Good Things

I put the last stitch in the binding of my Seville quilt yesterday afternoon. I'm not usually conceited about my quilts, in fact quite the reverse. I have so much to learn about quilting and techniques in general but I'm really proud of this quilt because it challenged me to try a lot of new things for the first time.

Among the firsts - I used freezer paper applique, and did free motion quilting. This was also the first time I've used Aurifil thread for quilting and I can honestly say I'm converted.  I've been labouring under a misconception that Aurifil was too pricey to use for all my quilting but I went and priced it and it's no dearer than the Gutterman I have favoured in the past.  This is not an ad for Aurifil I swear , I'm just so happy with the quality and results I got from their product.

I quilted in between all the peels and left the rest of the quilt unquilted - resulting in the peels really standing out with a puffy look. It turned out so much better than I had envisaged.  

Spotty binding finished it off. Originally I was going to do multi coloured binding but when I was rifling through my stash the spots started screaming "Pick me ! Pick ME!" Who am I to ignore the voices in my head? 

I used vintage chenille for the back. It's well documented that I adore chenille and it was perfect for this quilt. I'm keeping this quilt for myself and I spent last night snuggled under it. I used wool batting so it's warm and fluffy. 

All this colour just makes my heart sing. Bonus points for using mostly scraps for the applique peels! 

This is  my first finish from Katy's Finish Along list for this quarter, which leaves me at a loose end. I was faced with a choice between finishing my Holiday Happy Quilt, cutting fabric for my Moroccan Tile quilt, or deciding what to do with the remains of the gingham cushion cover. You can see the original list here.

I spent a lot of the day Facetime sewing with Little Miss Sunshine. I didn't sew ..I cut a rainbow of fabrics for my giveaway winner in between gossiping and holding a competition to see who could come up with the worst swear word for the day .(Little Miss Sunshine definitely won- because even Mr. P was shocked at one she let fly.) While I was cutting fabrics I was folding big bits and putting them back in boxes and chucking scraps in a pile on the floor. When I was finished I glanced over at the pile and this is what I saw...

How can I resist playing with these colours since an idea for a quilt just popped into my head the moment I saw them? So it looks like my next project is sorted - something simple and quick but hopefully very beautiful because along with the idea for the next project came a name of someone that I think will love getting this as a gift. 

Speaking of gifts - It was my Dad's birthday on Saturday. My parents BIG move happened a couple of weeks ago and they are (sort of ) settled into their new house. I am loving having my parents so close to us. Mr. P and I  headed up there for lunch and cake Saturday afternoon and then the whole family trooped out for dinner Saturday night as well. Judging by this photo some people never grow up. Happy Birthday Dad. 

PS.OK my Dad is not a complete freak. Little P was on the opposite side of the table and was massively excited at the cake and the sparklers and my Dad was totally hamming it up for him. And that pile of cream on the cake? Little P did the decorating. I think we can cross cake decorator off his list of future careers. 

Bloggers Quilt Festival- May 2014

My regular readers are well aware that this quilt has been a long time in the making. I suspect they will be as glad that it’s finished as I was to put the last stitch in the binding at 1.27 pm this afternoon! Not bad when you consider I started this in mid 2011....

If you’re visiting from my link at the Bloggers Quilt Festival- welcome to you and thank you for taking the time to swing by when there are so many fabulous entries for you to look at . Feel free to have a squizz at the rest of my blog while you’re here and make yourself at home. 

All of my quilts seem to come together a bit like a greek tragedy ...there’s love(Ooh I like that I think I’ll make one) and hate (I'm so fed up with this quilt – why wont it go together the way it looks in my head) , pathos (Oh woe is me , will this ever be finished?) and tragedy (Crap! I just sewed over my own finger –again).  But in the end every quilt feels like a triumph just for the finish factor if nothing else. I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing and trumpets blowing this afternoon!

I should point out for those that don’t know me- I’m that loud, brash, swearing Aussie girl your mother probably didn’t want you to hang out with in high school. And my quilts are usually a lot like me too. An abundance of colour, modern, big personality quilts, so when I decided three years ago to make this quilt I was as surprised as anyone that a traditional design had caught my fancy. I had very real fears that I’d get to the end of it and not really love it.

But my fears were unfounded, – I’m totally and utterly in love with everything about this quilt and I’m so happy to share it with you all. I'm utterly dreadful at naming my quilts (and quite often get my blog friends to name them for me) so if you have any suggestions I’d be glad to hear them. 

I also tend to waffle a lot (Really ?You hadn't noticed ?) but today I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking for me. 

Daisies in each block corner 

With a daisy in each centre 

The quilt back 

The whole shebang

Finished Size: 60 x 86 inches 

Pieced by: Moi!(I still cant believe I made that!) 

Quilted by: My amazing quilting fairy. 

Dresden fan blades: made from 4 charm packs. Its been so long since I started this quilt I cant recall exactly what the fabric was (sorry !)

