Carolina chain on the dark side with a mini chevron.

I have used all the light and bright coloured blocks from the leaders enders Caroline chain box.  Sew now was the time to tackle the dark blocks - I say dark, but I mean those blocks made with neutral fabrics that ranged from cream to coffee toned to beige.  

I tried to add a bit of sparkle by using red blocks, but the bulk of the blocks were made with blue and green fabrics and a sprinkle of brown.    

I am very happy with this finish, but I did decide to make it bigger than the previous version, so it would be teenager size for my prefered charity.  That meant making extra blocks but it was worth it. For the side triangles I used a very old fern print fabric I picked up on special years ago, which has been a great backing fabric.  I love picking up blue fabrics on special for backing, as they are universally acceptable to everyone!

My friend Karen was the one who introduced me to blogging many years ago.  At the time I was living in a new city with small children.  It enabled me to feel connected and enjoy quilting at a time when sewing time was hard to come by.  Karen had a special birthday coming up, so I very quickly made this modern chevron mini quilt to pop in the post to her.  Honesty it is the quickest quilt I have ever made, out of necessity as I didnt know it was her birthday, but I really wanted to send her something handmade.  I popped a few other things in the parcel and by complete fluke and the good grace of Australia Post it arrived on her birthday, which was fantastic! I love orange and blue together so I was very happy with this scrappy chevron quilt, especially as the orange fabrics were all donated scraps from another quilty friend.

Happy quilting Sue.

Mother’s Day and two RSC quilt finishes.

My mother was really missing my boys but under the restrictions (at the time) we were not supposed to visit.  So for mothers day I hit on the idea to go on a social distancing walk, which you were allowed with one other person not from your household.  So this is my oldest son walking along the river with Mum.  

We walked down to the playground that we took them too when they were small, no requests for a play were made (sad face) but again under restrictions, playgrounds were off limits!  My youngest son got to walk home with Mum and my hubby walked with Dad.  Dad is bored with staying at home so has been taking himself out to the farm and doing odd jobs for my brothers who are busy planting the crops.  He can feel useful and get out of the house without breaking the rules, so win win!

This is the second quilt made from my leaders and enders four patches.  I like this layout better then the pink/purple version, but I had plenty of blocks in these colours.  I have decided I love lime green in quilts.  Its not a shade I gravitated to normally, but decided in kids quilts its necessary!  

Orange is the other colour that I think makes bright quilts sparkle.  I sadly lack much orange in my stash, but I am going to try and use it more along with the lime green.  

This is the third quilt I have made with my four patches from leaders and enders.  I love this layout the most.  Who doesn't love a rainbow...well almost a rainbow, I had to skip the purple because it would have been too long. The best thing about these three quilts is that they were super easy to quilt; a) because not too wide, b) I am now the proud owner of a cone of white thread so didn't have to change thread colours c) my walking foot and I are working well together on straight lines.   

There is a strong chance I will have more of these quilts in the future but at present I am nearly out of pre cut 2.5" stripes.  I have started back on my 2" leaders enders project, which is show and tell for another day! 

Happy quilting, Sue.

Unity Quilt along rounds two to four and I am calling it a finish!

 This is the first two rounds of the Bonnie Hunter Unity quilt along.  I dont like medallion quilts because I am scared my piecing is not accurate enough.   However despite being consistantingly 1/4 of an inch too big I have managed to make this work, fudging rocks!

I was all gungho and thinking I was very clever then started round three!  OMG tiny (1x2") flying geese galore (all 144 of them) nearly did my head in, and I was super impressed at my new isolation ability to persist.  I just cut a bunch of pieces, then sewed them.  Had a break and cut the centres.  Went back and trimmed them.  Watched tv while this factory production line was in progress and jumped back and forth each stage until I had enough...so I thought!  I did end up having to go back and make one extra star at the end!

I was trying to use as much scrap fabric as possible, but I really lacked red, blue and neutrals....LOL I didn't think my colour scheme through at all!   I dug deep and found a fat quarter of red a friend had donated and then a couple of strips of blue with rainbows and butterflies that I didn't like but paired really well with the red.  I have lots more aqua then I ever imagined after buying some for Bonnies Frolic project last year.  Then luckily in my stash I found a big piece of white homespun. I wish now I had used this consistently through the top, but too late now.  

