Round Robin Quilt Finished!

Thanks to being glued to my seat on the lounge this week watching MasterChef, I have managed to finish sewing the binding down on my Round Robin quilt top and so, apart from the very important label, I have finished!

Yesterday the girls and I walked over to our local park to take some photos. That's our house just across the lake!

What do they say? Never work with children or animals? Grace was fantastic behind the quilt holding it up despite a strong breeze blowing. All was good until Matilda decided to help.

I love how they think it is totally normal to go to the park to photograph a quilt with their Mum. Isn’t that what every one does on a Sunday morning?

Lots of giggling later I think I got my shot.

It measures about 50 inches square. I’d say I would have used at least 2,000 metres of thread. I was using bobbin fill for the bobbin thread and I went through a 1,500 reel. About 500 metres was on other projects previously, lets just say I used a lot of thread…. But worth it as I’m really happy with how it has turned out.

After we took these photos we wandered down closer to the lakes edge and saw this guy just hanging in the sun.

Blocks for Rita.

May for our Around The Block swap is Rita's month! She requested blocks created out of half square triangles and squares, pieced as you desire, preferring small blocks that are more heavily pieced rather than a large block with minimal piecing. The top block measures 8.5 inches and the bottom pinwheels are 4.5 inches. Hope she likes these!

C's Dolls Quilt Finished.

I realized yesterday (thank you all for the birthday wishes!!!) as I was downloading the photos from the camera I hadn't posted photos of C's dolls quilt finished. I forgot to measure it before it was wrapped and handed to the birthday girl. It turned out a bit bigger than the size of a pillow case. C's Mum has told me that she uses it as a little quilt on her bed.


These blocks have had quite a journey to get into this quilt. At first they were going to be for this quilt! Half of them ended up in this quilt. Now I just have a few more to maybe make one more quilt out of. 4 quilts from one WIP, not bad!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Another year older, don't know about another year wiser though! Daz and I went out to tea last night, just the two of us too here. We are still pinching ourselves that he got placed in such a beautiful part of the world, we feel very lucky. The girls picked out this little painting for my present, done by a local artist Kerri Blades. Just love it.

Talking of lucky, congratulations to Shari who won the Giveaway Day Quilt! Yahhh! Thanks everyone for entering and all your comments. I have roughly done the results and it seems about $60 was the most popular going rate.

The 3rd Blogger's Quilt Festival!

It's on again! The Blogger's Quilters Festival, lots of quilty goodness without leaving your chair!

Back in the last festival I featured this quilt. And before that I featured this one. But this year I am featuring these two dolls quilts I made for the Flickr Dolls Quilt Swap #7. I made two, I can never bear posting one away, so I have to make one for myself as well. This post here shows how they came together. I love working in rainbow colours. And Terrie who received the top quilt was happy too.

Thanks for stopping by. Check out all the quilts on display here! See you next time!

Placemat from Kimmie.

I had a squishy package arrive from Kimmie earlier this week. It was my placemat from the recent Placemat Swap! Although I'm not calling it a placemat, it is a mini quilt, its just too lovely to eat from! I love the colours, very me. And the stripey square border effect looks great! Thank you Kimmie.

And she totally spoilt me with all these extra goodies. I especially love the note cards and the little keyring bag which holds some nail clippers! Very cool! Also she sent some chocolates but I'm afraid the children ate them before this photo!

This is what I have been working on my Round Robin quilt this week. An hour here and an hour there. Some days not even that! I'm averaging about 2 bobbins worth of thread a side. Getting there slowly, very slowly. I keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end.

Giveaway Day!

Giveaway day is here! This is the mini quilt I have made up for offer. All free pieced. Quilted on my whiz bang new machine. I even cut up some of my new Hope Valley! Can't get more special than that.


It measures 10 x 20 inches. I'll close entries on Friday evening. I'm happy to post international. All you have to do is leave a comment, but I was thinking I might do some market research at the same time. So in your comment, tell me how much you would pay for a wall hanging quilt like this? $40? $60? $80? $100? (Talking Australian $$'s.) I'd be curious to know. Thanks. :)

Check out all the other giveaways on offer here. There are 3 lists, check them all out. Good luck!!!

* Entries now closed! *

Placemat Swap for Kimmie.

I signed up for the Placemat Swap the other month. I scored Kimmie as my partner, yahhh! Being an "open" swap we know from the start who we are swapping with and it is a direct swap, so I sew for Kimmie, Kimmie sews for me. She has commented in the past on my Squid Eye Quilt so I knew red, white and black was the way to go.

Chatting with Kimmie I realized she didn't like wonky, so I went all symmetrical and squares. I was still in my pebble quilting phase and quilted it all over with a verigated red to black thread.

And the back. Here is bits of Kimmie's email when she got it. I must say it was one of the nicest emails I have received at the end of a swap!