Backing Blocks : Old recycled bread sacks that I got from Freecycle(seriously)

Sashing and Binding: Pretty sure this was a Darlene Zimmerman fabric...

Backing : Something I got on sale at Spotlight and it was cheap but perfect for this project. 

Entered in: ROYGBIV Category. 

Thanks to Amy for hosting this little soiree . She really does an amazing job of coordinating it all and giving us all the opportunity to revel in each other’s creativity. I'm really looking forward to seeing a ton of eye candy this week. Thanks for dropping in to see mine. 

PS.  This is my second finish in Katy’s Finish Along for the 2^nd quarter of 2014 (two more finishes for this quarter are looming but  fortunately I haven't shot my big mouth off about any more nudey runs if things on my list don't get finished ) and I'm linking this post up to Elizabeth’s "A Stitch in Time " Finishes linky party for May. YOu can see my original goals for the quarter in this post . 

The Quilt that Every Man and His Dog Had a Hand In

Once upon a time, (in 2011 to be precise) I fell in love with the idea of making a hand sewn hexagon quilt. I must have been temporarily insane at the time because I'd never hand sewn a whole quilt in my life....

I consulted everyone I know about paper piecing and debated the merits of  glue basting or thread basting and read so many tutorials on the subject that I almost went blind.

I finally screwed up the courage to make a start in October 2011, when I went to visit Little Miss Sunshine for the very first time.  Her daughter, BP was pressed into service and admirably basted about 170 hexies for me (without complaint might I add !) and the hand sewing began. 

And went on and on and on ....forever.

Somewhere in there I decided that I was going to applique the individual hexagon "flowers" to backing blocks because I knew if I tried to hand sew an entire quilt of hexagons I'd still be doing it in the retirement village, or handing it down to Little P to finish as an ancestral WIP.

When it came time to take the hexagons out of their basting papers, I realised that I'm a classic over gluer. I pretty much needed a crow bar to pry those things out. The Not The Farmers Wife sewing group girls took pity on me and helped me take all the papers out one day, while making rude comments about how much glue I'd used.  Suckers...I had the last laugh because I didn't have to tackle that little job all on my lonesome.

I was all for machine sewing those suckers onto the backing blocks but a couple of my "friends" (I'm looking at you Val and Tara ) made "that's the most stupid idea ever" faces when I mentioned it so I bowed to peer pressure and started hand appliqueing them onto the backing blocks. I've never hand appliqued anything in my life so Val taught me how to do that after I made it look incredibly difficult one day at another one of our sewing days. I think the phrase she used was "Do you want me to show you how to do that an easier way" which roughly translates to "I cant stand to see you doing that completely wrong you idiot".  After my success in suckering them all in to taking out the backing papers I was kind of hoping if I made the applique part of the process look hard that they'd all take pity on me and do a few each but alas that was not to be. I think they'd gotten wise to me by that stage.

So hand applique I did - and that went on and on and on- forever. 

I finally finished (amid loud vows to never listen to well meaning "you must hand applique" friends again) and ignored it for a couple more months then screwed up the internal fortitude to sew the whole hot mess together into a top. 

By that stage I was really liking it again and since I was shit scared if I quilted it I'd do something to completely wreck it I prevailed on Val to quilt it for me with the brief to do whatever she wanted.  And I'm oh so glad I did ...

Look at this utter feast for the eyes ....

Variegated dragonflies - adorable!

The back 

In all her glory on my king sized bed. 

I'm thrilled with how it looks so thank you to everyone who helped, cajoled and threatened me into this finish but a special thanks to Val who really made this quilt come alive. 

This is my first finish for the 2nd quarter of Katy's FAL 

 and I'm also linking to Elizabeth's finishes linky party for May

Now I just need to get that Dresden finished since there was the small matter of the threat of a nudey run down our main shopping precinct if it was still lurking by the end of June...

You can see my original FAL goal list for the quarter here 

Finish Along Quarter 1 Results are In ...(and its not all beer and skittles)

So back in January I posted a list of projects I was going to get done before April 1st, as part of the 2014 Finish Along challenge that's being hosted by Katy at The Littlest Thistle.  I'm positive that someone stole the whole month of March and hid it somewhere because I only managed  a 58% strike rate for my finishes this quarter. So here's a story which has highs and lows and also serves as a cautionary tale for people like me that overestimate their ability to finish projects.   

Dresden Quilt -Not completed 

Progress with quilting but not quite finished yet ....

Hexagon Flower Garden Quilt- Not Quite Done 
Another one in progress ...and this will be making an appearance on my next Quarter list as a hopeful finish. 

Triangle Quilt-Nowhere near done. This quilt is clearly possessed by evil demons.  

I did touch this once during the last quarter and then hastily stuffed it back in it's box... I have a feeling this is going to be my bete noir of 2014. 

T-shirt Quilt-Done 
Not my most stellar quilting effort I must confess - but honestly I was just glad to see the back of this !

