Nearly finished another one!!

I've sewn the binding on my Little Tailfeather quilt ready for hand-stitching.

Mum has custom-quilted it so beautifully. I couldn't be happier. I will show you in more detail after I sew the binding down... Ooh! nearly another finish!!

Gypsy Girl.. a new project!!

I love these Meadowsweet fat quarters... I am going to use 21 of them to make a new quilt.

Here are some more of the fat quarters on my ironing board.

Don't they look fab all together?


This is the first stage of making the blocks. I have made all 31 blocks up to this stage...

And these are my first completed blocks.

Not much green in these ones... all the colours will spread out in the finished quilt...

This is going to be a nice quick finish!!

Pieces of the Past quilt top finished!!

Yippee!! It's such a good feeling when you've met a deadline!

This morning I finished sewing the borders around the outside of the quilt. This afternoon my DH added the binding on with Photoshop!! LOL!!

The soft waves of leaves look really colourful on their dark purple backgrounds. The blocks are quite geometric, and I feel the leaves take away their harsh edge. The quilt seems to have so much movement, it is really eye pleasing, and I am really pleased. VBG.

Mum, this quilt top will be coming your way very soon... I hope you can fit me in!!

Okay, next job!!

What do you think?

What do you think of this border?

Do you see that bit of bright red fabric on the right side? That is what I ordered for the outer border, but the colour wasn't right. It was a bright blue red and I needed to use a rusty red.

I've sewn on the top and bottom and I will audition cornerstones tomorrow. Tonight I need to finish re-appliqueing the leaves over the edges of the sashing.

I just hope this border is not too busy.

Fun news!

We had a little win over the weekend....



Andrea's Nearly Insane quilt was awarded First Prize in the large pieced and appliqued, domestic quilted quilt section.

My miniature quilt was awarded First Prize in the small quilt/wallhanging section.

And Lizzie's quilt won First Prize in the Circus Challenge!!

Okay, it's confession time. Lizzie runs the Civil War Bride Quilt blog... and we challenged each other to finish our quilts for the Ballan Show in 2 years time... that will mean we have spent 3 years on the quilt (on and off, mostly off lately.. I haven't worked on my CWBQ since November last year.) I know I can pick it up again in June... I can't wait!!

Eye candy at the Ballan Quilt Show

So much to show you from the Ballan Quilt and Craft show this weekend. This is Helga's Sunbonnet Sue quilt (I snapped this picture for Rosie)...

The theme for the show was The Circus. I just had to show you all the props on display....

I have no idea where they got a carousel horse from!

This is the entrance to the display. How special!!

These screens were especially painted...

I had to show you this quilt.. just stunning.

Andrea just finished this quilt in time for the show!!

This is one of 3 quilts made with a very traditional look... I couldn't resist snapping all of them. Would you believe they are all made by the same man (Neil)?? He used machine blanket-stitch, then had them professionally quilted.
Correction -Bernadette left me a message after seeing this post: Neil quilted this four-block quilt himself. Thanks for the tip Bernadette. I whizzed past some of the labels too quickly and jumbled up the info.

I love this Dorothy fabric. Doesn't the rainbow really stand out?

This Baltimore is another Neil quilt... just gorgeous.

I like this strippy stars quilt - I can see myself making it with repro fabrics.

Another Neil applique quilt...

These lollipops were made from fabric - part of the circus-theme atmosphere.

What a stunning quilt!! I just had to share it with you...

I hope you feel as inspired as I do!!

Piecing the Past

Still working on this quilt, but I need to get the quilt top finished by the 30th March. Let's see how I go!!

This is the sashing.

I needed to un-applique a few leaves to avoid sewing them into a seam. They will need to be re-appliqued after the outer sashing is added.

I love seeing the quilt blocks (now the centre of a quilt top) on this screen. Seeing them reduced in size brings out a lot of detail.

Ooh! I love this quilt already!

1950s quilt top completed!!

Woohoo!! I've got another quilt top to give to Mum!! I really wanted to give these 1950s stitcheries the right look. I think the spot fabric is perfect! But, it needed something to break up the great expanse of blue.

