22 cupcake blocks

Well, I worked hard at quilting group this morning and now have a total of 22 cupcake blocks completed for the 4th bushfire comfort quilt.

Yesterday I went to the local H & M shop to buy single doona covers at $5 and $10. This soft cotton fabric is perfect for backings, sashings, bindings and it works out at $1.25 per metre or $2.50 per metre. 

This is how the first pieces joined, and I don't normally use black, but it works really well with these blocks.

And this pretty print arrived in the mail. It was a preorder fabric, and now I have time to make something in time for Easter.

And lastly, here is our second kinder painting. What do you see?

Busy week!

It's been my son's first week in kindergarden, and what does a mother do to distract herself from the separation, especially when he is the one with separation anxiety at morning dropoff?

She joins quilt group for the second day in a row. A different store today, I cut out batting, and basted backing onto the back of 22 blocks (need backing for another 13 squares).

It was raining hard, and I needed to stay in town in case the road was cut off from home to the kinder. At least I could pick up my 4yo, even if we couldn't get back home.

But no worries, it did not turn into the monsoon we had last year.

These were the first 2 blocks. Finished and trimmed, and then suddenly it was time to pack up. Unbeknownst to me, the shop was closing at 12 noon, Dang it! I was settling into a full day of sewing!

So i sat down in a shopping centre coffee shop with some hand stitching working on this Raven block.

The first one is not quite finished yet. It just needs berries. These blocks are huge, about 50cm square, so they are coming together quite quickly because they are so large.

And at night I sat and stitched a whack of cupcake blocks. This is what they look like untrimmed.

The cupcake fabric is being used in most blocks (if not all), and is the one that will tie these scrappy blocks together.

And finally, here is my boy's first kinder painting. What do you see?

Flower Fairy children's quilt

Quilt number three for the year, and number three for the bushfire quilts drive is complete.

 Oh! These blocks were so fast to make! Now I understand why they are so popular for making quilts to be donated! Quilting them at the same time as constructing means less stitching to do.

And they are strong, pretty, and use up your scrappy pieces because the strips are diagonal, so you can always find something the right size, even for a small corner.

This is my 3rd completed quilt for the bushfire recovery quilt drive.

I am particularly making children's quilts, because I feel the trauma of the bushfires will impact their lives significantly, and these quilts may bring comfort for an entire lifetime. I recently heard of a 6 year old boy overly concerned with having the wrong shoes or clothes on when the bushfire returns, and I don't think a child should have to be thinking that constantly.

You can join the Oz Comfort Quits bushfire quilt drive. You can join the facebook group at this page here. 

The rains are here

It's suddenly cooler here in Townsville, and the rash on my body is subsiding! Woohoo!

The centre panel on the flower fairy has been quilted. I placed this tea towel as part of the backing, because I do not know where this quilt will end up within Australia, and I wanted the person to know that up here, we have been thinking of them.

This is where the panel joins sides.

I have finished the entire top, just the binding to go.

As I was saying, the rains have set in, and we spent the morning running around the yard collecting what we don't want to wash away, weighing down items or moving them to higher ground.

Tomorrow school and kindy are supposed to start. If the rain eases up overnight we should make it to both on time in the morning.

Another large quilt finished

Ah, this Dick and Jane quilt is so magical! I have placed the motifs in multi directions so it doesn't matter which way it is placed on a bed or couch, it will be just right.

This is what I got when I asked the beloved to turn it around for a photo of the back. Hahahaha. He cracks me up!

And the label for the quilts has bene provided following Jan's directions.

To join these blocks, you can see a strip on the back also, I used a 2 inch strip folded in half on the front and a 1 inch strip on the back using quarter inch seams to join the blocks.

No reduction in size of the blocks, they are all butted against each other.


And what's this?

Well, it turns out that those strips really are the absolute fastest way to get a quilt together, and i have been doing rounds, and basting all these blocks and centring them. Gah.

The first 2 rows of the flower fairy QAYG are also made, and with a panel in the centre of this one, it shouldn't be too long until its finished.

Oops

Oops! That's the word I use when I go to the quilt shop to buy 2 cans of spray baste for the next Oz Comfort Quilt drive, and I come away with these fabrics. 

Yess... they were a bargain... and oh so pretty! But goodness, really did I have to buy enough for a QAYG quilt and one for us as well? I do love them so much... 2 panels, and what a stunning quilt they will make!

Ssssshhhh.. I will make the rest out of scraps, I promise!

