Quilting

 Finally I have all my Butterfly Garden blocks together and ready to be machine appliqued and hand stitched. I can see the end in sight now, though it is over near the horizon!

BG is my night time stitching; aside from doing bindings.

 I have another An Angels Story block prepared ready to machine applique.

 This cute little quilt is half bound and I have almost finished quilting it; maybe it will be done by tomorrow for the end of the month????

Ah yes, quilting. Lots of it!

Even though it is pinned and ready to quilt I keep procrastinating about quilting the QS Luna Notte quilt (2nd from right).

Also ready to quilt is the Shheep quilt for DS5yrs. I kept putting off machine appliquing the sheep on it because it's awkward once the whole quilt is together. I am going to ditch the quilt then raw edge/quilt the sheep. Not sure how it will turn out but at least my son should get his quilt sooner rather than later!

The quilt on the left is a dissapearing nine patch with white sashings that I made using two charm packs of American Jane's 'Punctuation' range. I will quilt this and put it away for when I need a baby/toddler quilt.

The last quilt in the pic (2nd from left) is another dissapearing nine patch, but without the sashings. I used two charm packs of 'Max and Whiskers' by Urban Grey - gorgeous fabrics.... This quilt, small as it is, isn't pinned yet as I AM OUT OF BASTING PINS and need to quilt in order to baste some more!



Solutions

 Do you get tempted by all those lovely new ranges coming out all the time? I do.

A few months back I came to a solution for me that I thought was worth sharing.

In this magazine I found a scrappy quilt that I loved but I didn't have fabric or time to make it.



 To make a lap/single quilt 66" by 81" you need 783 charm squares.

Crib/wall 48" by 54" uses 378 charms.

Full/Queen 85" by 90" uses 1,110 charms.

King 103" by 102" uses 1,530 charms.

 So I put aside the charm squares I had, and every once in a while I buy another one or two to add to my collection. To date I have approx 400-420.

By the time I have enough charm squares to make the quilt; and it might be queen or king size yet; I will have finished numerous other projects so I will have time to make this. The great thing about it is I will have a piece of all those lovely fabrics I admire in it without the huge cost of money and time to make a quilt from each range that catches my eye. I am using reproduction type charms for this quilt; but it would look fantastic in brighter, more modern fabrics too. I nearly started to put together two to make, but decided one was enough for the time being.

The quilt uses a template to cut the tumbler shape and then it is machine pieced.

I love tumber, clam shell and apple core quilts but decided on this tumbler one because I could machine piece it; however I may just take on making an apple core or clam shell quilt in the distant future!



Muddy Weather

DH has been home a bit recently and time seems to fly even more when he is about.

I have finished piecing Floral Bouquet in Sunkissed, though it isn't basted yet as I am out of pins! LOL, Lynda had a fabulous idea for me to baste a quilt as soon as I finish it to help me get them quilted. This IS a great idea however I have basted two quilts but not finished quilting them yet so Sunkissed Floral Bouquet will have to be a flimsy a bit longer....LOL.

Very pretty though....

 DH has been home putting in our verandah posts, so we can put in the front and laundry doors. It has been rainy miserable weather here for a few days now; this is our track from the house (three bedrooms, small study and one loungeroom at present) to the former car shed that now houses a tiny kitchen and a bathroom. When you get seven pairs of feet tramping back and forth for the toilet, a drink, a snack, to transfer washing etc etc it creates a lovely track in the wet weather! I can tell you, living like this for nearly five years now I will be VERY appreciative to have an INSIDE kitchen and toilet!

 In the photo above you can see our solar panels in the background, just above the ute dh bought in Tamworth a few years back that he wants to do up one day. His passion is HG Holden utes....having previously owned and done one up, he regrets selling it. We have his old mags sitting in the shearing shed ready for when he has one registered!

Mr Busy owns the succulants in the pot at the bottom of the stairs, he is gaining quite a collection of these and cactuses.

LOL, and you can see how much the younger children love to sit IN THE MIDDLE of my shrubs, the rosemary near the ladder is looking a little 'parted'....

The photo below shows the mess that gets tramped up onto the verandah....not point cleaning it till the ground has dried out.

X-Rated schnibbles quilt for my newest nephew. My Busy picked this quilt, he said make something you haven't made before. It is small, 30" by 30" - gorgeous though!

When I was piecing this quilt it was imperitive that I had it all laid out as I worked. This was done on the floor and after CAREFULLY arranging the colours and patterns I commenced stitching. The stitching took me over a week, working in dribs and drabs. Three times the boys raced throught he house and scattered my unpieced pieces, driving me to distraction. Suffice to say, the colours and patterns aren't in the original placement! LOL, boys....

 Love the green pin stripe binding and the red alphabet backing.....

This is Penelope, a doll I made back in MARCH for Miss Busy's birthday.....

She is a Katkins design; gorgeous. Miss Busy sleeps with her every night, loves anything mum makes for her, definately puts a smile on face to see/hear this!

 She has gorgeous ceremic buttons on her dress and shoes.

I have also finished a bassinet quilt for a work colleague's first grandchild; forgot to take a picture of it though....however I made an identical one back here.

Happy Birthday to Kerry from Cottage on the Hill, who is part of the online Friends in Stitching group I am part of. I was the one out of the group to make and send her a present. As I am not sure if she has opened it yet or not I can't show you yet. Though I can tell you that it had to be something starting with M, the first letter of the town nearest to me.

He Ming Hos

 Today I made a mug bag, this is a birthday present for a friend of mine.

The pattern was a Hatched and Patched pattern, Kylie told me they went together pretty easy but I still put off making one - turns out she was right! Even the circular base wasn't a drama and usually I avoid these like the plague! I bought these fat quarters from Cottage on the Hill a couple of years ago; so pretty....

 This gorgeous bundle has been partially cut and in very slow progress. I pulled it out the other week and now have the top together and it is all basted ready to quilt. This was Lynda's helpful suggestion; baste as soon as possible after completing a quilt top to try to avoid the top collecting dust. I am good at procrastinating over quilting quilt tops; currently there are 7 waiting to be basted plus two basted in the last week or two. I am sure Lynda's suggestion is going to help me.

This is the quilt from the bundle. It is made from two Hemming House jelly rolls, only the two jelly rolls. The centre square is pieced from two 4 1/2" strips. I kept aside strips for the binding and only had to purchase backing in addition to the jelly rolls I bought from Sarah ages ago. I loved the colours in this range, the blue/teals in particular so I chose these to be the square centres and the binding. Strip wise and colour wise this worked out well. The quilt is 64" x 80"; it was almost 64" x 72" as I didn't have enough blocks for another row; I needed two more. I didn't want to not use all my blocks so I pieced two patched blocks from the offcuts/scraps (you can see a black one in the middle bottom of the photograph) to get that extra row. There is very little wastage from the jelly rolls, mostly small pieces that are less than 4 inches long - I was so pleased as this quilt was a challenge to myself. Actually that's how long this quilt has been in the works; I was working out the mathematical side (how big to make the squares and how to divy up the colours) in between dumping truckloads of rubble off up the paddock while Mr Busy was on the traxcavator. I had most of the kids in the truck with me and would fiddle on paper while waiting for the truck to be loaded, Feb 2009.

I played with words for this quilt and called it 'He Ming Hos'!

To update, I am still slowly hand stitching Butterfly Garden and My Town. I have half of the rows for Floral Boquet Sunkissed together. This weekend I am doing a leadlighting course (again! they are fun) so will have a lightshade to show you next week. I made one of these last year and it is easy to see why this craft gets addictive!