Frolic first block finished

The reveal of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt Frolic has occurred  and I was able to lay out the pieces I had finished.  However I had to quickly make a set of flying geese with pink and blue wings.  The last set of instructions includes cutting white squares and piecing the corners, but the blocks are set on point.

Then progress stalled as I wrote three job applications and packed to go on holidays.  I did pack my hand sewing but did not get it out of the bag once!

So I was keen to sew when we got home, hence one block got made up.  And now I have to suck it up and piece and trim parts before I cam make pretty blocks!  The heatwave weather is perfect for piecing, but we will see how far I get.

We had a lovely family holiday in Robe, a small beachside town in South Australia.  It was a lovely social relaxing time, but the weather was not what you would call hot...barely warm on the good days.

Hubby and I might look wind swept, here but let me assure you it was a heck of a lot windier at times!  Some of the tenting campers packed up and went home early - we have a pop up (the beds slide out under canvas) caravan and it did ratting a few nights, but it stayed up and kept us dry when it rained!

My two boys, two years apart and now about 2 cm height difference....fingers crossed Mr 13 has a growth spurt this year or Mr 11 is going to overtake him and squash his big brothers ego!

In order to make sure the boys could actually get in the water for more than 15 minutes, we purchased wetsuits so they could boogie board in comfort!  The two days it did rain were spent playing card games, reading, playing on the flying fox and jumping pillow and in the indoor pool in the caravan park - the kids had a ball!  I had a surfing lesson on one of the "bad" weather days and in a full wet suit it was surprisingly comfortable.  Trying to get up on the surfing board was not comfortable but it was good fun!  So now I can tick that experience off my bucket list, LOL!  

Back home and back to a heatwave, but rest assured in a very small caravan that qualifies as a glorified tent I was secretly pleased we had more bad weather than heat!

Happy quilting, Sue.

Piecing in Robe 2

I took it upon myself to ask my fellow "campers" to bring excess novelty stash, pre cut as 5" squares.  The idea was we were going to combined fabric forces and made lots of four patches out of our novelty fabric, for children's charity quilts. It turned out my fellow quilters already had pre cut squares in their stash, so we worked with what we had,  these are Jill's and are 4.5" cut, so they make a 8" block finished.  Jill is a seasoned charity quilt maker and took this big pile home to make into tops.

Heather had lots of 2.5" novelty and brights, so they got pieced into four patches and then made into bigger four patches.  I thought this was a great idea for those small pieces, but I must have given her too many compliments because she gifted me the entire collection!  So now I have lots of spare parts to make more quilts....plus lots of four patches made, that need sashing.  

Therese made split four patch blocks.  I have made plenty of split nine patch, but not 4, so I wanted a pictorial record of this....its going on my one day list!

This cute block was alos made by Therese, just a close up of the quilt you saw in last weeks post.

This was the boot packed ready to go..(going home it was far less organised)..there was more "stuff" on the back seat, so it is really lucky that I was travelling alone.  I think if I ever want to take a friend I am going to need to buy a bigger car or learn to pack less!

Hmmm, I think the answer is just to go for a whole week next time, that way I could have finished everything I took with me!  ;)

Happy quilting Sue.

Piecing in Robe

Last weekend I had three nights in Robe with my interstate stitching friends and we had a very productive time.  My phone would only cope with sending a few of the photos I took, so this is part 1 of the fun!  Stacy finished piecing this cat quilt top, using up novelty prints.  

Therese pieced this top using a cute Christmas panel - think it was from Anni Downs?  She had matching fabric lines and there was lots of math conversations about best sized blocks etc, luckily multiple heads are better than one!

Stacy worked long into the night piecing flippy triangles on this quilt, in an attempt to use up her stash of plaid.  She and Therese also had a lesson on making a shirt to fit your shape from Elaine.

Lisa gifted me 3/4 of a layer cake (she had made a cot quilt from the rest) to use in a charity quilt.  I thought this Moda Love pattern might be a good chance to us it as well as some of the hot pink fabric I had brought on sale!  Ironically Elaine had brought some left over charm squares from the same fabric line, which got pieced into four patches. And then I had some yellows that filled in the gaps.   Very happy with the result, it was quick to make but its very big though and not sure how I will quilt it!    Next time I might try making it with 7.5" squares instead of 9.5".   

My other project was using the fabric I brought from Periwinkle Patchwork to make a modern plus quilt.  I love the aqua and red together, but would like to make one more block so I can make the top in a 4 x 4 setting  I made a cutting mistake and have run out of background fabric, so I will have to buy a bit more before I can piece the last block and sew it all together.

There was lots of laughs over the weekend and lots more sewing then is shown here and possibly enough photos for another post next week!

Happy quilting Sue.