Clambake Cot Quilt

Last week two of my quilts appeared in Karen's Instagram feed - that meant that Karen had finished quilting them!

"Bradley Street", a large cot-sized quilt, which will be bound tonight while I'm watching the Oscars

and "Clambake" cot quilt.

I picked up both quilts at stitching on Saturday afternoon and sewed on the bindings later that afternoon.  The "Clambake" binding, a very cute strawberry print, was stitched down while I was watching tv on Saturday night.

There was just enough backing left over from the Low Volume Log Cabin quilt to use for this cot quilt.  I love this "Just Another Walk in the Woods" fabric (designed by Stacy Iest Hsu).

On Friday I was fortunate to attend the annual International Women's Day event in Wollongong.  Jessica Rowe was the special guest and what a wonderful speaker she is.  So honest and natural and she has a great gift of being able to communicate with everyone in the room.

Last week's sewing time was mainly spent making the Hunter Star cot quilt - it's now with Karen for quilting.  The "Stellar Baby" fabric used for the blocks is so very cute.

Another great weekend has gone way too fast.  Saturday afternoon was enjoyable chatting with the stitching girls while I did some cutting out.  Mum and I went to see "The BBQ" at lunchtime yesterday - we really enjoy seeing movies showing life in contemporary Australia.

Was able to spend the rest of Sunday in the sewing room working on "Medley".  Round 14 has been added since this photo was taken.  I love making this quilt - always something interesting to look forward to.

Little "Moda Love" Christmas Quilt

Last weekend I picked up three quilts from Jenny at AngelCake Quilting.  Thanks to the Winter Olympics I've had plenty of tv-watching to stitch down the bindings.

The last one to be finished is a little Christmas quilt to cover the board and wires under the Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs Christmas Tree.

This is a great quilt pattern provided free by Moda Fabrics and any size squares can be used to make the blocks.  I made a larger version a couple of years ago with Star Wars fabrics for a cot quilt.  This one is ~32" square.

Jenny quilted it with cute holly, berries and ribbons.  The binding was made a few years ago for another quilt (and wasn't used) and the red star background fabric is leftovers from ChaCha's Christmas dress.

Last night I finished "Clambake" cot quilt top.  Another quilt from stash fabrics.  This is a great design for a quilt in a hurry.  Underneath is "Bradley Street".

There was just enough of this cute fabric left to back "Clambake".  This will be going to the quilter on Monday, hopefully along with "Bradley Street".

Nova

Stitched the last section of the binding down on "Nova" last night - it was pretty hot but I've worked out a way to hold the part I'm stitching without having the quilt on my lap.

"Nova" is a quilt designed by Kim Brackett from her book "Scrap Basket Sensations".  I have a few of her books and the designs all feature clever use of 2-1/2" widths of fabric.  The beautiful colours in these fabrics show up better in the following photos.  This quilt isn't very big - a good lap size - it's as big as I could make it from the fabrics I had.

The fabrics are Hofman Batiks and the colour range is called "Splash".

A floral batik fabric for the backing and multi-coloured batik binding.  Jenny at AngelCake Quilting quilted this one with a spiral design, which looks good against all the sharp angles of the blocks.

One small Christmas quilt to bind then I'm up-to-date.  Not much machine-sewing time this week.  Hope to finish off the "Bradley Street" and "Clambake" cot quilt tops over the next few days and possibly get back to "Medley".  Going out Friday night and no other plans for the weekend, except usual household stuff, so definitely looking forward to some time in The Pink Room.

Plans have changed ...

My friends weren't able to come up on Friday night after all so Miss ChaCha had a sleepover and I cut out a cot quilt for a baby girl due in a couple of months using some fun fabrics Jenni had given me a while ago - there are cute raccoons, rabbits, arrows etc. I'm making it half a block wider and one row longer.

On Saturday Mum, ChaCha and I drove down the Shoalhaven Heads to visit Diann and Bill - so lovely to spend some time with them and then I had a lovely evening at Lynell and Darren's sitting on their deck, eating prawns, Mexican bean dip,  cheese etc.  Their view of Lake Illawarra and the local beaches is pretty spectacular.  Sunday evening Lynell and I went to visit Diann and Bill again before they started their trip home this morning.  Summer evenings on the South Coast are pretty sensational.

Karen sent a photo of the quilting on Lucy's cot quilt.  I love the Rainbow Hearts design.

Sunday was ChaCha's birthday party.  What a fun afternoon she had with her cousins and little friends!  Elizabeth and Matt had loads of games organised.  "Paw Patrol" is ChaCha's favourite show at the moment and Elizabeth made a fabulous birthday cake.  Inside were dalmation spots representing Marshall, the favourite dog.

