Smiling Quilting Gods!

 

I have been waiting on a parcel of thread to arrive and at last this week it turned up. (I won't rave about the company here as although the thread is beautiful and due to the strong Australian dollar, I got it at a good price, the customer service for this particular company was appalling and I doubt I would shop there again, no matter how good the dollar is!) Anyway, my lovely thread arrived and I took the pink and purple zig zag quilt out of storage and sandwiched it up ready to go this weekend.

And it is amazing what a combination of pinning together close enough, 100% cotton and a new needle can do! It's like the quilting god was smiling down on me as it all went perfectly. I started in the middle with a row of pink, used the walking foot as a guide and sewed about a cm in from the edge in the pink. A lot of turning and stopping and starting but I got to the end soon enough. Then after doing the middle pink row, I changed the thread and bobbin and did the white row on each side. Again, just a cm from the edge. Then when those four lines were done, I popped the purple thread in and did the same. Working from the middle row to the top and bottom. Once the purple was done, white was put back in the machine, then pink, then white, then purple and then white! Bit time onsuming but effective. Simple quilting for this one, I want it to have a soft drap and not be quilted too heavily.

 

And I have these blocks to post in the mail as part of the Flickr Bee. These are for Laura, she wanted off white, white, cream backgrounds only with different prints on them. I had a limited range in the stash but I think these fit the bill for Laura!

The Red Robot Quilt

 

After the last post, this quilt top came together quickly. Lots of strips of white and trimming. I think I might rename this quilt the Red Robot. It reminds me of a robot somehow.

 

 

That big red one, the biggest one may be too big in hindsight but hey, I'm not unpicking it!

Red Squares!

 It feels odd here this weekend. The girls have gone off on their first ever Girl Guides camp! My heart is going but Milly's only in year 2, she's too young!!!! But her best friend is going and her best friend's Mum is one of the leaders, they are only camping on a property a 5 minute drive from us, Grace is there and as Daz keeps telling me, she'll be fine! And she will, they were both so excitied this morning.

So that leaves me the whole weekend to work uninterupted on this project which shall now be known as the Red Square Quilt. Maybe I should branch out and sew other designs rather than squares but there is something about them.... I lay the blocks on the floor. Each has been framed with the same Kona solid, tomato I think?

Now I am starting to add white. Three rows of red squares, something like that, winging it as I go.

Purple Squares Runner Finished!

I finished sewing down the binding for this runner yesterday. Yahhh! I am really happy I did all that unpicking.

The binding is some Kaffe.

The backing is an assortment of prints. Just have to sew the label on.

Looks good on my table! I have some red squares in the background ready for the next project, a baby quilt for a baby. Don't know if it's a boy or a girl, I'm thinking hot red on white for something modern and funky for the young parents to be.

Super Sunday Sewing!

I have had an awesome day of sewing today! I have made a super early start and finish on my sewing blocks for the EB Quilters block swap. These squares are for Milly. She asked for scrappy multicoloured mitred squares and said the brighter the better as she was happy with "clown vomit" colours! These should certainly fit the trick then!

Then I got the stippling foot out andstippled this table runner. After learning from my recent mistakes, I sandwiched and pinned it properly! I love stippling, I should do it more often. So now I have two table runners to bind.

Purple Square Success!

Well it has taken me a week to unpick but I have done it, success! A lesson in why not to be impatient! After unpicking it all, I ironed it, taped the backing down firmly, instead of skipping that part totally like before. Used my long 24 inch ruler to smooth the wadding and top layer as I place each one down, skipped that bit before. Pinned it about 2 - 3 inches apart instead of like 5 - 6 inches before. Changed the thread to 100% cotton rather than the cheap polyester thread I was trying to use up! Stitch length to 3.5, pressure foot to 3 and wolah, machine quilting success. I have the binding on ready to hand sew down while watching telly this week.