Another Tablerunner!

I have bit of a head cold at the moment so yesterday I stayed home from work, popped myself on the couch and sewed down the binding for this table runner. It is made from mini charm squares, I like to slice them in half and sew them together at quiet times. They make a quick table runner!

A Quilting Retreat

 

So here is my luggage for a one night/two day quilting retreat. That's not bad is it??! I have my ironing board, bathers, extension cords and lots of fabric, so I'm all set!

 

 

This is what the view from my seat looked like for most of Saturday. A friend wanted to make a quilt like this one and so I decided to make one with her. I said to my friend, now be really careful when you unroll your jelly roll, you don't want to get the colours out of order, leave them exactly how they are and sew them in that order. So off she went like a good little girl and sewed them all exactly as they were when they were unravelled. Meanwhile I sew a few of mine in order and then think, oh that green would look better down there and that blue should really be over there. So I started messing mine all up and kept on sewing. It was bit of a weird blend, there was only one true red and heaps of yellowy/greens. I should have pulled a few out, but I was in the zone and kept on sewing.

 

A few hours later here we are with our finished quilt tops. Rows sewn together, pressed, cut, white sashing sewn on, strip rotated and sewn back together. I think my friends looks awesome!!! Mine, I feel a bit meeeeh...

 

 

Even the beautiful location couldn't shake that feeling.

 

Maybe I should quilt a tree over the top of it?? Instead I fold it up and get to work on something else. That night I get out ipad and look at the photos and for a 40 minutes have this in-depth discussion with my room mate about what I could do to make this quilt better. We discussed unpicking the green/yellow bit, but no too tricky with the white sashing. We discussed rainbow squares around the outside with a thinner white sashing? We discussed quilting options to make it pop. And then in a moment of frustration I said, I may as well just chop the thing in half. That was the lightbulb moment! Chop it in half and make two smaller quilts.

 

The first was easy. Just a simple chop and then add the white around the edges. Perfect. Quilt number one finished. Very happy quilter now.

 

Quilt number two needed a little bit of something else. So I did another cut and rotate and sew back in with white sashing. Looks like a landscape. Quilt number two finished. An extremely happy quilter indeed now!

Here is the whole gang with all their work for the weekend.

A Finished Quilt in March?

Well the retreat is this weekend and I have finished the sample quilt for the Jelly Roll Race.

The machine quilting has pulled it a bit.
I must learn to love my walking foot then this wouldn't happen!

I love the texture though. Bring on the weekend!

Go Anti Clockwise!

There is nothing like a deadline, a long weekend and a husband away on a 48 hour fishing trip to get the sewing juices flowing again! Next weekend I am off on a Quilting Retreat, it is to the same place with the same ladies as last year here. I put my hand up and said I would host the jelly roll session and so I will be walking the ladies through making the Jelly Roll Jam 2 Quilt from the free pattern section of the fantastic Fat Quarter Shop. So I "had to" make a sample to show them next weekend. It came together pretty quickly and I was down on the floor with my pins sandwiching it together before I knew it. Even though its a very geometrically pattern, I thought I would do a big circle spiral quilting pattern, just for practice. I really like the effect it creates. So I marked a starting point, put the darning foot on and away I went. Anti clockwise. I didn't realize then I'd be up for a d'oh moment soon. I did the first five ripples of the circle then changed over to my open toe foot, I just can't fall in love with my walking foot, I get better results with a normal open toe foot. So another ten ripples later and I notice I am getting really bunched up at a certain curve in the neck making it a bit tricky to push through, it was supposed to get less bulk in the neck as the circle got bigger, not more. Then the d'oh moment hit me, I should have gone in a clockwise direction.

But I continued on till the quilting reached an edge and then I flipped it around in a clockwise direction. I've just got the binding to go now. Tomorrow is a public holiday here in WA so I'll get it done in no time.

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my blue and green table runner int he last post too. :)