Last day of the School Holidays.

Yesterday was the last day of the school holidays. Daz had to go into work for a few hours so I had a decent burst at the sewing machine and got this runner finished. Got the top finished and the backing! Used some grey scraps. Looking good!

Then I managed to sandwich it and start quilting. I'm doing another giant spiral. Above is how much I do before I take off the free motion darning foot and pop the walking foot on.

Later in the afternoon we took the boat out for one last school holiday swim up at Elephant Rock. The water was so still, it was like glass.

The initial jump in was icey but within ten seconds it was lovely.

And then we watched the sun set and wondered why we would want to live anywhere else in the world? A perfect end to the holidays.

A Rainbow of Scraps.

I have finished doing all the quilting on the green quilt featured in my last post. It looks awesome, I'm very happy with how it has turned out. Of course I don't have the right shade of green for the binding so I have had to order some. So I'll wait till that arrives and finish that before sharing photos. In the meantime I have turned my attention to a quick and easy project. This is my box of scraps that sits under the table I sew at. Snips of various fabrics. The pile has been growing so I thought I would make something only with the fabric in here.

I cut strips about 3 inches long and an inch to an inch and a half wide, cut them just with scissors. And arranged them from dark red through to orange and yellow and then into green.

I have done five lengths although only three are photographed here. I have an off-cut of wadding, perfect table runner size so I am sewing to fit the length of that. Scraps of fabri, srcaps of wadding. I did find though when I lay out these strips that I could go further down the rainbow, I had the room on the wadding. But instead of going green into blue and then purple, I thought I'd go back up the rainbow, yellow, orange and red. It fitted perfectly!

So now I have trimmed it to about 2 inches wide and am sashing it with Slate Grey. This fabric wasn't in the scrap box. It is not a colour I normally use, actually it was left over from this quilt! Maybe I can still count it as a scrap as that was back in 2009!

Spiral Quilting!

I have finished this quilt top. Thank goodness for school holidays! I used the Kona solid Sour Apples for the borders. It's very green!

I was looking foward to quilting this as it meant that I could really test out the quilting ability of the new machine. I was thinking ditch in the stitch around the squares but then thought no, be more adventurous Helen. I have always admired the quilting on Krista's quilt here. One big giant spiral. So I took the plunge and decided to give it a go. I marked in chalk a guide of a small circle, about 10cms in diametre, then one a bit bigger, about 20cm and then used a dinner plate to mark a third circle. I used the darning foot to do the first 3 rings, then swapped to the walking foot. Wow, I am impressed. The machine is just gliding over the fabric. I am getting none of that fabric pull I fustratingly would get as in quilts like this one. And the knee lift was so handy! I'm loving the texture it creates, I think I have found my new favourite quilting design!

WIP Wednesday Week15?

Well we are back from our few days camping which you can read about here if you wish. Back in time to get back on the WIP Wednesday bandwagon. I think its week 15? Anyway, I am taking over the dining room table with all my green fabric cutitng up squares. I need 25, I have 24 here....

My New Sewing Machine.

My new sewing machine arrived this week. It has taken nearly a month to arrive which has been very fustrating. But it is here now and just in time for the school holidays which started today.Only had a few 20 minute bursts on it though as we are packing to go here for a few days. We are back on Tuesday though and then it will be foot down on that peddle! So far I am loving the extension table. Loving how quiet it is, how the fabric glides along. The only thing so far in the negative is no verticle big spool holder but I do have a free standing one that I used with my old machine, so no big deal. I am dying to do some actually quilting on it, that will be the real test of how good this baby is!

Happy 10th Birthday Gracie!

 

My baby turned 10 today. Double digits. The big one zero! That year just zipped past! I'll admit that Grace and I clash some days, I brace myself for her teenage years. But other days, like recently she is just lovely, sweet, kind and thoughtful with a positive attitude, I love those days! She is our Gracie Lou and we love her to bits. No party this year, just homemade pizza and watching old home video's of when the girls were babies. We still had a big cake though! Happy birthday Grace!

Green Squares or the Bugger Off Breast Cancer Quilt.

After finishing the last quilt featured in my last psot, it didn't take long for me to select fabric for my next quilt. Green, lots of green. We received the unexpected news that a dear friend up here has breast cancer. It was all very sudden, one Friday she was at the tavern after school drinking her usual diet coke, then that Monday she was in Perth having all sorts of tests. But this blog isn't about her journey fighting this horrible disease, I'll say no more except she is doing okay. Daz's folks have arrived in town and are staying in ther caravan out on our front verge. Its lovely to see them but it has meant that my sewing cutting area has been relocated to the top of the washing machine!!

I am making Mrs D a lap quilt. She likes greens, can you tell? I made her this table runner last year, I didn't want to go stars, so went for squares. I'm thinking 25, 5 rows of five each. So far I have 12. I have had to break my ban of fabric buying and purchase some Kona for the backing. Its for a good cause!