I added the appliqued aprons (with cherries on), and then little bunches of cherries floating about.

I framed the centre in a cherry coloured fabric, and then added ric-rac across the quilt.

All I need to do is scallop the edge when it is quilted, and bind it in the same cherry red as the centre frame.

I am really looking forward to a few finished items this year...

Now my arm is sore...

There are 156 leaves on this block so far... I need to add a few more, but I will wait to determine the exact edge fo the block - some might need to hang over the block into the sashing. Would you believe I have another block to work on for this quilt? It's okay, it's not quite as big - only about 50 leaves on it...

My arm is sore though, I only hope I don't aggravate it by playing bowls tomorrow..

Guarding the eggs...

The nest is now guarded...

Not by my foot which seems to have made its way into this photo... but by the bird at the top!

I am really loving the way the colours are coming out in the applique now... such a pretty rainbow of colours, without being overly bright.

There are still more leaves to go however... my arm is getting a little sore - probably all this applique.

Eggs in the nest

Rosie is quite distressed to see this block at this stage - the nest is unguarded she says. Who is looking after the eggs? This is true, although there is a bird at the bottom.... there is another bird to come. Obviously it can't sit on the nest or you can't see the eggs!!

Appliqueing the past

I am appliqueing a heck-of-a-lot of leaves onto this quilt.

This is how you last saw this block (above)....

and this is how it looks now...

I need to stop here and wait for some more fabrics to arrive....

Hmm.. doesn't the carpet look nice behind this? Whoops! LOL!

Would you believe it?

I forgot to add this quilt to my list of finished items for 2009. How could I??

Mum quilted it with individual borders around each block, the appliques are outlined, the little quilts are quilted free-hand... I have borders of flowers up the sides, clouds in the sky and a garden bed of flowers in the grass at the bottom.

It's the dollhouse quilt.

Aha! Another finish for 2009!! How many is that? I'll have a count...

Miniature Mountains

I have started a new miniature quilt - this is the Delectable Mountains block. Each block measures 4.5 inches unfinished. I need to make 20.

Well, that's 5 down and 15 to go!

Centrepiece

This is going to be the centre block in the 12 Days of Christmas quilt.

So far, it's a bird in a tree and some holly. LOL!! I've got more handwork to do on it... It's ready to take when I can hand-stitch...

Christmas is on it's way...

I still feel like I am getting ready for Christmas... Here are 2 out of 4 cornerstones I prepared for the 12 Days of Christmas quilt. I've got another 2 to go, and a few of the centre blocks left to do, then the outer border.

Hopefully I will be finished by Christmas. LOL!!

5-golden-rings

I only had a little bit more to add to this block... and now it's finished!

I have been working on so many things (but they are all from the list of 5!!).

I can't wait to see this quilt finished. I love it more all the time.

The Stuffing Brothers

When Rosie gave me a sock monkey kit and book for Christmas, she bought one for herself too. (see my last monkey post).

We have both been busting to start our sock monkeys, but we are not allowed to work on them if we are not together. We finally got together for a few hours last week, and this is what we got up to. This is the first sock, we have drawn on sewing lines to make the legs and main body from one sock.

Sewn and cut out above.

Ta-da! Here is Peejay turned right side out...

Would you believe two Peejays?

The next sock is a little scary... first we cut out the tail...

then the mouth..

Both our mouths are different, we need to decide which way up the mouth will go - you can see in the book there are so many variations.

Arms have been made, so has the tail.. Okay, let's go and stuff.

I think Rosie found it hard to stop stuffing, the sock just kept stretching to fit in more stuff.

What a fat monkey!

Mine was splitting himself if I tried to stuff too much in (the sock was laddering).

We found that Rosie had too much stuffing in her Peejay, so we took some out, and put some into my monkey.

Rather like Blood Brothers, this makes them Stuffing Brothers.

I can't wait until we meet up at quilt group this week so we can do some more on our Peejays. Now that we don't need our machines for a while, we can work on them at quilt group.

So cute... I want to make more... I need more socks!!