Extra Long Weekend

On Thursday, John and I met up with 3 friends at Darling Harbour to attend the Quilt Show.  We had a great day - a bit of shopping (wool from Bendigo Woollen Mills, pattern from Thread and Ginger, kit from Hatched and Patched, templates from Punch with Judy to make Candied Hexagons, Bernina stitch-in-the-ditch sole plate for my walking foot and a few other bits and pieces).

Some of the quilts on display were spectacular and so lovely to see our local girl (Merrilyn Pearce) take out Best of Show once again.

At lunchtime I quickly said hello to Chookyblue and Cardygirl, then met up with Chookyblue and Fairy Girl for afternoon tea - a definite highlight of the day.  Really looking forward to meeting up with Chookyblue and our other on-line friends at next year's quilt show.

We didn't spend as much time at the quilt show as we normally would because we went to meet up with Peta and her Mum while Peta tried on a dress she would love to wear for the wedding.  So exciting.  Peta has found a dress she loves in a Paddington Boutique - sadly the dress is too big but Peta is talking to the designer about having a dress made in her size.  I just hope Peta can have what she has her heart set on.

Friday was a Mental Health Day to recover from my rushing around on Thursday.  Spent some time finishing off the outline stitching on Vintage Valentines and then started shadow quilting inside the blocks.  I knew the space outside the appliques needed to be quilted but I wasn't keen on meandering or stippling.  Never having done shadow quilting, it's been a matter of jumping in at the deep end and just having a go.

Saturday morning I decided to be brave and try out the BSR attachment - what a difference!  My stitches are still not perfect but so much better than without the BSR.

Did some more quilting yesterday and now 9 blocks are finished.  3 more smaller blocks to go and then the central medallion - will need to move to the dining room table to be able to manoeuvre the quilt more easily at that stage.

Yesterday afternoon Michael rang to say he and Peta have bought a ring - more excitement - antique ruby and diamonds.  They pick it up this afternoon.  Mum, Jenni and I went to the pictures yesterday afternoon to see "Bridesmaids" - I didn't know much about the movie only that it looked funny from the previews on tv.  Definitely not a movie to see with your mother or your daughter.

Guilty Conscience

As a quilter I often have a guilty conscience about the growing pile of quilt tops and the number of UFO's in the sewing room.  It's always so exciting to start something new.  Then I become annoyed with myself because I don't think I should feel guilty - I love stitching/patchwork/quilting and if I decide to work on something different, then that's my choice.  Even so, I was feeling really guilty about Vintage Valentines.

 

The quilt top was finished in February 2009 - I think it took me almost 3 years on and off to make the blocks.

It was pin basted in February this year and each block was ditch-stitched and then stitched 1/4" inside the seams.  It has sat in the sewing room ever since with all those pins still in the quilt top - this was what causing the guilt.  I would have been really upset if the pns had started to rust - I know it was only 4 months but you never know - we had a very humid summer and very wet autumn and start to winter.

On Sunday afternoon I started free-motion quilting around the applique shapes in the 12 outer blocks - to my surprise/relief I found that 2 were already done.  As of last night I have half of the central medallion to quilt around and that part of the quilting will be done.

Next step is to make the binding and bind the quilt. Then I'll think about whether I'll do any more quilting in the background of the blocks and, if so, what to do.  I'll discuss this with the girls at stitching tonight.

Maybe soon that guilty feeling will be replaced by the happiness of finishing a long-standing UFO.

Quilt Show starts tomorrow - I will be there on Thursday.

Homework is Finished

I spent much of the long weekend piecing the rest of my Gingham Girls blocks using some very pretty florals and loads of pieces from my scrap drawer.  The pattern has many applique hearts but I probably won't be adding many as I don't want to cover up the lovely big flowers.

I've enjoyed making the heart-shaped and circle blocks - these have been made following the method shown in "The Wish Quilt", using freezer paper and stitching the cut-out shape to the background stitchery fabric.  The Gingham Girls pattern has these shapes blanketstitched but I didn't think that would suit my fabrics.



Gingham Girls - My Favourite Things - background blocks

Block 2 - "My Favourite Teahouse"

Block 1 - "Tea"

I love stitching these blocks.  I've come across a few more errors in the patterns - there is no "I" in "ANTIQUE" in block 4.  Background fabric for the Chinese doll in Block 10A should be cut 9-1/2" not 9".

While I was in Queensland with Diann, she told me our next block in Sylvia's Bridal Sampler was to be "Road to Oklahoma" - finally got around to making it last night, so I'm now up-to-date.

"Road to Oklahoma"

Not Long Now

The final large "The Wish Quilt" block is finished.  Hooray!