An Easter Finish.

I finished the binding on this earlier this week and have finally got around to taking some photos. I did a scrappy binding, five different prints to blend in with all the scrappy squares.

Look! Its a quilt with feet! It's so hard to get good help these days, I asked Daz to come out and help me take some photos. And despite him having a Photography Minor In a Bachelor of Arts Media Studies, he still takes a crap photo which I love teasing him about!

 I'm not ready Daz!

It measures 60 inches square, perfect lap size. It hasn't got a home to go to. I think I'll hang onto it till the local show in July and then gift it to someone.

Close up of the quilting, green pebbles for the green section, yellow pebbles for the yellow and blue pebbled for the blue section! This really was a great stash busting quilt, I used up prints that I wouldn't normally use.

It also makes a great cape as Milly discovered!

My Weekend.

I had a productive weekend, always helps when the husband goes away on a nine hour fishing jaunt! I have a friends birthday coming up in April and she likes blue. So a simple table runner was in order, I selected the fabric, sewed squares within squares to fit the wadding left over strip I had. Made the squares 9 inches then lined them up amd framed them all with Kona cornflower blue. Sandwiched it quickly then started quilting it, just simple up and down straight stitching. All done and waiting on the binding.

Go Milly!

 Milly recieved a merit certificate yesterday. For her enthusiasm towards learning. She is such a sponge for knowledge, she hasn't lost it yet, hopefully she won't ever. She is a delight to teach. Well done Milly, we are very proud of you.

I did find myself getting more excitied about this award though that was presented at the same assembly. The Big Barra Award is awarded to a kid who's behaviour has improved recently. And Alice won! Little Alice who created my favourite block from Miss W's quilt back in 2010. She has been in Milly's class for the last three years, two kids in the same class who will lead two different lives....

International Quilting Day.

Yesterday was International Quilting Day. So I pulled out this quilt top and finished quilting the last half a metre or so that I had to go. It didn't take long either, about an hour.

 So I had time to trim it, get the binding on and pin it into place.

All ready to hand sew down while watching the current favourite show in our house. I also celebrated International Quilting Day by buying a new sewing machine. This one here, now to wait paitently for the 10 - 12 days it will take to get here. I hope your International Quilting Day was just as productive!

Scrappy Trip Around The World Top Finished.

I had my real life quilting group today, I'm going along this year. I took these blocks with the intention of finishing this top and wolah, I did. We had a fantastic thunderstorm go through while I was there, came home to a flooded backyard! The dark brown squares are jumping out in this, but to be honest I don't really care, I'm over it! Have reached the "I just want it finished stage" and I still have no idea who this quilt is for. I decided to make this as I saw so many lovely ones around on blogs but now I have finished the top, I don't think its really me, I should stick to making stuff I like. Lesson learnt.

WIP Wednesday Week 10

I have been doing some of my Christmas cross stitch. Not sure about the V.... might have to add some more to the sides.

Scrappy Trip Around the World Update.

I have been plodding away on my blocks for this Scrappy Around the World quilt. After laying all these out on the floor, I think I have 6 more blocks to go till its at a size I am happy with. I don't know who this quilt is for though, uaually I make things for a person in mind but this one hasn't a home as yet and that feels odd I will admit.

Another February Finsh.

I finished the binding and label on this table runner yesterday, a few hours before the birthday girls dinner. Was very happy with how it turned out. The girls and I had to do some chores at a friends house out of town, so I took the runner and camera for a photo shoot in their overgrown paddock with the beautiful boab trees in the background.

This is the back, almost as good as the front!

Grace's was happy to be photographers assistant, "Mum, my arms hurt, can we go home now?" Another Febraury finish, have to be happy with that.

WIP Wednesday Week 8.

Work In Progress Wednesday, already the weeks are slipping by. I have sandwiched my sunny table runner and only have about 6 inches left to quilt. Nothing fancy, just the usual straight up, pivot, straight back down again. It's my friends birthday tomorrow but I'm not going to give this to her till Saturday night when we are going out for tea to celebrate. Check out what the rest of the WIP Wednesday ladies are up to here.

And now for something totally different, look! It is a cross stitch! I brought this at Spotlight when we were in Perth for Christmas in 2011. It has sat unopened on my shelf since them. I thought it would be fun to do in the car on htose long drives. I went to my girl friends house on Saturday, she is an avid cross stitcher, I took it along for her to get me started. This is where I got up to.... its going to take awhile but I have till Christmas!

Ready to Quilt....

 I have finished the top for this sunny runner, it is the one on the right. Ended up being four squares. I had one extra so I have put that on the backing, which is hanging on the left. Its very bright!

