A Window of Green.

I finished a quilt. Don't fall off your chair! This quilt was started back here in April and the birthday it was intended for came upon me very quickly..... last Thursday!

 

I'm pleased with the quilting, very textural. I did have some issues with some of the seams being pulled out of shape with the quilting but overall you can't notice it. And I am learning if you don't point out the faults to anyone then they don't notice them!

Nice size for a picnic rug. It ended up measuring 82 inches by 60 inches.

The backing was fun to sew. Used up a bit of green! Its spinning around in the washing machine as I type this post. I don't usually wash a quilt before gifting it but the binding got dirty during the photo shoot! Bugger!! I hope to walk over to the 15 year old's house later on this afternoon, she loves green so I'm sure she will love this quilt for her bed.... fingers crossed!

EB Quilter Bee Blocks!

Its been slow sewing around here lately. Life is getting in the way of sitting down behind the machine! I have finally completed my blocks for the last two months of the EB Quilters Bee. I have realized that I am down for October, the last month, so I better start thinking about that I want the girls to sew for me! The whirlygigs are for Mands and the crosses are for Denni.Hope you like them ladies!

Alyssa's Quilt Finished.

I finished the binding for Alyssa's quilt. Used some Kaffe. Sometimes you look at your beautiful fabric in the stash and think what special project am I saving this for? And then you realize the project you are sewing now is that special project. So you cut the beautiful fabric.

 

I hope she likes it. I hope it makes her feel better.

Fun Fact!

Fun fact I have discoverd while quilting this quilt. I am using two different types of thred, about 30 to 40 lines of green, then about 4 - 9 lines of yellow. Gutterman 100% cotton will sew about 9 lines before the bobbin needs changing.  Aurifil 40 weight cotton thread will do about 39 lines before the bobbin runs out! There you go!

Getting ready to quilt!

 

Thank you for your kind comments about Alyssa's quilt in my last post. Milly has been sick the last three days, just a gastro bug going around town. During her napping in the day though I have been working on Alyssa's quilt and am up to sewing down the binding which I have been doing while sitting up in bed whne Milly is awake and answering her questions. "Mummy, will we ever go to London?" "Mummy, why do you like sewing?" "Mummy, am I going to be sick forever?" "Mummy, are adverts on the radio the same as adverts on tv?" "Mummy, why does your head get smaller when I close one eye?" All the while I am sewing a quilt for a little girl who is very sick and thinking of her parents and what they are going through. Making my three days of emptying buckets of bile vomit and cooling down Milly's brow with a wet flannel seem easy..... 

On Saturday however, I realized that the girl this quilt is for, her birthday is rapidly approaching next month. So I took it out from were it had been hanging in our wardrobe and went over to her house - she was at work - to check with her Mum if it would fit on her bed okay. Good thing I did as I then realized it needed just one more row. So thankfully I added that in quickly over the rest of the weekend.

Here it is on our lounge room floor stretched out ready to be pinned. It measures 63 by 87 inches. I was thinking of quilting it like this quilt here which I had admired since I saw it. But all that twisting and turning which such a large quilt...... Maybe I'll just go with straight wonky lines, right to left. Easier and less stressful. Save the spiral quilting for next time.

Alyssa's Quilt.

This is a quilt for a year one girl at our school called Alyssa. She was diagnosed in April as having a brainstem tumor and has been in Perth since then. Her teacher at school is a friend and we thought about the quilt I made for Miss W's wedding last year and so the idea for this quilt was born. The kids in her class all did a block. I've just simply sewn them together, popped a simple 2 inch border around it and am ready to sandwich it. Hope it brings a smile on her face.

Green Squares.....

 

I have finished the quilting on the two red and white runners. The natural step would be to move onto the binding, wouldn't it? Well that didn't quite happen, I started a new quilt instead. I recently signed up for a charm square swap and the colour I had to send was green. So going through the green drawer in the stash made me realize I have a lot of odd shaped bits of material, like a 10 inch square with a 3 inch bit cut out of a corner making it an L shape. So I went through them all, ironed them and trimmed them down to roughly 4.5 inch strips in different widths, 1 inch being the smallest, 1 and 3/4ths being the largest.

Then I sewed them into squares. The idea being sort of a lattice effect. Scrappy, random placement. I need to make more though! I need 100..... back to the green box.

Let the Games Begin!

 

Well the Olympics have begun! Yahh! I am lucky that my sewing nook has a hole in the wall so I can view the action as I sew! See the horse in the background? The dressage event just confuses me, making the horse do all those maneuvers around. Is that a skill worthy of the Olympics? If its about controlling an animal, what about including sheep dog trials??

But anyway, I am quilting two table runners. I unpicked the three panals of this quilt and have made it into two runners. I wasn't happy with the design of that quilt, don't know what I'll do with the third panal. I'm doing "organic line" quilting on these, using my free motion foot to do lines instead of the walking foot. Its fun! In one of them I am doing pebble quilting, and the other is more lines. Back to the games!

Pink and Purple Zig Zags.

I finished sewing the binding down for this during the recent school holidays but didn't blog it as there was so much other sewing action going on. This quilt was for a friend from school who was having her first baby, a baby girl. She had the baby on Tuesday and we went to visit her in hospital this afternoon after school. And took in her new quilt. It was joyous. New life, new parents and I had a cuddle of a two day old baby.

 

The backing was a soft Prints Charming print. A few splashes of orange amungst all that pink!

A close up of the different prints. It was a good stash busting quilt.

Christmas in July.

 

Another table runner completed for Christmas. I love doing these whirly gigs. So easy but effective.