OMG OMG OMG!!!! Helen!!! Your (I use the term loosely) placemat came today!! It is soooo not a placemat, but a wonderful quilt that's going right up on my bedroom wall! It is the most perfect, made for me, quilt ever!! I can't stop looking at it. My Mom was with me when we went to the PO and she kept saying "let me see that again", and I would say "wait a minute, I'm not done", and we were tugging it back and forth.... LOL I really love the little lone squares inside the other squares. And the quilting, is divine!! Its modern yet not wonky. You proved you don't have to be wonky to have a modern flare. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! Hopefully you receive yours today too, or tomorrow, since we sent them the same day. I hope you like yours too, its nowhere as fabulous as this one!! Hugs ( big hugs) Kimmie.

WIP Wednesday - Giveaway Day Mini Quilt Progress.

I have been thinking about what to sew for Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day. I had so much fun sewing Lynne's quilt. I'm using that as the inspiration for this little mini quilt. I made a tree. A pink tree.

And a rocket house..... in case you need to fly somewhere in a hurry.

And another tree in the neighborhood and wolah. I think I have my quilt top ready to quilt for Giveaway Day.

Hello Janome 1600P!

Hello Janome 1600P!! Isn't she a beauty? With the arrival of the parents also came the arrival of Mum's Janome 1600P she brought last year. I mean, they are in a caravan, they don't have room for this! It was bad enough that Mr Happy Jack had to be packed up into storage but this baby as well? No way! I told Mum to put it on the back seat and bring it up and I would babysit it. I have finally unpacked it at last. The parents have been here 3 weeks but I wanted to do Lynne's quilt and my placemat swap on my old machine, didn't want to waste time getting to know a new machine on projects that had to be done by a certain time, know what I mean?

I had to get a walking foot sent up from Perth as it had only been used for free motion quilting on the Happy Jack frame. So once that arrived I was ready to go. I've started quilting this little dolls quilt in time for the party on Saturday. Just a simple white straight stitch up and down. Already I am in love with the pressure foot adjuster, that's good! Extension table, very nice too. 9 inch window to work in, very, very nice!

I am just loving the stitches, all even and a dream to sew! It has made me realize there was something wrong with my previous walking foot or maybe it was my sewing machine? It can FMQ like a dream but it has never produced stitches like this while using my walking foot. Never. I always had to sort of tug the fabric through, now with this baby, it just glides. I did say to Daz that when the parents return to Perth and Mum wants her machine back, there is no way I can go back to sewing with my old machine, I'll need a new one by then. I just got the non commital hmmmmm from him. They are planning to be away for 18 months so I've got lots of time to work on him!

I've started thinking about what I am going to make for Give Away Day later this week. Using these fabrics. What is the saying? Pink and green should never be seen? pfftttttttt!

Lake Argyle.

As you may know, my parents are staying with us at the moment. We are up to the 3 week mark now and today we did the touristy thing and went for a cruise on Lake Argyle. Its a 60km drive out of town, we flew over it when we arrived, but that still didn't prepare us for how big, massive, enormous, humongous this expanse of water is.

It looks like this in all directions. Water, red cliffs and more water.

We did the Sunset Cruise with this company. It was good, I'd take the next tourists who visit us along for another cruise. It was sort of funny, we were the only locals except for the boat driver/commentator.

Happy Mothers Day Mum! No, don't take my photo again!

Matilda enjoying the breeze. We were so excited to get on the boat I didn't get a photo of it! No windows, just a rail at the side to hang on to when the driver went fast.

Grace on the close look out for any crocodiles.

See the little V shape in the water coming towards you? Look closer...

Well hello Mr Crocodile!

Snap, snap! He was about a metre away from the side of the boat in this shot. He is a freshwater crocodile which are consider to be timid and generally not dangerous to humans. Still.....

Well that's close enough for me I'd say!

We cruised around some more and then stopped for a swim while waiting for the sun to set.

And here is Daz gazing out on another Kimberley Sunset as we cruised towards were the boat was docked. Most likely thinking of all the work we has to do this week with his students!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

It is Mother's Day tomorrow but I got my pressie today! Ta Daaaaa! My new sewing machine trolley so I can carry my machine to my monthly Patchwork and Quilting Group in style. Of course I had to buy it myself and have it posted up here myself, I refused to wrap it though!

Today was our sewing day so I got to use it. I freaked at first cause I thought my machine didn't fit, but you have to take the cover off the machine to get it in the trolley! d'oh!

So I worked on today a quick dolls quilt top for a friend of Milly's who is having a 5th birthday party next week. I took these blocks left over from Milly's Log Cabin Quilt and trimmed them down to 5 inches. Just wanted it to be big enough to wrap around a doll or teddy.

Sashed them in white and here it is all done, ready to sandwich and then quilt. I am thinking simple straight white lines. Or maybe pink?