Welcome buggy friends

I am still working on my scrappy sprout blocks, but I have started unpicking them for different reasons.

Once I had all the blocks laid out and looking right, it occurred to me that gardens need bugs.

Beneficial bees and insects.  Beautiful ladybird bugs.  So I added a few onto my leaves. 

 But as you can see some leaves also have fruit!  I love cherries!

Happy quilting Sue.

Mini spools of thread

A finish, yipee!

Thimble Blossom pattern Mini Spools - finished size 14.75" x 16.75"

Made using part of a Bonnie and Camille Miss Kate charm pack, random red fabric and white homespun.  Micro stippled by me, nearly causing blindness....I thought black thread on black background was tough, but this combination was just as bad.  But I love it sufficiently to consider making another one...there is still plenty of fabric in the stash!

And well, nearly a finish!  I have quilted the centre (SID) but the border needs something special and I am yet to decide what.  

What should I call this mini? I have no idea if this is a real quilt pattern....its just how the bonus triangles ended up arranged and pleasing to my eye.....but it deserves a name that is more exciting then bonus blue triangles!

Happy quilting Sue.

Growing Rainbow Scrappy Sprouts

I have spent two days in my sewing corner concentrating on making my RSC Sprout blocks grow into proper plants.  

I have feed them and done quite a bit of pruning.  There was a lot of "genetically modifying restructuring" (unpicking) required to ensure leaves had an even colour tone!

I previously had no pattern for an overall quilt design, so when I found this quilt layout in an Homespun magazine (June 2015), it got me all fired up to start putting the blocks together.

The designer of this quilt layout is Canadian Krista Hennebury.

but I got my pattern for the leaf block (which is the same as in the magazine) HERE free online from the original designer (who is acknowledged in the magazine) Tracey Jacobsen from traceyjay quilts.blogspot.

I am going to change it around a bit to suit myself.  I have made too many sprout blocks, so I want to add another plant to use them and make the quilt wider.  I love her flowers, but would like to make a dresden flower, perhaps a sunflower?  

 I am anticipating brown as a colour one month, so will make scrappy brown blocks for the soil. But for now I am hoping that the colour for September is orange so I can make the last of leaves(sprouts) and start sewing the plants together.

Happy quilting, Sue.

PS if you want to see more, go to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link HERE.

Do you call them Suffolk Puffs or Yo Yo's?

 I have started a new project! Its called Welcome Wagon from the book Simple Graces by Kim Diehl.  I have nearly (not quite) finished the hand work on the pears, so I started cutting out my next project. 

 I am having fun making the suffolk puffs...or do you call them yo yo's?  

The finished sizes look a bit big, but what the heck, as those are the sizes I have in the Clover Yo Yo maker. I have owned these Yo Yo makers for years and years....and never used them to now!!

Happy quilting Sue.

Let there be cake!

A Lemon Meringue Cake, which looks more impressive when you cut it.

And would look very impressive if I had used the whole amount of lemon butter that the recipe stated...but because I made my own I didn't stop to think how much 1/3 of a jar per layer would be...I just spread the same amount on I would if I was icing a cake.  

  It was yummy, but next time I am using way more lemon butter!!!

Its not my birthday, but I got presents...from the lovely Janet of Rogue Quilter as we had a little swap.

This sweet pineapple ornament block is tiny...well as you can see from the cute Mini Charm pack....

The whole ornament is 2.5" big...yes those strips are tiny, tiny, tiny!  Thank you Janet, this sweet ornament is now hanging in my sewing corner and inspiring me to sew a true 1/4" seam every day!

Happy Quilting, Sue.

August is Indigo

There are no indigo scraps left in my scrap basket or in my stash.  There is a tiny bit of black and grey in the scrap basket, and a reasonable amount of each colour in my reproduction stash.  However this is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so the stash is stay intact for now!

In the meantime I sewed up the colours I did have excess scrap of. Which when I got down to it included more dark purple...so that sort of counts!  These are "new" scraps that came from the recently finished scrappy bargello in red/purple...they are perfect scraps as they were already cut the right size!

There is still oodles of green scrap in my collection, not sure where it is coming from!  But I want lots of green leaves, so I just kept sewing!

Because I tackled the left over purple from the scrappy bargello, I then had to deal with the red scraps.  There were way more then I realised, and I have the red scraps from the dresden plate quilt (WIP) still to come!

Happy quilting, Sue.

Two finishes!