I made the first block to be sent off in the Bonnie and Camille Beehive.  This one is designed by Thimble Blossoms (Camille Roskelley) and is from her Early Bird quilt.  The pink fabric is probably my all-time favourite from Bonnie and Camille's ranges.  I bought it at Quiltsmith in Sydney when Sarah and I attended a class with Camille.

 

We're going to the pictures again this week to see "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".  We'll see "I Tonya" next week.

"Clambake" Quilts

Lots of trips to Sydney last week - one was to the beautiful State Theatre to see Michael Ball and Alfie Boe in concert.  Fabulous, fantastic show - such wonderful voices and they both have a great sense of fun.

Friday night was dinner with The Schoolgirls - always love catching up with them - the Sangria was nice too.

On Saturday I was back in Sydney (Potts Point) with some other friends.  First off lunch in a cafe by the Archibald Fountain

then we headed to the Hayes Theatre

to see "Assassins".  I knew nothing about this musical - really enjoyed it.  All the performers were outstanding.

Sunday afternoon Mum and I went to have a look around the new shops in Wollongong then visited family.

Not many Scrappy Stars completed last week - need 101 more.

Last Thursday I picked up the two "Clambake" quilts from Jenny (AngelCake Quilting).  One is lap-size

and the other is cot-sized.

Maybe a quieter weekend coming up - the big event will be The Hawks' first home game of the season on Sunday evening.  Here's hoping for a win.

Tessellation

It's been so great to spend some time in the Pink Room during the last couple of weeks.  I have a box of cut out quilt tops and have finished sewing some together - they are all smaller quilts with large pieces so didn't take long to sew up.

A few months ago I bought a layer cake, Moda "Whisper Muslin Mates", from Karen plus some yardage for background, borders and backing.  I was able to cut out two quilts:  "Dream Big", designed by Camille Roskelley (Thimble Blossoms) from her "Simplify" book -

and "Framed" from her "Simply Retro" book.

 
Another quilt I had cut out was "Clambake" also designed by Camille.

I cut out too many blocks, so only needed to cut another 12 to have enough to make the cot-sized version, which is included in the pattern.

Recently I dropped off these four quilts plus the two pink cot quilts to a new-to-me quilter and on Monday she sent through photos of the two pink quilts.  I'm picking them up this afternoon and hope to sew on the binding over the weekend.

Jenni's birthday quilt arrived back from Sarah last Friday and the quilting looks fantastic!  The quilt needed a design to off-set all the triangles and points and "Squares All Around" was a great choice (along with the aqua thread).

Sewed on the binding on Monday and stitched it down while watching tv.  I'm so happy this one is finished and with how it turned out as "Tessellation" was a real challenge for me to make.

On Friday nightI was looking through one of my fabric boxes to cut some more 5" squares for my B&C version of "Snippets",

came across some half-square triangles and had a light bulb moment - made some hourglass blocks with them and "Scrappy Stars" was underway (another Camille Roskelley design).

We've just had a long weekend and it turned out to be a busy few days.  Saturday had a lovely time catching up with Lynell and Wendy - Robyn couldn't join us because she was in Canberra awaiting the arrival (on Saturday morning) of her brand new grandson and on Sunday Mum, Jenni, Kurt, ChaCha and I had lunch at the Audley Dancehall and Cafe - such a lovely place and loads of space for little ones to run around.

HRH

Last Friday Sarah sent through some photos of "Tessellation", which she had just finished quilting.  It looks so wonderful and I'm very much looking forward to it coming home.  The quilting design is "Squares All Around".

Very busy weekend with little ChaCha staying over for 2 nights.  We washed the car, vacuumed the sewing room floor (ChaCha wearing my high-heeled orange sandals as one does to vacuum), folded washing and a few other jobs with lots of playing in between and then entertained visitors for dinner (the guests brought dinner - they can come again!).

There has been some sewing and 4 quilt tops are ready to go to the quilter this weekend.

The backing fabric for the Kaleidoscope and Dresden Plate cot quilts is so cute.

On Friday night I started sewing "Clambake" pieces together.  This quilt goes together very quickly once the layout is sorted and it was together by Sunday night.

I had cut out too many pieces for the lap-sized quilt and, after cutting out another 12, had enough to make the cot-sized "Clambake" as well - this went together in 3 hours!  Will definitely use this pattern again.  The fabric colours are showing up much better in this photo.

After months of preparations and very hard work (by others) we had lots of excitement at work yesterday.  Our main foyer was used for an event where HRH Prince Andrew, The Duke of York KG, was the special guest.  He was a guest of the University for the whole day and going by the photos in the local newspaper, it looks as though he really enjoyed his visit.

The event MC was also a VIP - Adam Gilchrist (legendary Australian wicket keeper/batsman) is a University Ambassador and such a great person.  He spent ages with the school students attending the event and enjoyed playing with the virtual reality equipment.

Last night Michael sent through a photo with the caption:  "Bikie gang terrorises locals" -hilarious!