Sewing slowly

This is a bad photo of the cute little sewing box that Judy sent me, as part of my prize.  and another of it open with two fat quarters, a sewing kit, tape measure, eye glasses case (with sewing theme), needle book (to attach to your machine), notebook and a missing block of Lindt chocolate....hmmm wonder where that went!

I spent a lovely day hand stitching with friends last weekend and this is Lisa's show and tell, her finished Temecula flying geese quilt.  I am really annoyed at myself, I have only made approximately 12 geese and shoved them in a box somewhere!  But the beauty is the inspiration I need....the fabrics are so beautiful....I might need to add some to my stash!  

The only real sewing I have done is a whole lot of zip pouches, with Aussie themed fabric, mainly a Kookaburra and koala print with gum flowers on it, I brought recently at Maldon.  

The yellow and green prints have maps of Australia and the yellow pouch is lined with a green print that is a Aussie native leaf print...I forget the name right now, but it is silver in colour and florists use it as filler. 

I have also made a some shoe bags and drawstring bag (sorry forgot to take photos they have already been gifted) all gifts for the trip we are taking for a family wedding.  

I really think I need one of these pouches for myself....hoping that I can squeeze in some sewing time today!

Happy quilting Sue.

French General finish

Firstly the exiting news in my house is that I am a winner! A prize winner :) Judy sent me a lovely box of sewing goodies for guessing the closest weight of her new grandchild! 

Second exciting news...the budgies laid eggs over Easter....so we will have babies of a different kind at our house in a few weeks!

Third exciting news...

French General flimsy finish...these are the centre blocks as I was sewing it together!

Clever trick from the author - make simple blocks in a large size, to form the border.  I say this because I always stitch on plain borders, because I am too lazy to piece something.  But when I was busy piecing the body of the quilt,  I didn't think anything of making these easy star blocks.

Finished flimsy front.  I promise that I did iron it before I took this shot!  But admit to not picking off all the threads...way too many threads on this top, not sure where they all came from!

from the back :)

Happy quilting Sue.

Piecing in Robe 2

I took it upon myself to ask my fellow "campers" to bring excess novelty stash, pre cut as 5" squares.  The idea was we were going to combined fabric forces and made lots of four patches out of our novelty fabric, for children's charity quilts. It turned out my fellow quilters already had pre cut squares in their stash, so we worked with what we had,  these are Jill's and are 4.5" cut, so they make a 8" block finished.  Jill is a seasoned charity quilt maker and took this big pile home to make into tops.

Heather had lots of 2.5" novelty and brights, so they got pieced into four patches and then made into bigger four patches.  I thought this was a great idea for those small pieces, but I must have given her too many compliments because she gifted me the entire collection!  So now I have lots of spare parts to make more quilts....plus lots of four patches made, that need sashing.  

Therese made split four patch blocks.  I have made plenty of split nine patch, but not 4, so I wanted a pictorial record of this....its going on my one day list!

This cute block was alos made by Therese, just a close up of the quilt you saw in last weeks post.

This was the boot packed ready to go..(going home it was far less organised)..there was more "stuff" on the back seat, so it is really lucky that I was travelling alone.  I think if I ever want to take a friend I am going to need to buy a bigger car or learn to pack less!

Hmmm, I think the answer is just to go for a whole week next time, that way I could have finished everything I took with me!  ;)

Happy quilting Sue.

Piecing in Robe

Last weekend I had three nights in Robe with my interstate stitching friends and we had a very productive time.  My phone would only cope with sending a few of the photos I took, so this is part 1 of the fun!  Stacy finished piecing this cat quilt top, using up novelty prints.  

Therese pieced this top using a cute Christmas panel - think it was from Anni Downs?  She had matching fabric lines and there was lots of math conversations about best sized blocks etc, luckily multiple heads are better than one!

Stacy worked long into the night piecing flippy triangles on this quilt, in an attempt to use up her stash of plaid.  She and Therese also had a lesson on making a shirt to fit your shape from Elaine.

