Working my way down the UFO list

 The Welcome Friends wall hanging is quilted, bound and labeled ready to be delivered to some friends with three little girls, who we will see next weekend.

 Then I finished this white button necklace, that I found nearly done in a cupboard.  That matches the

 brown one - that includes buttons from my grandfathers army uniform, which came from my grandmothers button collection.  And the black one, which I don't wear as often as the ...

 red and white one, which is what started me on button necklaces! 

 And here is a sneak peak at the wedding star quilt , as I am quilting it.  I decided I would do a few rows on Saturday and before I knew it I had done all the rows - stitching in a ditch around the blocks.  Today I did some of the stars which was a lot harder. 

Can you see the red star on the blue background?  Well that's Contact, cut out to use as my quilting template.  I did mark the quilt before I pinned it.  Which is a bit of a first for me, normally I get excited, pin the quilt THEN think about how I am going to quilt it, kick myself for not marking it prior and try to work round the pins with a stencil.  This time I was a bit more organised, but the pencil line was too faint and my sewing room is little on the dark side.  Then I remembered my friend Erolyn suggested making templates out of "Contact" (yes the stuff we use to cover our school folders with) and the local newsagent were selling it cheap so I got a roll of red tinted, which works well on this dark background.  I did buy a roll of clear at the local supermarket but DS2 was playing with it and somewhere between the check out and our house it disappeared.  Which was fine as I am sure it would have only given me eyestrain anyway.  So thanks for the handy hint Erolyn!
Happy quilting, Sue.

Nearly there... drat!

I achieved more then I expected to today.  But at 10 past 2pm on a Sunday of a long weekend, while stippling I ran out of thread in that shade of cream ...just millimetres from the "end"! 

I resorted to stippling the border (which was in mono filament because that purple was way to hard to match) and making the binding.  Even if its not finished I think it came up better then I expected - stippling worked today, some days I cannot stipple and other days it just works!

Happy quilting Sue.

Its been a slow week

Its been a slow week.  I thought I would piece the back of the Snowball charity quilt with all the left over pieces.  This was more of a challenge then I anticipated and has been very boring, so I was glad when I finally got it finished.  I also made the binding, so its all ready to go.

I found this wall hanging in the cupboard, when I was digging out the snowball fabrics.  I started this project three years ago when I was pregnant.  So you would think that that makes it a reasonably "new" UFO for me.  But in reality I brought (and lost) this pattern many years ago, before I was married or had met DH.  This is by the Chook Shed Pattern Company and came in a pack with two other patterns, one that I made,  with the view of making "Welcome Friends" when I had my first child/girl.  In the mean time I loaned the pattern to someone and it was never returned. Years later I was delighted when I found the pattern published in `Naive & Country Quilts' magazine (vol 1. No 1).

I was about five months pregnant when I made the top and started the applique while we were on holidays.  I tthought I would try out machine applique with mono filament thread, which I didn't like very much once I got to the small pieces.  So I made the dolls using needle turn instead.  I was about six months pregnant when I got carried away at the end of season sales buying pink baby clothes.  DH then asked "why do you think the baby is a girl?"  So I decided that I would start assuming the baby was a boy and put all the girly things aside including this wall hanging.  DS2 is a delightful boy who loves cuddles with Mum, bike riding with Dad and running around with DS1 - so I have no regrets that we have two boys!  However three years later with very little applique left to do I decided I could finish this UFO very quickly and got to work.  Now its just waiting to be prepared for quilting.  I think that I am going to spray baste the top as I want to stipple the background.  So that's today's job and then this week I might try and start some machine quilting...not my favorite part of the process!  Happy quilting Sue.