I had a few problems tracing the Santa and sleigh design onto the green stripe fabric so, after some discussion with a friend, I traced the design onto Solvy and stitched through that.  It has worked really well but could probably do with another rinse as the linen still feels a bit stiff.  I'm using Solvy for the little floral sprays on the red background too.  This isn't the sticky Solvy that I've seen recently on some blogs, it's the Solvy I use for machine embroidery.  I hope to find the sticky Solvy at the Quilt Show next week because printing directly from the scanner to the Solvy would be great in many instances.

4 little blocks to go and I'll be done!

More Shopping

Yesterday we went to Sydney and Jenni decided she needed to go shopping at Bondi so we picked up Peta and Elizabeth and had a lovely afternoon shopping.  Of course we had to visit our favourite shop to see what was on special and I saw these shoes as soon as I walked in.

 

Beautiful colour, bride-to-be loves them, brand new style just in, 25% off - what more could I ask for?  They had to come home with me for the wedding.  Once Peta has decided what colours she's having for the wedding party, I'll look for my wedding clothes and if the shoes don't match, well, I may have to shop for another pair.

Peta's Mum and Dad came in to join us for dinner - we had a lovely evening.  It's so wonderful being able to celebrate happy news.

Shopping

How cute are these little cases?  They have been on my wishlist at Peter's of Kensington for a while as they've been out of stock.  The smallest case is 6" x 4".

I also bought some new lunchboxes for Miss Jenni to take her lunch to school

The Wish Quilt is coming along slowly at lunchtimes - three small floral sprays, vine under the houses and one double heart block then I can add borders.

It's very chilly here for our long weekend.  We're going to Sydney tomorrow for dinner with the happy couple, Elizabeth and Jenni.

Sweet

Over the weekend I finished off the double hourglass quilt top (block design from Cluck Cluck Sew) using Sweet fabrics and some Moda Bella Solid in a lovely baby yellow that I bought from Bec a couple of months ago.

The quilt has turned out quite large (83-1/2" sq) and I'm now thinking about how to quilt it.  I need to find somewhere at home to photograph larger quilts and start using John's camera so that the colours show up better in the photos - the colours in this fabric range are really lovely, not washed out as in these photos.

There has also been a bit of secret sewing/stitching happening at home.

I am finally making headway with The Wish Quilt - sewing the heart appliques and floral spray filler blocks at lunchtimes and the chequerboard blocks have all been made, so maybe another couple of weeks and this quilt top will be together.

While I was away I started stitching block one of the Gingham Girls "My Favourite Things" quilt - love stitching these girls.  I've come across a couple of mistakes in the patterns - block 1:  thread used for face and hands should be 3859; block 2: background for applique needs to be cut 1/2" longer.

This coming weekend is a long weekend here in NSW.  We will be going to Sydney on Sunday to have dinner with our children and their partners.  So looking forward to seeing Michael and Peta - Michael proposed to Peta on Monday and she said yes - we are thrilled to bits, tickled pink, over the moon ...

Life is Good

Last Thursday morning everything was tidied up in the sewing room

my bags were packed with some clothes and lots of sewing and hand-stitching

ready for me to fly to Diann's later that morning before our trip to Kingaroy on Friday.  I'd taken my old machine at Diann's on my last visit in March (to save on excess luggage) in readiness for this trip.  The large purple bag contains all of Diann's sewing - her clothes bag was 1/4 the size.

The Quilters' Rest at Kingaroy is a fabulous venue where we can sew non-stop if we want or hand-stitch, read, do whatever takes our fancy.

I sewed and sewed so many small pieces of fabric together and the three blocks in the top row are all I have to show for my efforts - the block in the second row was made in March 2010 at Kingaroy and this quilt ("Rosettes" by Fig Tree Quilts) has been untouched since then.

All the block components are together and ready for sewing into 12 more blocks.

We returned from Kingaroy on Sunday night.  Monday we shopped and then spent the afternoon sewing.  I decided on some quick gratification sewing - Double Hourglass from Cluck Cluck Sew (which I'd cut out at home) using some Sweet fabric I'd bought from Bec.

By Wednesday morning all the blocks were made and ready for trimming.

42 of the 84 blocks

84 blocks ready for trimming

On Tuesday we decided to surprise our friends at Homespun and Beautiful, Tereasa's lovely shop where Helen, Teresa, Tereasa, Laurel and Mary get together each Tuesday.  The surprise worked a treat.  Teresa has more photos on her blog and I'll post one with Teresa when she emails it to me.

Helen, me, Diann, Tereasa - the quilts on the wall and samples on the shelves behind are are mostly Helen's beautiful work.

Two days at home before the weekend and back to work - life is good. I'm so fortunate to have met Diann and the other girls via the wonderful world wide web.