Another little finish

Progressing on the Dick and Jane QAYG as my second quilt for bushfire recovery... it's taking quite a long time to baste, quilt, and trim these blocks... But I have about half the quilt assembled now...

So I took a break to make these gorrgeous magickal creature altar cloth

There is so much to love, from it's Egyptian eye, and horn on the 3rd eye, to the mushroom type plants in the picture.

Quan Yin

Quan Yin, goddess of compassion.... almost completed and stitched into an altar cloth as a commission piece.

I used black and white threads, like a yin yang balance thing.

The important stuff

I was having withdrawals from stitching something special, so I whizzed around this with freemotion quilting to create a special altar cloth.

Just love it!

I will have to see if I can get anymore of that fabric to make one for me also.

And then I decided it was time to teach the children some important stuff...

Stand in the Hubba Bubba stance so you get good breath, 

and you won't fall over....

And duel!

Just like the Hubba Bubba kid. 

The children are fascinated and annoyed that they can't do it yet.

Road trip

While in Cairns I enjoyed a look in the  Crystal Ball bookshop and found these cards:

Oh look what followed me home (after I paid for them!) hahahahha

A nice early walk around the park, and we were straight back to this spot to swim for a few hours before the heat really ramped up.

On the drive home we came across these bats going bat crazy... thousands of them flying in circles, and after we pulled in to take a good look, we could smell smoke, and that's what was worrying them.

The children were excited to get closer to see them,.

And you can't go past the giant gumboot without stopping, can you?

Resting my hands in the air con, and hand stitching.... my hives are all slowly improving.

Cairns

So it's school holidays, hot as all get out, and we needed to escape our cabin fever from being in a small space air conditioned space... hey! let's drive 400km in an even smaller space to go somewhere else! Hahahahhahah

And so we checked into a Big 4 park with waterslides and 3 different swimming areas, and we hit the Cairns night market!

Well, the kids are enjoying eating baby octopuses (eww)....

And I bought a couple of tea towels.

And we found a gemstone/gumball machine! Woohoo!

School holidays

Resting my swollen hands for another day, and took the children to the local shopping centre to enjoy the air conditioning and some free crafts.

They made snakes, and are alreadty thinking where they might hang them at home!!!

When master 4 wants to "knit"

So today it was the children's turn to stitch, which worked for me with my swollen, sore and tired hands.

Master 4 said he wanted to "knit" which was quite surprising to me, as he knows I mostly "sew". I  guess machine sewing is sewing and hand sewing is to "knit". 

Lucky I had this felt kit with a plastic needle for him, and he loved stitching his finger puppets.

And miss 8 1/2 didn't want to miss out on the chance to start her stitched horse, with a bit more work involved, but she is determined!

It has been started, and wouldn't it be great if it was finished for the local show this year.

So proud of them. x

The heat strikes

It's full on Summer here in the far north of Queensland, and I have been handling lots of batting and holding quilted bits.

My sewing space is outside under a verandah, and it was so hot, I kept hosing the concrete floor, and hosing me down too, then i would sit at the sewing machine and keep sewing with the fan supposedly cooling me off.

Well, my body doesn't like it, and I have broken out in hives all over my body, but especially on parts of my hands that are swollen and sore.

So I have moved onto a foldup table inside in the air con, which is inconvenient for everyone, but bless them all for supporting me and my stitching, and are working around me. I've even given up doing the dishes for a couple of days, because even wearing dish gloves my hands were getting too hot.

I started to cut up the panel pieces adding frames in different prints, including this cherry scrap I had in my stash.

These look so cute!

They should be relatively easy to quilt in a star and cross before trimming to size. This time I will try a different method of joining, as I didn't like the bulk in the seams last time.

First big finish for the year!

 Ta-da! The yoga frog quilt is not only finished, but it looks magical! Watch it hover in the air! Hahahah...

35 blocks in a 7 x 5 configuration make quite a good sized quilt!

This quilt is joined in the suggested way on the Oz Comfort Quilts page, by putting back sides of the blocks together and making the seam on the front, then covering the bulky seam.

I don't like the bulky seam so much. But they are strong service quilts that will be used and loved.

The back is made from a cotton doona cover I picked up at H & M for only $5. Great value. And of course a label.

Next fabrics include these Dick and Jane panels I bought for a rockbottom bargain - only $1 each (originally would've been at least $20 each), and I found these prints at another shop on sale for $10 a metre so I thought, let's do it!