and of course he didn't want any of the fabric I had in my stash, so we had to fit in a quick trip to the shops.  I didn't know how big to make this bag, so just made it up as I went along.  I added drawstrings to the top, so the books wouldn't fall out.  But silly Mummy, the books are really really big when you are just starting school!

While we were interstate (during the school holidays) I nearly finished my first seven sisters block.  This is part of my hexagons/diamonds, no pattern/making it up as I go along WIP! I have discovered that glue works fairly well when piecing over papers and that has speed up my progress on this project.  That and being separated from my machine! 

 I have also started hand sewing the binding down on one of my UFO's.  While sewing in the ends I have found a few gaps in the machine quilting that I need to go back and fix before I show you the whole quilt.

 And finally I did lots of baking for two special birthdays.  I had largely given up on my aspirations to make fancy birthday cakes.  I don't know what to do with brightly iced cake left overs, because for some reason all the children we know just take one bite and leave the rest...and their parents decline to participate!  So the last few years we have had lamingtons with candles (easy to freeze left overs and more appealing to young and old) as birthday fare.  However when your nearly five you have an opinion on cake...had to be chocolate with vanilla icing.  OK I can do that...but looked a bit boring, so just spiced it up with DS1 favorite theme...roadworks! 
Happy Quilting Sue SA.

Busy busy

I have been busy, but not sewing, rather "unsewing"!  In an attempt to quickly finish this quilt I decided to stipple it and for reasons unknown I decided to use navy thread..duh!   After a lot of dramas involving printers, I finally got labels printed today (thank you Elaine and Dalice) for this quilt, the green/white QAYG log cabin and Bright Stars cot quilts.  They are all going in the mail to Japan, hopefully tommorow.  The deadline is end of July, and apparently it takes a week even by air mail.  I have just realised DH has the camera...and he is in NZ...(#*%$#!!

DS1 starts school on Monday, for the first time...yipee more sewing time for Mummy!  Yes I know I am supose to be sad, but I still have darling DS2 at home to keep me company.  Hmm, perhaps I wont be stitching up a storm after all, oh well!  Happy quilting Sue.

More projects completed

This is Julies FIRST bag!  She is in a world of trouble now, as there are quite a few bag addicts in our group!  Heather showed Julie how to make this bag, a great size and a great use for left over strips.

On Sunday I finally gave in to DS1 and made him new bedding for Peachy and Puppy...because apparently they are NOT good at sharing and poor Peachy was getting cold! 

Then because I lent my spare wheat bag to Mum (just had knee surgery, but opps needs ice not heat!) I then had to make some extras for DS1 and DS2 (with the names appliqued on) because I am not good at sharing!

This beauty is my solution to lower back pain, designed to wear around your waist, it has velcro so it stays on when you get up to make a cuppa/scream at the kids/find your unpicker/answer the phone!

And finally some evidence that this week it has been COLD in Adelaide... And unfortunately the microwave died tonight, so no wheat bag to warm my toes in bed and cold weetbix for breakfast, what a disaster!!  Hmm it was only 20 years old...not bad for a moden electrical appliance!

Yes thats hail, not snow, much to the disappointment of DS1, he keeps asking when its going to snow in Adelaide.  Like NEVER!   Happy quilting, Sue.

A new toy and some reading matter

A few weeks ago DH went to the USA on a work trip. Before he left I made him a list of books or magazines I liked and he didn't disappoint me! He did buy the kids noisy toys, so that made the initial enjoyment of my reading matter difficult, but weeks later I am still drooling over the content and marking pages of future projects...just got a few more UFOs to finish first!

I previously neglected to show you the new "toy" Mum brought me, isn't it the cutes little iron you have ever seen!  Mum also got me a "in the ditch" plate for my walking foot (it was on sale) and some basting glue, that she thought would be good for my hexagons.  You would be forgiven for thinking it was my birthday, but its not!  How lucky am I?  I love the fact that Mum and I share our passion for quilting, now if I could just get a quilting SIL!

Celtic blocks - five by Bea, two by me.

Today I spent one day with our group at our annual camp.  I got the three remaining Celtic background blocks cut out (so much easier with a 20" square, thanks Heather), marked the designs on them (the dress makers carbon and I agreed to get along today) and then pinned and glued the bias on two blocks.  I ran out of bias then and as my already sore back was starting to ache I called it a day.  I have really enjoyed having some hand sewing at night, but the preparation before you can start sewing these blocks is really time consuming, so I was really pleased with my efforts today.    

My new iron is going to be great for making the next batch of bias for the Celtic quilt without any burnt fingers.

And the new glue works really well as an alternative to pin basting the bias.  It stays tacky for quite sometime, allowing you to position all the "unders and overs" correctly.  There are pins in these blocks, but I will be able to remove them tonight as the glue will be dry (it washes out) and it will make stitching so much easier!

Oops this one is the wrong way up, but you get the idea!  Happy quilting Sue.