This last paragraph was written two weeks later, because I have fallen out of love with this quilt!  These 14 stars took me more that two weeks to make.  I put them together and then realised that I had planned to stop at this border because it would be the right size for a charity quilt.  Leaving the quilt with just two sides actually made it the correct prefered rectangular shape!  And I am over it!  So that was a win win all around.  So the pile of aqua scraps remain for another day.

Happy quilting Sue.

Dresden applique WIP, a Shoo Fly flimsy and a quilted finish!

I have slowed down in the hand stitching department, but this is the progress I made early on in our Covid19 lockdown.  I tend to sit and watch too much  news when something "big" is happening, but after awhile I get overloaded and stop.  

Still it was a good opportunity to get those tiny circles appliqued on.  I have two left to do, but the prep takes awhile and I need to motivate myself again. The weather is cooling off more and more, so tends to lead me to undertake hand stitching at night - no idea why!

I finally pieced all the Shoo Fly blocks together and added a border to make it the prefered size of the charity.  I have used lots of a Jodie Carlton sea gull print in these blocks and the colours are nice and bright so I hope it appeals to a child.  I will make more of these blocks but pay better attention to the ironing of seam allowance as these were all mashed together and make for lumpy intersections.  So not looking forward to quilting it! I was thinking that it could look quite nice with sashing, but again, will need to plan it so I can use a coloured sashing I think - too much white on a child's quilt is never a good thing!

I have finished hand stitching the binding down on the first of three four patch leader and enders quilts I have made.  This one used up all the pink and purple blocks and some of the light blue.  I decided using white with red print sashing would work well on this top and get it out of my stash!  There is quite a lot of it, as its left over backing.  I was going to make a scrappy pink binding, but accidently used the 2" die on my Go cutter instead of the 2.5".  In hindsight I could have tried the smaller size, apparently Lisa Bongean prefers this size for binding, but I was so cross with myself that I threw it in the 2" scrap bin and found something else. 

I have been very glad of my mothers stash during this lockdown as she has a good collection of fabrics big enough for backings and is happy to share!   I am in love with this fun backing and managed to make it stretch to one more quilt and it will feature in a few more tops to come as borders.   I did run out of wadding though and had to piece large left over pieces for this quilt.  Honestly the term "frankenbatting" was very appropriate in this case, it was very wavy!  Being mindful this is a child's charity quilt that would get lots of washing I choose to heavily quilt it, using a 2" grid.  Luckily the design made this very easy and I have a very large spool of white thread.

Happy quilting Sue.

Carolina chain blocks and kangaroos

 I found these leaders and enders blocks (Carolina Chain by Bonnie Hunter from her book Addicted to Scraps) in a box while I was looking for more fabric.  I really need to do a big tidy up (and label) of my project boxes !  The blocks use 2" stripes and sensibly it seems I had stored all my 2" strips in this box, including pre cut pieces of the blocks...except no backgrounds!  I have been using a large piece of white homespun for Unity quilt along, so cut up some stripes and off I went. 

I seperated all the coffee and tan coloured background blocks from the white to cream coloured background blocks.  There was a good amount of bright blocks so I lay them out on my design floor and set about making more.  Bonnies patterns are always for a very large quilt but I was aiming for a child sized charity quilt instead which is more realistic as these blocks finish at 4.5" so you need lots and lots of blocks!

During the making of this top I managed to make this big thread mess when winding a bobbin and break a needle.  OMG I bent the needle (hit a pin) so bad my heart was in my mouth trying to get it out...I had to resort to using pliers....thankfully I had not done any damage to my machine!  I gave it a good oil and clean afterwards, I was so grateful!

Tada, another flimsy finish! These are fun blocks to make and I have kitted up more  so I can continue leading and ending while I am making my next project...which should be Bonnie Hunters Unity.

Early one morning on my walk I came across a mob of kangaroos that had been feeding in the paddock.  One snuck across behind me and the others waited in the paddock for me to go past before they headed back to the safety of the bush. 

Happy quilting Sue.