Summer Sewing!

I feel like I have Christmas under control, so today I turned my attention to the sewing machine. I wanted to sew a table runner, I know, typical Helen, sewed a billion table runners this year, but I like sewing something little and giving it as a gift. I have a few birthdays in February so thought I'd get in early. So I pulled some fabric from the stash with the floral fabric from Kaffe being my feature fabric.

I wanted to go the square in a square, wing it as you go technique like I did for this runner and this one. I had a piece of wadding left over from another project so I was sewing to fit that. Five squares seemed to fill the space nicely. Then the day unfolded with everyone in the house happily doing there own thing and leaving me to my sewing.

I got it quilted and the binding on, all ready to hand sew down tomorrow night. Interestingly enough my walking foot was not smooth, the stitches were inregular and it ws glinding through. I took it off and put on a normal foot, increased my stitch length up to one notch below max, and perfect lines were the result. I so need a new machine though!

Red Squares Runners.

It's nearly Christmas and its the season for bringing out all those table runners I made earlier this year to give away! I had forgotten about these two, they were cut from the quilt that wasn't meant to be, back here.

I quilted the lines with the free motion foot for a bit of extra waviness. That and I didn't fancy turning it around at the end of each line if I had used the walking foot. I used white thread for the white background but a verigated thread of different shades of red for the red area.

I'm happy with how they turned out. Christmas looking but not enough to be used at other times of the year I hope.

I like how the non quilted areas pop. I have already given one away and the other is wrapped under the tree waiting till we see the person it is intended for.

And at the final whole school assembley, guess who picked up the Art Award for Middle Primary? Grace! Go Gracie! Working at the school I knew about it in advance but said nothing to her and the look of amazement on her face when her name was called, was just priceless! So we are on school holidays now till the end of January. I hear my sewing machine calling me.

Lynne's Butterfly.

I sewed a butterfly earlier this week. Lynne sent me an email asking if I would be a tester for a tutorial she has written. I said yes of course and as a result I now have this beautiful butterfly!

Rainbow Whirlygig Quilt Top Finished.

I finished this quilt top today. In true Helen fashion, I only had to sew on four strips to frame it and that simple task sat there uncompleted for the last two weeks. And when I finally did get around to doing it, it only took five minutes! I really like this block.

When I went outside to take a photo there was an odd small moaning sound coming from the tree. At first glance I could see nothing.

But at second glance these two little guys were staring back at me. They didn't mind getting their photo taken and two hours later they are still sitting there. I think they are Tawny Frogmouths, cool name.

EB Quilters Doll Quilt Swap #6.

I signed up a few months ago for the 6th EB Quilters Doll Quilt Swap. Signed up reluctantly I must admit and only signed up because AJ made me!! LOL I used to love swaps but now am a bit over it all. I procrastinated for weeks until I pulled out four left over blocks I had made back in June 2009 here. There was 8 blocks originally but the other four ended up in this quilt finished in March 2010. That quilt is now over in the UK and this one is over in NSW! What I am basically trying to say is hang onto to your left over blocks as they may come in handy one day!

The quilting was very simple. I wanted it to be soft and drap around a doll if needed.

And I recieved this quilt in return from Shirley, who coincidentally was the one that recieved my quilt! Thanks Shirley, the hand quilting is lovely. Grace has her teddy snuggled under it.

An Aqua Quilt.

 I originally refered to this quilt as blue, but it is really more an aqua colour. Either way it is finished. Binding sewn down and label on! Yahh! It does feel nice to have a finished quilt, it has been awhile. It measures 32 x 41 inches, perfect cot size for a few born that is 3 months old now!

The quilting was just straight lines up and down. It was the last quilt to be quilted on Mum's Janome 1600. She has taken it away with her and now I have my little Brother to sew with. The husband has given me the okay to buy a new machine. Any recommendations?

Casino Royale.

A few months back I signed up for a charm square swap. The kind where you send in 24 orange blocks and get back one colour each from a rainbow from 23 other people. I signed up for two bundles figuring I'd get two squares of each colour to make a whirly gig quilt. That was the rough plan. Not much sewing going on here lately but I can still cut up fabric and visit the post office! They arrived and have sat unattended for a few weeks until last night. Perfect sewing conditions in our house. Children in bed by 7.30. Husband in bed by 8.30. Coffee consumed at friends house after dinner which must have been extra strong as by 8.40 I was sketching up a plan, then cutting away as Casino Royale started on telly at 9.00! My favourite James Bond movie ever, perfect!

