My Quilt From AJ!

I received the best mail yesterday. A belated birthday pressie from AJ! It was wrapped in a meter of Farmers Market which will come in handy!Its fantastic!!! She has made a wall hanging from my published Bye Bye Birdie quilt! She is the yellow bird, that is blonde and on the right hand side of Australia and I am the red bird, red hair on on the left hand side of this big country we both live in! Her pebble quilting is amazing! I meet AJ online from blogging and a parenting/quilting forum. In December though we get to meet in person! Looking forward to that!! Shopping, chatting, more shopping!

I have hung it at my sewing desk, where I can see it all the time. Remind me of the friendships that can be made online from the love of quilting. That will get me through the days when I feel like I am the only girl in town who knows what a wonky log cabin is! Thanks AJ, not only for this sweet little quilt, but for your friendship and encouragement and those late night chats on MSN. :) How many sleeps till meeting at Christmas?

WIP Wednesday - Straight Quilting.

I finished this quilt top on the weekend. I sandwiched it on Monday and now have started quilting it. Going for plain straight quilting. I have always admired this type of quilting when I have seen it, but never attempted it. Something though is not quite right and I can't work out why. The quilt top is moving down when I quilt it. So is that a result of not pulling it taunt enough when sandwiching it? I have a brand new walking foot and my foot pressure is set as high as it can, so I refuse to believe that is the cause. Or am I just being pedantic? Is that just an effect of the quilting? I don't know whether to just leave it and keep going or get out my unpicker....

Hanging Lynne's Quilt.

Lynne's quilt has been hanging for a few months. There is a small entrance area in this house, then you turn the corner and bang! There is a cream wall with some quilts hanging. It is a talking point for all that enter our home. I get asked did I make it? Then I explain who made it and why and what the quote means. The circular flying geese quilt is one I made back for flickr DQS#7 and the one on the right was received from Kriszta in our KQI Swap. Three of my favourites in a row. There is so much wall space here I could hang more, but Daz is cautious of me banging too many holes in a house belonging to the Education Department!

Lynne's quilt also has the children talking. Milly got a bit upset the first few days after it was hung. She questioned me that would she miss out on the fun even though she followed the rules in the playground. I had to explain, no, it only applies to adults! The girls have been known to sit at the table over breakfast and test each other on the words. Grace, "Hey Milly, what does t h e spell?" Milly, "Easy! THE!! My turn, what does r u l e s spell?" Grace, "Rules!! My turn..." and on they go. Milly also has a habit of copying words around the house. One morning over the recent school holidays I woke to find she had done this. I was impressed, even the same sort of blocks Lynne's letters are sewn in.

WIP Wednesday - Blue and Orange Squares.

Ever since completing the Blue Squares Quilt, I have been itching to do another. So I have very bravely unrolled one of my Kona Solid Rolls and taken the blue and orange out along with some of my stash and been randomly sewing squares...... These will be 9.5 inches finished. It is great using the strips from the roll, easy peasy. I have run out of room to put them on my design wall in my sewing area, so I have stuck them to the door of the sewing room!

School Holiday Sewing.

Last day of the school holidays today. Grace actually started this a few weeks ago. She cut out the shapes from my scrap box and pinned it into place. I sat down behind her and helped her guide the fabric. She has been begging me to finish it for awhile, but I have been bit of a mean Mummy and kept saying "after I have finished this..." but today I said "Okay, lets finish it."

I let her pick any fabric she wanted for the binding and drew a sharp intake of breath when she pulled out the Kaffe fabric! "Excellent choice Gracie!" Here is the finished quilt, a blanket for her teddy.

Today's Quilting.

Today was the second Saturday of the month and so that meant I had my real life quilting group day. A whole 9am to 3pm of sewing!!!! I got all the coloured quilting done on my second version of DQS#9 and a third of the white swirls done. Very pleased with how it is looking.

Around The Block Progress.

Our Around the Block swap is drawing to a close. These two blocks are for Annie. Annie wanted circles. She added my Squid Eye Quilt to her gallery of inspiration so I found these blocks easy to do. I hand sewed the blanket stitch for some texture, so these took longer than usual, they were due last month. Sorry Annie, hope they are worth the wait!

And these two are for Jan. Jan sent the borders cut to size, so it was just following her guidelines of making the centres as simple or complicated as we want. The top one I decided for a mini stacked coin look but then it got really busy so I added some white to break it up but got all my measurements out of wack. I am hopeless at maths..... The second one I went for a simple square in a square.

Keep River National Park.

We have been across the border a few times to the Keep River National Park. So we packed the grandparents and drove the new car across the border into the frontier that is the Northern Territory!

I am still amazed at all the walking of trails and gorges that we have done in the last 6 months, the girls still love doing it. They don't complain about it being boring, they set off always going first, sometimes even holding hands!

My favourite shot of the day.

We did the Gurrandalng Walk. Gurrandalng means Brogla Dreaming. In the dreamtime two Aboriginal people traveled from the sea to here. They collected grass and bushes, made a large nest and started to jump around and make noises like a Gurrandalng (Brogla). As the country listened they changed into Broglas. This place is named Gurrandalm - the place of the Gurrandalng.


At the top there was a fantastic view. Here is Milly with her red cheeks, placing a rock on a pile of rocks already there, one rock for every person that has walked here she said.

I feel like at times my blog is a huge advertisement for the Kimberley area and I'll admit I started the other blog to post only photos of our travels there, I didn't want to bore all my quilty friends with photos of gorges and rugged plains. But everyone has left such glowing comments of the adventures we have up here, I am including them in this blog too. The other blog has now become the one to go to if you don't want to see the quilting stuff! Enjoy.