I finally got this Fishy cot panel quilt finished.  Well the binding had been stitched for a little while, but the hold up was washing - I had to wait for the house to be free of clothes airing, so there was room to dry it flat inside...which took awhile!  I dont normally wash quilts after I finish them, 

but this one needed to be, as a fellow quilter, got stabbed with a pin in the pinning process and a drop of blood ended up on the inner border.  

I waited until I had finished the quilting and binding, then  I gave it a rub with Sard soap in cold water on the affected spot and it came out no worries, phew!  Then I machine washed the whole quilt - on a gentle wool wash cycle, with a wool detergent.  Thats how I always wash my quilts and I put these washing instructions on my labels....do you including washing instructions when you give away a quilt?

Another Aussie Hero quilt, finished and in the post to a serving soldier.  I started this top last year when we lived in Adelaide.  Most of it was pieced with the other ladies I meet, who also made quilts for Aussie Hero quilts and lived near me.  It brings back fond memories.  I found it recently and realised it was 75% done, only had to make a couple of extra blocks - it had gone into a box because I needed a non directional Aussie theme print - the kangaroo paw flowers saved the day!  I like the way the different greens make it sparkle a bit, as the darker animal fabrics are a bit dull, still I like them.  And the Spotlight bargain platypus fabric made a great backing fabric, so I think I covered Australiana as a theme quite well!

Happy quilting, Sue.

Cave Hill Camp

I use to attend the Cave Hill camp with my local group many years ago before we moved interstate.  The group then decided to stop attending, but a few of the original members kept the weekend booking and new ladies from near and far started attending, creating a new group of friends.

So while there were some familiar faces there were lots of new friends to make.  There was a mix of quilters and knitters.  It was perfect weather for knitting by the big open fire....I cannot knit so I had to sew!  I had pre cut out these two projects.  The spools mini I brought at Periwinkle Patchwork in April it is a Thimble Blossoms mini pattern and finishes 14" x 16".  I just need to quilt it now.

This is the pattern by Creek Side Stitches (finishes 30"x30") that I was gifted in my mini swap earlier this year.  I was short two flying geese and didn't bring any of the background or blue fabrics, so couldn't stitch the last flying geese or solid border on.

I saved all the bonus triangles from making the flying geese and stitched half of them up into this design.  They were 1 3/4" units and finish at 1 1/4" so getting points was tricky, but most worked out OK.  I didn't have any extra fabric, but will do a shirting border and then perhaps a final border.

I also precut lots of novelty and solid brights with my new tumbler die.  I was doing this as a leaders and enders, but had quite a few hours spare on Sunday to put it all together before we left.  It might need to be a bit longer and definitely needs a border, but was happy to get this much done!  I have loads of tumblers left over though, so looks like I will be making two in this design!

Mum made this cot quilt top from start to finish - she had not pre cut anything as they only got home from a  6 week interstate holiday mid week.  Mum also started another cot quilt (sorry no pictures) and finished all the blocks on a UFO, so was very pleased with her progress!

Happy quilting Sue.

Progress on my Red Desdens

Last Friday I spent most of the day sewing with my new group.  I was very unorganised and forgot a few important things....like thread for  my machine!

Luckily Lisa came to the rescue and I was able to keep piecing.  I sewed half of the Dresden's together, but needed to cut some more wedges before I could finish them.  I did finish 11 of them that night at camp.  The next job is to find a background fabric...although the cream carpet looks better than I expected!

August's Rainbow Scrappy Challenge colour is Indigo!  Yep I have stitched all my dark blue/purple scraps up already.  You can do grey and black as a substitute.  I am still thinking about that...black is not my thing!  I have made a few more red blocks, as I did not achieve as many as I had hoped in August.

My hand stitching project for the last month or so has been these pears.  I finished all the pears and stems this week, now starting on the leaves - one is done, the rest are just pinned.  I need another chrome green, but alas I didn't find any at the quilt show.    

Happy quilting Sue.

Two tops ready for pinning

One cot panel and a few minutes between domestic chores to stitch on borders.

Equal one charity quilt top ready to be pinned.  Its not very big, approx 38"x40" but I had the perfect snuggly fox themed flannel for a backing and some wadding left overs to fit.

 This is my next Aussie Hero Quilt top.  I had to piece the backing (platypus fabric, bargain priced at Spotlight, so appropriate for this quilt) so I could pin it.  But alas its too big to have any left over wadding in my cupboard, so its down to the shop to buy some more before I can start pinning.  Some days I do wonder if I shouldn't buy a whole roll of batting!  But then other days I curse the left over pieces of wadding taking up a box in the linen press and Im glad I dont have a whole roll to house!
Happy quilting, Sue.