This is what it should look like afterwards if I have pinned all the right sides together. That is the plan at least....

Happy 8th Birthday Milly!

Happy 8th birthday dear Milly Moo! This photo sums you up perfectly. You like to wear pretty dresses like a young lady. You still carry Berry your teddy with you when you are tired and we are going out a night. You like to pull funny crazy faces at the camera like your Dad. And you like to apply your learning knowledge outside the classroom as seen here, demonstrating how a tsunami is made with your icecream! Thank you for being you! We love you very much Milly!

Fall 2012 Bloggers Quilt Festival

Well its that time of the year again, the Blogger's Quilt Festival! This is my quilt. It is not the most fancy quilt in the festival, it is very simple, a 4 patch block made from scraps from the stash. It was a real quick whip up quilt made in one weekend back in mid 2008 to practice accurate cutting and sewing and also as a stand by in case I needed a baby boy quilt. I think I may have jinxed myself as after sewing it, the next three babies I made quilts for were all girls and all pink. It sat folded up waiting to be quilted until July 2009 and a special boy was born and I needed a blue quilt fast!

This quilt is also special as its the first quilt that I quilted on my Mum's Happy Jack frame. It was awesome! My little dodgy Brother machine did a great job stippling away.

A close up of the stippling....

But here is the real reason this quilt is special. It is proof of how blogging and quilting can make a friendship even though you haven't meet the person! I meet AJ online, back when? I can't remember when! We both quilt, we'd chat online, swap fabric, participate in the same swaps. We meet a few years ago when we visited her home city. We went fabric shopping together! A friendship grew and when her son was born, this quilt was his. It is loved and he takes it everywhere. AJ did a beautiful post of how her son loves his quilt here. From two months old to three years. Sleeping under it and playing on it, a loved quilt, rather than a folded up in the cupboard quilt. Awesome!

Thanks to Amy for hosting the festival once again. Check out the other quilts here.

Cape Lequeve.

Term three holidays have just passed and something quite strange happened. I did not sew anything for the whole two weeks. I can't believe I just typed that. My sewing mojo has flown out the window it seems. Maybe I have left it here? On the break we went to Cape Lequeve which is right on the tip of the Dampier Peninsula, 220km north of Broome, 1,044km east of Kununurra. Famous for its red cliffs on the beach on the Western side.

And its endless perfect beaches on the other side of the Peninsula.

We spent our days at the beach. The girls went boogie boarding.

I got to try out the underwater feature of my new camera.

Daz got to practise putting the new boat in the water....

And then bringing it back in 5 hours later when the tide had gone out. Massive 12 metre tides in this part of the world, these two photos were taken from the same spot.

There was some fishing involved but no keepers. We did have an amazing experience of a pod of about 6 dolphins swimming and jumping in front of the boat on the second last day. That was so cool!

On the way home we stopped in at Beagle Bay to look at the chuch built by the Missionaries which is decorated with pearl shells and other shells.

It was a great break, very relaxing. A lovely part of Australia which not many people have managed to visit. Now just nine more weeks till our next holiday! And I am hoping to find my sewing mojo by then!

A Quilt Top in a Week?

I feel quite proud of myself. From cutting to finished quilt top in a week. I sewed all the dissapperaing 9 patches together, added a 2 inch sashing and wolah, finished! It measeures 32 by 42 inches. Perfect newborn baby size.

And I have gone for my flavour of the month quilting technique, straight up and down quilting lines. In blue Aurifil. So far I have quilted 52 lines without having to change the bobbin! Have to love that!!!

Blue Disappearing 9 Patch Baby Quilt.

Look, I am sewing again! A friend had a baby boy on the weekend. She kept the sex of the baby a suprise and so I have held off on sewing anything till he was born. So now I have to whip up something quick! What does one turn to in such a case? The good old dissappearing 9 patch block! This one is three 9 patches across and four down. With a bit of luck I should have the top finished by the weekend....

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.