Red Letter Blocks

All of the Red Letter Day Quilt blocks are made - these blocks are very quick to piece together once all the components are made.

All the blocks are now finished but not sewn together.

I've had an idea for borders to use up the leftover nine-patch strips plus some extras that I cut (way too many):

I'll try and work it all out after my holiday.  The extras can go into the backing.  Sarah's quilt top is together and looks fantastic - hopefully she'll put some photos on her blog soon. 

The binding has been sewn onto Scrappy Trip Around the World and I've stitched it down.  Need to make and attach a label then I'll take some photos of the finished quilt.

Red Letter Weekend

Lots of blog posts, instagram and facebook message have been popping up over the last 10 days or so about Camille Roskelley's visit to Australia.  As soon as Di Mill hinted that Camille would be coming here, Sarah and I stalked her blog so we could book into a class asap.  Last Saturday was the big day for our "Red Letter Day" quilt class with Camille.

Sarah flew up to Sydney on Friday and, after booking into our beautiful hotel, we had a wander around the cbd shops before heading up to Una's in Darlinghurst for dinner - introduced Sarah to my childen's favourite schnitzel restaurant.

Saturday finally arrived and we headed off to Quiltsmith for our class.  Quiltsmith is a wonderful shop with a fantastic range of fabrics.  I've visited there a few times on roadtrips with the girls.

When we arrived Camille was wandering around the shop choosing fabrics for her souvenir-Australian quilt.  We started chatting straight away and she was so delightful and friendly.  The class was wonderful - lovely ladies in our group of 16.  Quiltsmith loaned Sarah a sewing machine, which was fantastic for her and me, as it turned out, because, dumb bunny that I am, I left the lead for my machine at home - couldn't believe it when I was unpacking the machine.  Nevertheless, Sarah and I managed to make two blocks each, as did most ladies in the class - one lady was on to her fifth block by the end of the day.

Camille explained the chain-piecing technique she uses, I think it's called "webbing", and the blocks go together very easily.

Sarah's block in lovely French General fabrics

When I visited Tasmania a couple of weeks ago, I left my Scrappy Trip Around the World with Sarah for quilting.  Sarah brought it with her to Sydney and I took it along on Saturday to show Camille as it's made entirely of Bonnie and Camille fabrics.  I love the clamshell quilting Sarah chose - I suggested a couple of options and asked her to surprise me.  Camille posted a photo on Instagram, which was a lot of fun.

Late Saturday afternoon Camille's friend Holly, Holly's husband David and Camille's husband Jarom turned up at the shop.  The husbands had arrived in Sydney on Friday for an extra-quick visit to Sydney.  Jarom had spent Saturday having a surfing lesson at Manly.  Was lovely to meet Holly as well and see her "Red Letter Day" quilt - it's a huge 16 blocks.

Camille and Jarom with Camille's "Red Letter Day" quilt

What a day!  It was fabulous.  Can't thank Di enough for arranging Camille and Holly's trip.

On Sunday Sarah and I took our time checking out of the hotel then caught the ferry round to Darling Harbour to visit Madame Tussaud's.

Queen Sarah

All too soon it was time to drive Sarah to the airport and then the weekend was topped off with dinner with Elizabeth, Matt, Michael and Peta - almost perfect (would have been with Jenni there too).

Picnic

In March 2013, I was very fortunate and won a fabric giveaway hosted by Di Mill - I gave some of the fabrics to the girls in our stitching group and kept the rest.  There was a selection of Comma by Zen Chic and Avalon by Fig Tree & Company.

The yellow, grey, chalk and black Comma fabrics (plus a load of extras I bought) were used to make Picnic - a quilt designed by Kim Brackett for one of her Scrap Basket books - and the quilt was finished on Sunday night.

"Picnic" - 80-1/2" x 98", quilted by Sarah.

Stitched out some labels on the embroidery machine and these have been sewn to the back of the quilt.

The quilt will go to its new home over the weekend.

All the Basket Case blocks that I cut out a couple of weeks ago have been sewn up.

I'd prefer this top to be bigger, so I've cut out another 12 blocks in the hope of using up as much of this Oh Cherry Oh fabric as possible.

2 sleeps until Sarah arrives in Sydney and 3 sleeps until the class with Camille Roskelley - should be a fantastic weekend coming up.

Swap Presents

The theme for our on-line group's latest swap was "Kitchen" - I received two beautiful packages from Jenny containing these wonderful gifts:

Photos borrowed from Jenny

Love them all - how cute is the cupcake potholder!  Thank you so much Jenny - the colours go so well in my kitchen.