This one measures 21 x 55 inches. I used some of my recent Kona purchases for the binding. Not quite enough in the one green, so I used a paler green as well.

 

The backing was fun to sew. Using up fat quarters in the stash I wouldn't normally use.

The white squares were all scrappy prints. Next table runner now!

Green Geese.

 

I have had this block bookmarked in my "patterns" folder for a few weeks now. Had my blues and greens picked out. Made a block, just one to test the size. I get why they say do just one block before cutting all your fabric, I did one. It was terrible. All bulky seams, points not matching. Not even worthy of a blog photo! Straight in the bin! So with all my blues and greens out I was still looking for  inspiration for another table runner.

So I pulled down my copy of Liberated Quiltmaking 2 as I remembered them having a similar block. But while flicking through the pages I found the wonky flying geese chapter and thought aha, I'll do two rows of geese instead. A block were accuracy is not essential! More my style. So sewed these up yesterday and today. Was thinking dark, light, dark but nope, not working. So just gone for two rows of the light.

 

The darker background aren't put to waste though, they'll make up a section of the backing!

A Brush With the Prime Minister.

 

Well a slight interuption to the sewing this morning as we rub shoulders with Australia's Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard.

She is up in this corner of Australia doing a two day whirlwind tour. We couldn't miss the opportunity to go down to the local park this morning, watch her plant a tree and say hello. I helped the girls make a quick sign to attract her attention and it worked! Half way through the planting, her media man came over and asked if she had seen the sign Grace was holding. I said she had made eye contact and he said he would make sure she came and said hello. She was very friendly, shook the girls hands and asked them their names. I took the first photo and then she suggested that maybe I would like to be in the next shot. All very exciting!

International Get Some Kona Solid Fabric In The Mail Day!

 Yesterday was International Get Some Kona Solid Fabric In The Mail Day. To celebrate I recieved this stack in the mail! Two very generous bits and pieces scrap bags from Pink Chalk. Great colour selection. Colours I wouldn't normally choose but are good to have a little 30cm bit in the stash, just in case..... and some half yard cuts down the bottom from the always generous sister of mine. Thanks Ad! I hope you all had a fantastic International Get Some Kona Solid Fabric In The Mail Day as well!

 It's the second week of school holidays here and the sewing has commenced in seriousness yesterday! You know how sometimes it is easier just to finish a project rather than fold it back up and put it away? That has happened with this Christmas tablerunner. I had about 12 of these blocks made and the fabric cut ready to go for the rest, so it was just a matter of sewing them. Sew, sew, sew, let the kids get their own lunch, sew, sew, sew.... rummage amungst the new pile of fabric for the backing and binding....

.... and wolah! All ready to hand sew in place. Next table runner please!

Agricultural Show Wrap Up.

It was the local Agricultural Show this weekend. Remember last year? This time I placed a first in "Appliqued - Other Article" for this table runner.

 

And also a first in "Patchwork - Other Article". I did enter the pink and purple zig zag baby quilt I had just finished but that didn't get a place. So I still have to crack the first place for "Patchwork - Quilt"! So a quilt the style of this runner? Pastels and floral? Just cause I live in the country do I really have to do a country styled quilt to win??!

Milly picked up a third for this drawing. I took it to school to laminate and the laminator chewed up one end! The horror!!! She took about 3 weeks to do the detail on this drawing!

Milly did score a first in the "Any Other Construction Model Not Lego" with this castle that she actually made at school.

 

And Grace? She reluctantly entered this dragon eye drawing which didn't place. I really had to encourage her to have a go and enter something as she is nearing that why should I bother stage and then nothing.... I know a child can't win a certificate or get acknowledged for everything but poor Gracie, sometimes always in the shadow of her younger sister. I'll keep on encouraging!

Lovely Litchfield!

 

No sewing this week as it is the school holidays here and we decided to visit Litchfield Park across the border in the Northern Territory. All our previous trips to Darwin have just been a rush to get to the shops and movies but this trip we decided to meet up with Darren's folks in the sleepy hollow that is Batchelor, make that our base and do a mix of Litchfield sights and shopping! Above is Wangi Falls. So nice we visited it twice! The water was crystal clear.

  

Tolmer Falls was seen from the viewing platform as see that little black hole at the bottom of the falls? Home to several colonies of rare Ghost Bats and Orange Horseshoe Bats apparantly.

Our favourite spot though was a place called Buley Rockhole. A series of waterfalls and rock-holes were you could wander down away from everyone else and find your own little pool. Which was good cause guess who forgot to pack their bathers??! It was cold when we left Kununurra! Didn't think we'd be swimming in the dry season!

Just had to include this photo. Now we know were the girls and Daz get their camera face from!

The other big attraction at Litchfield is Florence Falls. It was very busy here.

The park is also famous for these Magnetic Termite Mounds. The mounds are aligned north to south to minimise the exposure to the sun.

In typical Aussie fashion, we had to take the shots of child trying to push over giant termite mound.

 

And also the shot of the whole family in front of the termite mound.

We also visited Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin.

They had a great reptile display, including this water monitor that was itching to get out of his enclosure.

 

And lots and lots of crocodiles including this one who was the same length as our boat, 4.9 metres! But now we are back home and I have a week of sewing time stretched out in front of me!

Ticker Tape Table Runner!

What is this then? A finished table runner?? Just for something different hey? But the difference is that this one is for my table. All mine!

 

Now that it is finished it reminds me of ticker tape. A great way to use up all those tiny scraps.

For the backing I finally got to use a peice of Amy Butler that I have had for ages. A design that didn't seem to ever go with anything but looks right at home here! School holidays are just around the corner so I am looking foward to spending days just sewing!