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.

Yellow mini Dresden

I have made my yellow mini Dresden block for June.

These are the Dresden's I have made as part of Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year.

They measure about 7 1/2" across, so if I am considering just making nine so I get a nice size wall hanging.  

I think a linen background would be nice, but not sure if I want to use linen for the centres as well. 

What do you think?

Happy quilting, Sue.

Red and White Dresden quilt - finished!

This quilt kickstarted in June 2015 at a camp in Bordertown with my Adelaide stitching friends.  Ingredients were a store homemade red "jelly roll" and a Moda Primitive Gatherings jelly roll for the neutrals.

This pattern came from a class I did with quilt teacher and friend Heather Ford (Adelaide).  You make lots and lots of pieced blades and then make the Dresdens. 

Then you dither for months about buying a fabric to use as the center circles.

Then spend an hour in Quilters Harvest (Warracknabeal) pulling out every bolt to find the perfect background fabric - thank you Dell!

And then slowly hand stitch them down to the background fabric.
Allow to mature in the cupboard, until taking top to Periwinkle Patchwork (Warrnambool), to find the perfect red for the border/binding - thank you Ann!  Mind you it matured a bit more before I got the border sewn on.

Then bundle off to Vicki Jenkin, long arm quilter extraordinaire, and allow her to work some quilting magic.  I wanted some thing fancy but edge to edge, so Vicki recommended these feathers.  I have never had feathers before and love them :)

Yeah my first finish for 2017!  

Happy quilting Sue.

Red and White Dresden flimsy finish

There has been a fair bit of denial happening in my sewing room.

 Denial that I had lost my tape measure.  Denial that I would be stupid enough to leave it in a cupboard!

Denial that I had an hour in my day to sew on a border to finish this quilt.

 Sew I stopped fighting the negative thoughts and just got on with it. 

To say I am fairly happy too finish this top is an understatement.  I have had a burning desire to make a red and white Dresden quilt for a long long long time.  And finally here it is.  

Unfortunately there are two quilts ahead of it in the queue at the long arm quilters.  So until there is more cash to be had it will stay a top for awhile longer.

Still it is finished!  And I have "found" my tape measure.  So all is good in my world again.

Happy quilting Sue.  

Piecing in Portland 4

In order to finished my Autumn Star quilt I needed to buy some fabric for a final border.

We had a road trip from Portland to Warrnambool to visit Ann and Barbara at Periwinkle Patchwork.

Duh, I didn't take any photos of the shop, sorry!  Hmmm, might have been because I was too busy talking!

Anyway I got this great stripe (bargain it was on sale) which was perfect for this quilt.

I managed to cut and sew on the two borders for this quilt while we were away, so it is now a finished flimsy.

Then a few days later in Adelaide (at Widebacks) I got this very appropriate fabric for a backing! 

Ann from Periwinkle pulled all the reds off the shelf from me until we settled on this lovely fabric as a border for my Red and White Dresden plate quilt.  But I haven't cut or sewed the borders yet.

However that didn't stop me buying the perfect backing at Widebacks.  This red is a Primitive Gatherings print and all the "white" prints in my Dresden plates are from a Primitive Gatherings jelly roll, so very pleased with this match.

Happy quilting Sue.