I haven't brought any fabric so far this year, but I have brought thread from here! This is what 10,000 yards of King Tut looks like. Love the names. Papyrus. Desert Wind. Baby Moses. Angel Yellow and Angel Green.Think I'll use Angel Yellow to quilt this sunny runner.

A Sunny Table Runner.

Well, the next runner is underway! I pulled a selection of red, orange and yellow fabric from the stash and started sewing squares in squares. I had an extra long peice of wadding I was sewing to the width of. I started with six blocks but they are 18 inches wide so I think it will be five blocks and I'll put one with the backing.

Now that I have sewn them, now I am going to slice them in quarters and rearrange them! Like these two quilts here.

A February Finish!

I'm going back to my real life quilting group this year. First gathering of the year was yesterday and I took along this to finish. All I had to do was sew down the binding, join it up and then iron it over and pin in place. A little 20 minute job. So it was done and sewed the binding down by hand last night while watching the very unsettling The Impossible.

I quilted this simply in a grid pattern. It's on our table now. Daz is very ho hum about it, said it is "very Nannaish!" Hmph! Onto the next runner then!

WIP Wednesday Week 6.

I am still plodding away with this table runner.We lost power over the weekend (again!) and we discovered that you can play Monopoly and sandwich a table runner withour power! Then I managed to quilt it later that weekend, just simple lines each side of the seams, like a grid and now I'm up to the binding. Its all cut ready to go, just finding that fifteen minutes to sew it on! Lets see what the rest of the ladies are up to over here.

Back to School 2013!

Ahhh, first day smiles! Back to school today officially, we have popped in a few times last week due to our work commitments but this morning it was uniforms on and down to business! Milly is in grade three this year, which I can not believe! We moved up here when she was starting preprimary, now we are looking at our fourth year up here. Grace is in year five this year. She has 20 boys in her class out of a class of 29 students! Looking foward to a great year for both of them.

WIP Wednesday Week 5.

Okay, so its not Wednesday, its Thursday were I am, but its still Wedensday over at Freshly Pieced so I'm letting it count! Yesterday was the last day of my summer holidays and I spent it sewing with the intention of blogging after dinner. But then we had a big storm come through and the whole town lost power for about four hours, most inconvient! Lucky it wasn't during the day as then I couldn't have got any sewing done. I finished the top to this runner earlier this week. Its not as big as I had hoped. Thats what you get for using mini charms I guess. The friend this is for has a massive dining room table and this would just look lost on it. So I'm pondering between making something else or just giving it to her, I mean she might not want to put it on her massie dining room table? I'll ponder that as I quilt it, I have the backing fabric selected, just need to unroll the wadding and cut some to size. But instead of reaching for that roll of wadding, what happens? I start another project!

I have seen so many lovely scrappy Trip Around The World quilts on flickr and on blogs, it has been very inspirational. So I decided to start making one, as you do. I'm using the tutorial over at Quiltville which is awesome. The tutorial is for a block with 6 squares, I didn't want it quite so big. so I made mine 5 squares. Which was fine until it came to the ironing part, I have to fold one in half in the tube. Those of you that have made the block like in the tutorial will understand the ironing tube bit hopefully.

So here are the first four blocks, colourful! I'm slipping some fabric in there which is orphaned and will most likely never see the light of day. I have a heap of strips cut ready to go, after I go unroll that wadding perhaps?!

First Finish for 2013!

I have finished this table runner. It is called Feista and it is from a book titled Skinny Quilts. The pattern was based on four groups of blocks which would have made it a whopping 70.5 inches long. I only did three groups of blocks and that made this runner just on 48 inches long which I thought was a better length.

I used up all my fabric recieved from Christmas, using the scraps for the backing! The binding was from my stash of solids though. I just had to add three small light purple scraps and it was perfect. Maybe even better than the front? The husband thinks so if his opinion counts.

Looks at home on my table but it's rolled up ready to post to it's new home. Would I make this pattern again? Unsure.... maybe.

WIP Wednesday Week 4.

I have decided to do WIP Wednesday posts again for 2013 and I am joining in over at Freshly Pieced in the fun. Even though it says week 4, this is my first WIp post for 2013, I'll keep along with the calendar years. This is what I am working on at the moment. I have broken open the little mini charm packs I got for Christmas and I am making whirly gig blocks out of them for a tablerunner! In hindsight most likely not the best block to choose to show off the fabric as once sewn together a 2.5 inch charm equals a block just over 3 inches. Hopefully this time next week it will be a WIP shot of sewing down binding.

Bali 2013.

 

We are back from holiday. It only seems like yesterday we were getting on the plane, now I find myself back to reality! We had a very relaxing time in Bali. It was basically the same holiday exactly as last year here! No hair braiding or elephant rides this time though, lots of reading by the pool, swimming in the pool and eating yummy food. Divine! We have three weeks of holidays left, taking the dust cover off the machine tomorrow morning!