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?

Grace's Merit Certificate.

Proud parent moment this morning. Grace got the merit certificate for her class at school assembly. "For her willingness to try her hardest at what ever task it is. It is a pleasure to have her in the class". For a girl who was less than impressed on her first day at school up here, she is doing okay. Well done Gracie!

And to keep this post quilting related, Sew Mama Sew are having another May Giveaway Day! Details here. I participated in the Decemeber 2008 and it was great, I got 315 comments. Wonder if I can beat that this year. Don't know what I'll give away yet, something quilted to hang on the wall maybe.....

"The Rules" - My Quilt From Lynne.

My quilt from Lynne arrived today at last. I was quite good, I collected it from the Post Office and didn't open it till I arrived home! It was wrapped in a red ribbon, I untied it and unfolded and unfolded and unfolded again to be left speechless! All I could say was Oh Lynne! Ohhhhhhhhh!

If you obey the rules you miss out on all the fun! As said by Miss Katherine Hepburn. There I am! I am the mark in an explanation mark!

It is amazing! It is beautiful! It is perfect! It is me!! I love it!!! I love all the straight stitching, I love the colours, the colours are just beautiful.

Tonya Ricucci from LazyGal Quilting fame was "blown away" when she saw pictures of it. I have my smirky happy grin on here as I get to look at this beauty every day now! And I know the perfect spot on the wall where everyone who comes over will see it and say If you obey the rules you miss out on all the fun! Thanks again Lynne, it has been a great swap, I couldn't be happier.

A Quilt for Lynne.

The quilt I made for Lynne has arrived. Yahhh! Australia Post is looking after mine from her for just a little bit longer but that's okay, I am enjoying knowing it's near. By Monday I am sure I will be squealing!

She squealed when she opened it. Can you tell by the grin on her face? Now it has arrived in her home I can share some photos I took while making it.

I knew I wanted to do wonky houses and trees. I was thinking along the lines of my house and a tree that represented the area that I live in and then Lynne's house with a tree found growing in her area of the world. That was a rough plan. So I did this house first. I'm not too sure if it is Lynne's place or mine.

Then I added a tree. On a little hill.

My plan for the trees on our regions went out the window though. It was just too much fun doing flying geese tree's. At this stage I was thinking I'd do two tree's.

Then I added the second house, a pink rocket house on a hill. I'd love to live there! The other tree was going to go on the other side of the pink house but then I thought, nope, too small.

Then I started to do the quilting... I wanted texture.

So I pebble quilted the sky with a verigated blue 100% cotton thread. It took ages!

It made the pink in the houses "pop" out too much, I didn't like that. So I pebble quilted them too. And the roof too.

And then of course I had to do the other house. And the windows, and that roof as well!

The grass I did wavey lines. By this stage the pebbling was making the quilt very stiff. I had to roll it up in a tube to post to her. Worth it though. :)