My other partner was Teresa.  I wrapped her present in a machine embroidered tea towel -

Photo borrowed from Teresa

Teresa's present was a covered recipe book with a Bronwyn Hayes stitchery on the front - 

Yesterday Mum and I went to see "Grace of Monaco" - the movie was not at all what I expected and I did enjoy it.

I've been sewing "Basket Case" blocks over the long weekend - will cut out some more blocks today.  I think the quilt could be a little bigger and it will use up more of this fabric.

Gotta love a long weekend, even if it is raining.

Using up the Stash

To be honest, I'm a bit over my stash.  I would really love to buy so many of the new ranges but there is too much beautiful fabric in my sewing room.  About 2-1/2 years ago I put myself on a fabric diet and have pretty much only bought backing and background fabrics plus a few absolutely necessary fabrics to finish of WIP's.

The last week or so there has been very little sewing - I'm still cutting out.  A couple of Christmases ago I was given a kit containing these fabulous Holly Holderman (Lakeside Drygoods) fabrics but I wasn't 100% keen on the quilt design - then I bought the "Fireworks" pattern while visiting Sarah's shop.  I started cutting out the blocks at stitching on Saturday afternoon.  I think these will make wonderful Fireworks blocks.

 

I've had Thimbleblossom's "Marmalade" pattern for a while and cut into lots of scraps and smaller pieces of fabric for this design.  There is one more row that couldn't fit onto the design sheet.

The only change I've made is putting two layers for the white petals because the underneath fabric showed through too much - hope it's not too thick for pressing when I sew it together.  I'm enjoying machine blanket stitching.

There has been a bit of shopping over the last couple of weeks - the greens/whites/oranges plus the two aqua fabrics on the right for my "Red Letter Day" quilt.  Sarah and I are counting down the days till the class with Camille Roskelley.   Might make one or two changes to these fabrics ... I have another pink on the way.

I sewed up a "Text Me" block and am really happy with it.  I've had to order some more of the yellow background fabric.

The embroidery machine was doing its thing yesterday while Mum and I were chatting.  I can show the full design and my secret stitching/sewing next week.

On Friday night I had dinner with The Schoolgirls.  Denise gave me this beautiful embroidery - lots of different stitches and techniques.  It's so lovely and suits my loungeroom perfectly.

Cutting Out

In an effort to use up the stash (well, that's my excuse), I'll be making some quilts from patterns I've had for ages and I've also bought a couple of patterns recently.  One I saw on a blogpost about the Pittsburgh Quilt Market is called "Text Me" - really like this one and decided to use some of my Fig Tree fabrics.

Feature fabrics for 36 blocks

I'm using two different background fabrics - one to make the larger squares and the links between the blocks and the other for the smaller squares within the blocks.  Of course, I ran out of one of these fabrics and was fortunate to find some on-line (considering it is from an old range).   Maybe some more cutting tonight.

Secret stitching is finished and now ready to be added to the present - I've enjoyed this.

Found a photo of my "Not Quite Civil War" quilt top together - this was put together about a month ago.

It's been added to the large pile of tops waiting to be quilted - maybe it's time to sort out the garage and set up the frame.

Took my "Scrappy Trip Around the World" with me to Tasmania to leave with Sarah for quilting.  Will definitely be looking forward to this one coming home.

Fantastic Weekend Away

Friday night I flew down to Launceston to spend the weekend with some of my stitching buddies.  I was made very welcome by Cathy and her family (including Miss Millie).  It was pretty chilly when I arrived (4C) and an even chillier 3C on Saturday morning.  Lunch on Saturday was at the famous Cherry Shed - I was very happy to have the chance to visit.

Delicious food and wonderful company

After lunch some of us headed off to Sarah's shop in George Town to start some prep work for making the Weekender Travel Bag - as well as more eating etc (great pizzas in George Town).

I took a couple of presents with me:  Sew Together Bags for Sarah (with green zips) and Cathy (with burgundy zips)

and a Work in Progress bag for Sarah

 

 

as she celebrated a big birthday last week.

Some of the girls working away on Sunday

The girls threw a surprise party lunch for Sarah and me with presents, cupcakes, bubbles etc.  So lovely.  A few necessary purchases from Sarah for our upcoming class with Camille Roskelley (and a couple of extras)

and a photo of the girls from our on-line group who were there on Sunday

Me, Vicki, Sarah, Leanne, Razzy and Cathy in front

Great fun weekend with such wonderful friends and a bit of sewing thrown in as well (no progress shots of my bag yet).