Lisa gifted me 3/4 of a layer cake (she had made a cot quilt from the rest) to use in a charity quilt.  I thought this Moda Love pattern might be a good chance to us it as well as some of the hot pink fabric I had brought on sale!  Ironically Elaine had brought some left over charm squares from the same fabric line, which got pieced into four patches. And then I had some yellows that filled in the gaps.   Very happy with the result, it was quick to make but its very big though and not sure how I will quilt it!    Next time I might try making it with 7.5" squares instead of 9.5".   

My other project was using the fabric I brought from Periwinkle Patchwork to make a modern plus quilt.  I love the aqua and red together, but would like to make one more block so I can make the top in a 4 x 4 setting  I made a cutting mistake and have run out of background fabric, so I will have to buy a bit more before I can piece the last block and sew it all together.

There was lots of laughs over the weekend and lots more sewing then is shown here and possibly enough photos for another post next week!

Happy quilting Sue.

My boy loves big rigs

Our oldest son loves big rigs and look what I found in the patchwork shop in Maldon!  

I also got some trucking road sign fabric (who knew!) and this very cute koala and kookaburra fabric, and a Jo Morton print.  

The Jo Morton print is for this quilt.  Which is a wall hanging, that I want to be a quilt...well a lap quilt. So it has been hanging around in the UFO pile for a long time now.  A few weekends ago I managed to make two trial churn dash blocks, to contemplate what it would look like with a border of light or dark blue churn dash blocks.

Ann from Periwinkle Patchwork kindly worked out the yardage for me, and I think I have stuffed it up by cutting all the pieces half an inch too big.  This block is 15", I figured if I was going to dabble in the modern world, I was going to go BIG!

One of my goals this weekend is to make churn dash blocks, along with making the rest of these modern plus blocks from my modern fabric. Why the big plans?  I am actually interstate on retreat with some good stitching friends for a long weekend of fun! 

  I have a another WIP to get back on track, as well as a kids quilt all cut out.  I figure four projects is enough to keep me stitching all weekend...admittedly a long weekend!

I promise progress photos next week!

Happy quilting Sue.

Binding done, tick, what’s next?

This is the Monkey cot quilt, just large squares that were gifted to me, joined together and stippled.  The binding is a a very old print, but perfect for this simple but fun quilt.

The digger panel cot quilt all finished with the binding stitched down. 

And just to make sure I had really earned that callous in my finger, I stitched on a few bird wings.

It is fair to say that currently I am spending more time focusing on my day job and family responsibilities and less at sewing. Hopefully I can carve out some additional sewing time in March.

Happy quilting Sue.

Hand work accomplished

I had finished all the handwork (applique and embroidery) on this bag (Simply Sonja by Hugs n Kisses) awhile back, but it got tucked away  in a tidy up, unfinished.  I dragged it out on Sunday and honestly the hardest thing was going down the street to buy the fusible pellon and the zip....hard because I had brought two zips the day prior, but they were too short!

 The reason I feel in love with this bag was the pretty handwork on one side and the vinyl on the others, so you can SEE what is in the bag....because I loose things all the time!

The zip is supposed to be on of the lace type, which suit this method of putting the bag together.  My normal zip protested a bit (bit of puckering), but also likely to do with sewing it directly onto the vinyl.  I will be on the look out for some lace zips, because I would like to make a few more of these bags as gifts.

I also finished this wool cushion (previous weekend) by Stacy West of Buttermilk Basin that appeared in October 2017 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.  It took way longer to make the tiny half square triangles then I thought.  But all along I knew that this was not going to be a wall hanging.  The original pattern has a nice wide border with more wool pumpkins stitched on, but I am about out of wall space and so a cushion it had to be.

Apologies for the terrible photo, but if anyone can tell me what the name of this fabric is I would be greatly appreciative.  I had a small piece in my stash, no selvage on it and I have used it all up except this piece and I want to buy more (like a metre!).  But without the name of designer or range I have had no luck. I would love to hear from you if you can help!

Happy quilting Sue