What a lovely Christmas...opps I started a new project...again!

I have a birthday close to Christmas, so most of these pressies are birthday, but a few Christmas ones from my quilty friends, when we had dinner together before Christmas.

Vicki made me this lovely table runner using the modern curved ruler.  Lisa gave me this cute seam roller for those pesky seams that don't want to sit flat!

Hubby brought me a book full of fun projects and Lisa brought me one by Kim Diehl and Jo Morton - Simple Friendships, which prompted us to make a quilt out of it, and we choose Warm Regards, a mix of piecing and applique.  Well the way the book works is that Jo and Kim both make a version of the same quilt.  Warm Regards is Kim's version, which I am making.  

We had a sewing day together to get things started.  I continued to work on it the next day, prepping applique pieces and couldn't resist making a few of the pieced blocks.

 I have decided to not make the berries as yo yo's mainly because I don't have the Clover yo yo maker in the small size, but I do have Perfect Circles.  Lisa is making the Jo Morton version of this quilt (all pieced) but in the Kim layout, so she can include yo yo's...they are her favorite quilty thing!

Vicki's day job is long arm quilting and she brought me back my second Vivid Grid quilt, after working her magic on it.  I love this quilting panto!  I machine stitched the binding yesterday.

But alas I haven't hand stitched any down yet.  It would be nice to squeeze in one last finish for 2017, so I will see if I can wrangle some today.   I love this pattern and there are lots more 2.5" strips in my cupboard, so I think 2018 might find me making a third version of Vivid Grid!

Hubby and the kids had an extended break with his family (I came home early for work) and got home last night. So today is full of fun things, like washing and cooking food to take for a NYE party tonight.  Still some hand stitching with a cuppa is a possibility. 

Happy quilting, hope you have a safe and fun New Years Eve, Sue.

Christmas finishes

The joys of the Christmas season have been keeping me from sewing, it started with card writing, end of year celebrations to attend and gift shopping, but luckily the baking was the last distraction.

There was about 20 minutes of help from the kids to cut out the gingerbread men, but after that I was back to baking solo!  The icing looks like the kids did it!

 

Spotlight had Decor containers on sale, so I brought some to hold this years teachers gifts.  Other years they have had lovely bright coloured containers for sale, which were much more festive.

 With the baking done, I figured I had a bit of time to play.  My friend Lisa recently won some Go Cutter dies. She very kindly choose dies that I did not own, but we both liked, so she could use them on my machine and I could keep them!  When we were looking at my collection, it became apparently that I have predominately used the strip cutters and the 2.5 " half square triangle the most.

For the life of me I could not think why I brought this shape.  So I grabbed some fabric, did some cutting and slowly it all came back to me - this shape, makes wonderful stars!

 

And I had the right sized square and triangle to cut out the background fabric, yipee!

 

This was my first attempt, because I forgot to cut some of the diamonds upside down! I deemed it the prototype and it is staying at my place.  My insert piecing wasn't so good on this one, but I quickly mastered it.  Mainly thanks to the accurate cutting of the Go dies.  

End result, two star mini quilts and some lovely wire hangers I brought earlier, which were the intended present, for two special quilty friends.  Now they have something to hang in them ;)

Happy quilting, 

Sue

Red and Cream quilt at Christmas time, not for Christmas!

The lovely Ann from Periwinkle Patchwork gave me this book back in May.  I have read it several times and changed my mind about which quilt to start several times!

When the moons of time, motivation and organisation aligned, it was this pattern I chose.

I have made the chain blocks. 

 And started piecing the stars.

Then distractions crept in, in the form of Christmas baking, 

 and decorating!

As enthusiastic as my boys were, finishing the decorating of the tree is not their strenght!

The bigger issue with this project is that I am in danger of running out of fabric...shock horror! One assumes that a personal collection of French General fabric is endless, but when it is squirrelled away for long periods of time, you forget how much you actually have.  My bad, not checking measurements (of patterns or requirements) is my weakness, but starting new projects is my strength! 

Having said that its just a red/cream quilt.  I am sure there is more red fabric in my stash, somewhere!  And if there is not, well more shopping required?!

Happy quilting Sue.

Out of sight, out of mind?!

Serious brain fade happening here.  I did mention a couple of finishes in a recent blog but only showed off one!

Scratching my head for something of interest to show you this week, I was pleased I had forgotten to brag about finally completely the Snowball quilt.  What started as a stack of free fabric (mainly strips), morphed into this top.

 And finally looked decent with the bargain of the year, this Jo Morton print that I found on sale at Spotlight.  Now I am not a huge fan of brown, but my love of reproduction and traditional quilting styles seems to lean in favor of murk pallette.

But a nice dark red binding saved the day.  Not so obvious in this shot, but lightened up the border fabric and gave it a final kick of colour.

Very lucky that Mum happened to visit at the right time to act as quilt hanger - otherwise I wouldnt have any photos, as this baby is now gone, gifted last weekend.

So its definitely a finish now, one to tick off the list before the year ends!

Happy quilting Sue.