Swell

Nearly 6 months ago I decided to make Camille Roskelley's (Thimble Blossoms) "Swell" from her book Simply Retro out of a batik jelly roll I had.  The colours are very pretty and I had a few jelly roll strips left over from the two Goodnight Irene quilts, so I added those in to make this quilt a bit larger.

Karen had a fantastic blue/green/turquoise batik fabric in stock that worked very well as border, binding and backing.

I love the frilly spiral quilting Karen did.  I'll definitely be choosing that pattern again.

The Wish Quilt is almost finished.  It was started in 2008. 

 
I stitched the reindeer antlers last night

and I found some Christmas buttons in my stash to sew onto the stars.

There has also been a little secret sewing happening to get ready for Quilt Camp at the end of October.

A Year in my Life

This quilt was started before I had my blog and finished on Tuesday night - well over 8 years.

Leanne Beasley's original idea was to make a note every day for a year but I knew I couldn't keep up with that so I made a panel for a month with a few little stitcheries on each diary block.  I had a collection of 12" star block patterns I'd been wanting to use in a quilt so this worked out well using a variety of red, burgundy, caramel, off-white and cream fabrics from my stash.

 

Karen did the quilting a few months ago and the binding was sewn on straight away but not stitched down till this week.

Reading what happened over that year has been fantastic:  my children's 20th, 25th and 28th birthdays, our holiday in Tasmania, Mum's 80th birthday party, a friend's visit to Sydney for the quilt show and lots of everyday stuff.  So much has happened since then including university graduations, two weddings, two grandbabies.

12" Sampler Quilt

This quilt was stated in 2010 and made with friends in an on-line stitching group.  We each chose a 12" block to make for the quilt.  The quilt top was finished in January 2011 and I started quilting it but managed to muck up the back so put it aside until early this year when I gave it to Mum to unpick

Karen quilted it for me, then after I attached the scrappy binding, the quilt sat on the couch for 4 months until last night when I decided to stitch it down.

 

I love the  ribbon border - this design comes from Quilters' Cache, and the setting design comes from a very old Debbie Mumm book.

 

There are two more quilts on the couch.

Little Snippets

Love this little quilt and can't wait to make the full-size quilt (it's on the list for next year).

Lots of fun, happy Me and My Sister fabrics used - and there are two background fabrics:  a lavender spot on white make up the diamonds and triangles and a plain white for the squares.

The backing is another Me and My Sister fabric and I used the same fabric for the binding.

Starry Orange Letter Day Quilt

Picked up the quilt from the post office last Wednesday and thought I'd make a scrappy binding for it then found binding already made, so I made a scrappy binding for Orange Swoon quilt which is with Sarah for quilting, along with my Fresh quilt.

Sewed the scallop binding on and spent a couple of nights in front of the tv stitching it down.  I love this quilt - it's so fresh and happy.

Visited Karen on Saturday afternoon when she started quilting my Thimble Blossom Scrappy Sampler.  This quilt top has been finished for ages but I couldn't make a decision about quilting because I didn't want all-over quilting on the Piccadilly Circus Dresden Plate.

We decided that Karen would custom quilt the Dresden Plate with a spiral in the centre

then add a scroll design to each blade

before an over-all pattern over the rest of the quilt.

I wasn't sure about what binding to use for this quilt then I found some red binding already made in the drawer from the same fabric range as the outer border - bonus!

Can't wait to see this quilt when Karen comes over tomorrow night for stitching.

Yesterday afternoon I pin basted and quilted the little Snippets cot quilt.  The fabrics are bright Me and My Sister designs - the girls gave us a charm pack of their newest range Dot Dot Dash at the workshop and I won a charm pack of Giggles.

A Little Trip

Borders have been sewn onto the "Swell" quilt top and the backing made - it's all ready to be quilted.

I've had such a lovely few days away with Elizabeth, Matt and ChaCha.  They are in Port Douglas for a holiday and invited me to fly up with them for a long weekend.  On Monday we drove up through the Daintree Rainforest to Cape Tribulation - some beautiful beaches along the way.  We stopped for ice cream (sapote, wattle seed, mango and coconut) at the Daintree Ice Cream Factory - such beautiful gardens there where they grow the "flavours" for the ice cream and a large variety of teas.

While I was away I started some secret stitching and I finished it off last night.  Feels good to be ahead of schedule for a change.

Last week Sarah sent me some photos of my Starry Orange Letter Day Quilt on her frame.

I picked it up from the post office today - it looks fantastic.

 

Think I'll make a scrappy orange binding for this quilt tonight.

There has also been a little bit of machine embroidery happening for Jenni's friend.

Pink Kaleidoscope Cot Quilt

I have a pile of quilts with binding attached ready to be stitched down but no motivation to get on with the stitching.  Last night while watching tv with Jenni I thought I'd tackle the smallest quilt and it didn't take too long to finish it off.  Pink Kaleidoscope is designed by Allison Harris.  I love her patterns - they are very well-written, have options for a variety of sizes and they always turn out well.
 

I asked Karen to quilt it with bows - thought a pretty quilting design would go well with the sweet fabrics.  I love these bows she found.

The backing is a pretty pink tiny floral.

Now I'm ready for when one of my friends has a granddaughter - so many baby boys being born at the moment.

Had to spend a bit of time last week winding bobbins - I hate having to stop sewing to wind a bobbin or two.

One more border to add to Swell and the top will be finished.  This quilt will end up a nice size (about 72" x 84").

Stitching tonight - Karen and I are going to play with her cutting machine making Fig Tree charm squares for our full-sized Snippets quilts.

Catch Up

Had a very busy weekend:  the Wharf Review was extremely funny - haven't laughed so much in ages.  Enjoyed Southern Stars and the birthday lunch was a lovely time catching up with some old friends.

There was time for sewing.  Along with the hourglass blocks, Snippets is made up of the same number of half-square triangles which meant lots of trimming.  Love my bloc-loc ruler.

Then I had to make one block.

By the end of the weekend the little quilt top was together.

I am looking forward to making the full-size version of this quilt (about 96" square) in a wide variety of FigTree fabrics.  Karen and I will have fabrics from 20 different FigTree ranges in our quilts when they're finished.

This week I have been making some more Swell blocks - the pretty colours in these batik fabrics look lovely against this background.

15 blocks were made a few months ago and after these pieces are sewn into blocks comes my least favourite part of quilting - placement.

Sarah is quilting three of my quilts - lots of binding in the near future.