Postage Stamp Quilt-Done 
And I love it ! Scrappy makes me happy. This was my favourite finish from this quarter. 

Pom Pom De Paris Dog Blanket-Done 

And Indy and Lola were suitably appreciative. 

Chenille Baby Blanket-Done
And living with the sweetest baby girl who arrived four weeks ago. It barely made a dent in my chenille stash so I think I may have to hatch a plan to use some more chenille before the end of the year. 

Stay tuned for the 2nd quarter list - which will be much more realistic! 

I have a plan ...

The down side of putting my sewing/crafty/quilting goals out there every month is that I feel like an abject failure when I don't cross everything off. Such was the case for January because I failed to finish a couple of things on my list. That one lone hexie that needed to be completed remained undone (!!!) and I didn't finish the Superheroes quilt either. I finished the other 4 things on that list but somehow that seems less important than that which remained undone. Obviously I'm a glass half empty kind of gal. 

I've finished the actual quilt top for the Superheroes quilt but I suck at making backs if they aren't two pieces of fabric sewn together and so that's where I got stuck. I really admire those of you who do fancy schmancy backs because often I just can't be bothered. And when you have to cobble a back out of leftovers it seems to take so much longer to put together than the front. What's up with that? 

So here is my ambitious list for February which includes the things I didn't finish in January(insert eye rolling here) 

• Finish Superheros quilt (pictured here laying on my sewing room floor with the dogs thinking that's an open invitation to sleep on it)

• Make Superheros quilt top for Little P (who saw the original Superheroes quilt top and asked excitedly if it was for him and since it isn't, I feel compelled to make him one too- nothing like doing two almost identical quilts back to back )  

• Finish that last damn hexie! 

• 15 more blocks for the recycled shirt quilt (shirts pictured here living on the computer room floor ) 

• Baste and quilt Briar Rose quilt 

• Finish re-upholstering Miss P's outdoor chairs. I get to break out the staple gun so that should be motivation enough to get those done (pictured here stuffed into a wardrobe because I couldn't stand looking at them anymore ) 

• Buy fabric for lounge chair re-do. Its only been sitting there waiting to be done since January 2012. I know what I want - its just a matter of getting on line and finding it. Larri , if you're reading maybe we could do this as a March challenge together since I happen to know you have a chair re- do that has to be done too. We can share the misery. 

• Pick the paper out of half the paper pieced hexie flowers ...ugh..so not looking forward to that.Does anyone wanna come over and do it for me/with me? I can provide a comfy bed and large amounts of hard liquor as compensation if that will swing the deal....

Whoooooo Hooooooo!

For anyone who doesn't have their mojo at the moment, I think it's at my house and by the way - I'm keeping it. 

I started this quilt in September with a huge amount of gusto and enthusiasm. I  stole the idea from Thea who was working on her own  hourglass quilt at the time.  I loved how hers was turning out . She managed to finish hers in November.  You know when you see a quilt and think "I have the perfect fabric for that in my stash " and cant wait to start? That's what happened to me.

Along the way I made a mistake and kind of gave up on this quilt and it lurked  in my unfinished pile ...and kept lurking .. and in the end it was thumbing it's nose at me and screaming "You're never going to finish me loser ".   It was in good company - there were plenty of other quilts there to keep it company. At one point they were all yelling at me like an out of control football crowd. 

But as part of my "I gotta finish my WIP's" vow I dragged it out last month and now it's finished. I was kinda hoping for a May finish but I'll take June. 

Awwwww pretty!

I'm in love with this quilt and it's staying right here. Miss P snaffled the jelly roll race quilt on Monday for her place so I have room! I'm open to suggestions for names. I'm so crap at giving my quilts names. 

I'm hoping for two more finishes in June. I have a gorgeous project lined up in my head to start in July if I can pull two finishes off this month. And maybe if I can finish some more stuff I can write a decent blog post again !

Plodding Along

Since I last gave you an update about my sewing prowess there has been some significant project progress. Finally. I've been a little bit inspired by Kris who has become the Finish it Up Queen of late. 

It seems this "working on one thing at a time " actually yields results. So much so that I've been encouraged to write a list for June and have vowed to only work on two quilts for the entire month. I'm itching to get that WIP list down to something manageable. It's driving me spare looking at it. 

My Lilac Hill Jelly Roll Race quilt is finished. It wasn't really so much a race as a leisurely stroll to the finish line with this one. (even if it did feel like I was doing a marathon) I had originally bought chocolate brown floral fabric for a wide border but frankly once I cut it the whole thing looked hideous. 

I put the final stitches in the Colour Bar quilt last night. 

And the hourglass quilt has been basted and quilting is well under way. I'm trying to talk myself out of doing diagonal stitching on this one because I'm feeling lazy.

I'm linking up to Kate's 15 minute challenge this week because I actually have something to show for a change! 10 WIPS - 2 finishes = 8 WIPS to go! 

And I know my posts have been very few and far between lately. It seems I can blog or sew but apparently can't do both simultaneously.