WIP Wednesday - More DQS#9 Progress.

Thanks for all the lovely comments here and here on my quilting progress. I had a burst of activity this morning while still in my PJ's and got all the quilting finished. Just have to put on the binding now and then all done.

And then I can turn my attention to this version and hopefully my partner will come out of the woodwork and comment on which she prefers.

DQS#9 Progress....

I've gone for the raw edge applique look for my quilt for DQS#9. I'm usually more a blanket stitch kind of girl when it comes to sewing down my applique but I'm giving this a try. I'm unsure if I really like the effect, it seems a bit messy? But then when I come back later I think no, looks ok.

It took me three whole episodes of Glee to sew all those loose threads in the back! And some swirly quilting, or rather a pebble with a swirl inside it. Giving some nice texture.

A whirlwind few days...

Well it has been a busy week with the new car and family here. We have done a lot! Been to Ivanhoe Crossing.

Finally climbed up Kelly's Knob for a view of our town.

Here is Don pointing the way back to Rottnest!

What's a trip to Kununurra without going and feeding the fish at Zebra Rock Gallery!

Think petrol is expensive your way??!! We braced ourselves for the first time we filled the tank! And that is for only half a tank! We then drove back to El Questro and stayed at Emma Gorge Resort like we did last time.

On the drive out we popped into Molly Springs on the way.

Emma Gorge is as beautiful as always. Way to cold for me to swim but Daz, Don and the girls went in for a brisk dip.

Then the boys had a spot of fishing along the Pentecost River.

This view makes up for that horror of a few weeks report writing!

And on the way home we checked out Wyndham which I found bleak and depressing and was so thankful that we got Kununurra as a posting rather than out there!

Blue Squares Quilt

We have just arrived home from a few days here again. Testing out the new car, showing the in laws the sights. Received two delightful emails while away. Sheridan has received the little mini Dresden Plate I made for her and my friend N has received her 4th son's baby quilt, so I can share photos!

I've called this the Blue Squares Quilt. Which isn't hard to see why! It all came together quite quickly. I sewed these squares in one day at my local real life quilting group. The only guidelines I set myself was that I had to use fabric from my blue stash and the blocks had to be 8 inches, going for the square in the square look. Then it was just a matter of sashing them with white. I didn't take any measurements, but I think it was 3.5 inches between the blocks, so 3 inches finished?

Then I just quilted simply around the inner square and from edge to edge around each square.

Here is Milly with the quilt on her bed. I took this more as a reference for me as if I had made it 3 squares across, it would have sat perfectly on top of the mattress.

And the back. Using up more of the blue stash. I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out, I'd like to make more like this.

The New Car!

We interrupt all sewing activity to acknowledge the arrival of our new car! Big day here today! Daz's folks arrived with our new car. We are very excited, having a 4wd just will open up a whole new world of exploring up here. And having such a flash car too!!

The girls were very excited to see their grandparents too. They have driven up from Perth, so about 3,500kms.... we drove out the last 60kms to the Wyndham turn off to meet them, that's how excited we all were!

Here is Daz about to go for his first drive! Let the adventure really begin now!

Friday's Fabric!

Okay, so it's not Friday but I have received some fantastic sewing related stuff over the last few days! A few weeks ago I got an email from the Fat Quarter shop saying they missed me and here was a 25% off voucher for my next purchase! How can you resist that?? So I got a Kona Solids Jelly Roll in both the Bright and Classic colourway. And also filled up the satchel with two yards of Bella Solids Snow. I'll admit I was dissappointed when I saw it, it's more yellow than I thought it would be, more a cream than a white. Even in the above photo it looks white, but it's cream! Oh well, it will be used for something I am sure.

And from Bec, who has started selling fabric online. Lovely service and supa fast postage, thanks Bec!

And my dear sister sent me a care package. I forwarded on the 25% off Fat Quarter Shop voucher to her, as good sisters do, so she could spend up too. And she brought me two Kona Jelly Rolls as well!!! The magazines are on loan, I will say that for the record, I will post them back! Thanks Ad!

And yesterday we had a lady come to our Quilting Group. I'll admit I am a bit skeptical at these sorts of things, who needs more gadgets! But saying that, look what I came away with! There is a thread cutter pendent which means I can take it on an airplane as it's just a pendent, right?! Some self threading needles which are just amazing! The roll on the right? It is a sew slip mat that you put on the bed of your sewing machine when doing FMQ and the fabric just glides. I tested it there, I was impressed! And this quilt halo thing, its like a heavy metal round loop and you put it on your quilt when you are FMQ and hold that to guide your quilt around instead of the fabric. An aid to FMQ. I'm working up the courage to quilt my wonky house quilt, so I will take all the help I can get!

So even though I live just under 1,000kms from my nearest quilt shop, who says I can't still go shopping!

Milly's Merit Certificate!

Well after being in Grace's shadow when it has come to getting merit certificates, Matilda had her turn at school today! When her name was called out she was a bit surprised and slowly made her way up to the front wondering huh? me? I could just see it on her face! Awarded for being a kind and caring class member who has taken on the role of Sleeping Beauty during our Fairytale theme this term! You were brilliant! (She has fallen asleep TWICE in two weeks at school. Once during story time in the afternoon and this week curled up in a box in the middle of the playground during lunchtime in the sun!) Congratulations Milly!! A great end to a fantastic semester of school, couldn't be prouder of you!