Scrappy Quilts

I've been invited to a wedding in early March and the pre-wedding celebrations started on Saturday with lunch at a fantastic pub in Marrickville.

 

Lynell came with me to the lunch and we finished up the day watching the Hawks win an absolute nail-biter.

Very much looking forward to the wedding and a weekend away with family and my dear friend Lynell. 

The sewing machine has been whirring away making more Scrappy Churndash blocks - 18 made, 7 to go and I can put this quilt top together. 

The embroidery machine has been busy too.

The pile of orange, pink, yellow and white fabrics in the last blog post has now been made into something and it was finished yesterday.

I've been wanting to make a Pineapple Quilt for ages and I now have a reason to.   Love all these colourful fabrics. 

I LOVE making these blocks - they whip up in no time and I hope they will look wonderful in a quilt top.   Might have to make two quilts.

Never Had a Friend Like Me!

Saturday was a great day!  Mum, Elizabeth, Lynell, Robyn and I went to Sydney to meet up with Jenni and Kurt to see "Aladdin".  Before the show Michael and Gulliver came into the city to have lunch with us in a very interesting Japanese restaurant - I've never seen so many private karaoke rooms before.

OMG!  "Aladdin" is the most spectacular show I've ever seen.  Everything about it is just sensational.  The sets and costumes blew my mind and the performances were just fabulous.  No words can describe the Genie - an extraordinary tour de force.

During last week I finished off the "My Pink and Green Heaven" blocks.  These have been put away for a while so I can work on another couple of things.

One is a special custom order quilt that I'll be making over the next few weeks.  Cutting out and trimming are finished
 

and one block is made.

The other is a secret project that I hope to have finished over next weekend. 

I have a drilling issue to work out before it can be put together.

I love the mandala fabric - I've been saving it for a few years for this project.

Lots of Trimming

Last Monday was the first day back at work after the Christmas break.  It was a long week but ended with a nail-biter of a basketball game.  How the Hawks held their cool to win was fantastic.  I also went to see "La La Land" during the week - it's a really good movie but I didn't love it as much as I was hoping to.

There was so much trimming to be done on the Snippets blocks - I brought some in to work to do at lunchtime for a couple of days.

Finally all done by Thursday (448 blocks)

and one Snippets block made.

Snippets is packed away for a little while - I have a few other things I want to work on just now - some birthday presents for my sweethearts

I came across a pile of blocks for My Pink and Green Heaven that needed trimming - so brought them to work to do this week.  This quilt will be one my 2017 donation quilts.

 Over the weekend I put together the last of the Colorway blocks - these have also been put away for a while

Backing for Medley has been made to add to the pile to go to Karen when she's back from holidays

and just for the heck of it, I've cut out another medallion quilt:  "Summerville" designed by Thimble Blossoms using Vintage Picnic fabrics designed by Bonnie and Camille.

ChaCha stayed over on Saturday night - she's such a delight - never still.  Loves to sing.  We visited some friends in the afternoon and had dinner at Mum's (GG).  Friends came over for dinner last night so that was a nice way to finish up the weekend.

Michael sent through some photos of Cheeky Chops Gulliver at the park.  Looking forward to seeing them next weekend.

Going to see "Aladdin" next Saturday afternoon - can't wait!

WIP's

Towards the end of the year there were a few works in progress and, as I have been on holidays for a few days, I started watching "West Wing" again and got stuck into finishing off a couple of these WIP's.

First up was "Medley", designed by Coriander Quilts.  I have only made one other medallion quilt and I found this pattern fantastic - everything worked out and fitted so well.

The colours are showing up much better in the first two photos.  I love this quilt top.  All the fabric is from my Fig Tree stash and I've used leftovers from other quilts for the background fabrics (Bella Solid Ivory, Snow, FigTree Cream and Butter).  The pattern would work really well as an all-scrappy quilt.

Next top finished was "Cakewalk" designed by Thimble Blossoms and using Bonnie and Camille fabrics with black spot background fabric I bought during my holiday in Singapore.

This is a lap-sized quilt and, if I hadn't gone out for dinner and to the pictures, it would have been finished in a day.  A great pattern when a quilt is needed in a hurry.

Some progress has been made on "Colorway", another Thimble Blossoms design using the same fabrics as "Cakewalk".

Another 15 blocks to be made for this one.

Last quilt I've been working on is "Snippets" designed by Cotton Way and using Fig Tree & Co fabrics.  The fabrics for this quilt have been cut out for about a year and I've been procrastinating - 448 half-square triangles to be sewn and trimmed and then 224 of these turned into hourglass blocks.

 

There's a lot of pressing and trimming in my future but these will be put aside soon to start something for my little sweetheart who turns 2 in just over 3 weeks.

Christmas 2016

Christmas decorating seemed to take longer this time and I didn't put out all the decorations.

The little ones are still a bit too young to be interested in decorating the tree but their faces when all the lights came on were priceless.

Our family had three days of Christmas this year:  Christmas Eve lunch at Jenni and Kurt's place - so beautifully decorated. 

Christmas Day was spent with many different family members and Boxing Day was lunch at my place.  All so entertaining with the little ones - opening presents is the best fun - they don't care so much about what's inside.

Wipe Out

Second weekend of December I was sidelined by a virus that turned into a chest infection and hung around for the rest of the month and into the early new year.  Consequently I didn't finish as much Christmas sewing as I would have liked but, thankfully, I had most of the Secret Santa presents made that I needed to send to Teresa.

I didn't take photos of the smaller Advent presents, only the Christmas Day gifts:

"Super Tote" designed by Noodlehead

and

"Sew Together Bag" designed by Sew Demented

I received the most wonderful gifts from Lorraine:

Days 1 and 2:  Christmas Tea Towels and Christmas Coasters

Day 3:  Christmas Potholders

Days 4 and 5:  Ornament (pink antlers and tiara) and Clotted Cream Fudge

Christmas Day's present was this fabulous Doctor's Bag in beautiful Union Jack/UK fabric - so beautifully made and Lorraine also sent some coins in the zipper pocket.

I made each of my sweethearts a pair of Christmas pj's

 and a couple of little dresses for ChaCha with patterns I'd made for her mother and auntie.

Finished off a couple of Annie Downs decorations for the sweethearts

and a Christmas stocking for Kurt to add to the family swag that hangs in the loungeroom.