A Big Year

2016 has been a very big year in many ways, one of which is quilt finishes - 23.  20 of them are in the photo below.  Some were started a long time ago, some were orders for customers and some were made just because I liked the pattern and wanted to make them straight away.

Spool Sampler

On Friday night I looked after Gulliver overnight in Sydney.  I took Spool Sampler with me to stitch down the binding when he went to sleep for the night - think I managed to stitch down one side and turn a corner, so that was pretty good considering how hot it was.  Stitched the rest down on Saturday night.

My Instagram friend, Amy, wanted to make this quilt and asked me to make one too but, being me, I decided to change the design a bit.  So happy with how it's turned out - the original pattern has a plain background block between each sampler spool and I decided to make the quilt larger by adding more sampler spools and a three-fabric-spool between each sampler spool.  I'm not a big fan of lots of plain space.

Love the Baptist Fan quilting (Quilting on the Coast) - another lovely texture and the design doesn't overwhelm the patchwork.

 

Saturday morning Gulliver and I went out for breakfast,

then hit the shops, bought a few Christmas presents, waved to Santa and he generally had a good time singing very loudly and chatting to anyone who wanted talk to him.  Finished the morning off with a couple of turns on his favourite ride.

He wasn't happy when it was time to leave but soon changed when he saw that his Daddy was home.

Mum had a lovely birthday yesterday - most of the family was there to celebrate with her and we saw the rest at my nephew's engagement party late in the afternoon.  Thankyou to everyone who sent birthday wishes.  Mum's up with the times - has her own Facebook page - I show her what's on it every now and then :)

One little piece of Christmas sewing has been completed - a heart for the Hugs N Kisses swag that hangs in the loungeroom.

Kurt has been around for long enough now.  I've also ordered a little nameplate from Nikki Tervo for the stocking swag.

Orange Swoon

When I met up with Sarah at quilt camp she gave me back Orange Swoon, which she had quilted - it's wonderful.  I started collecting fabrics for this quilt last year and began the blocks in May this year.

I need to find a space in the house so I can take a photo of the whole quilt and show the true colours - it's a whopper at 104" square.  I sewed on the binding last week when I arrived home from Tasmania and stitched the binding down over the next few nights.

I love the quilting design - it doesn't take over from the piecing but adds a lot of interest with the swirls against the sharp angles.

Road Trip

On Saturday Paula, Karen and I drove to Bathurst to meet up with the other girls who were in Bathurst for the blog meet.  First stop was Anni's shop, The Home Patch, where we met up with some of the girls (Chooky and Ros and a few others).  I bought a few things at Anni's - a couple of her sweet patterns, some of her lovely Christmas fabric

and some chocolate brown linen for an Anni-designed bag I hope to make one day.

Next stop was the retreat venue for lunch, show and tell and "make it, bake it or fake it" swap.  I took 4 photos - 3 of them are some of Chooky's show and tell.

I took along this bag as my swap present:

The swap was a lot of fun with many girls wanting to steal each other's gifts.

Sunday was such a hot, humid day at my place.  I spent most of the day in the sewing room with the fan for company working on a Christmas present.

 

Last night I sewed a few Best Friends Forever blocks together and then felt like doing something different so I made a couple of Lori Holt's blocks that have been all over Instagram (#haveyourselfaquiltylittlechristmas).  These designs are so gorgeous - am very much looking forward to making the rest of the blocks.

The last Best Friends Forever stitchery block is coming along - might be finished this by the weekend.

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).

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.

Backings

On Saturday afternoon I added some borders to the X and Plus quilt then made backings for some of the quilt tops I have finished over the last year or so.

Posted Picnic off to Sarah for quilting, so I'll be looking forward to that coming back in a few weeks.

A good while ago, almost 2 years, I cut into a quilt kit, "Pathways and Crossroads", that I had bought from Bec and ever since it has been in the sewing room cupboard.  Sunday afternoon I started sewing some of the pieces together and now have 5 blocks finished; 4 more to assemble.

 
These are all lovely Fig Tree fabrics and the quilt has interesting sashings, posts and borders.

Hanging out for the Easter break - catching up with family and probably painting.

Source

Treadle in the Garden

Arrived home from work on Friday evening to find that the gardening gurus (sister-in-law, brother, niece, nephews and their grand-babies) had visited during the afternoon.  I am flabbergasted by how much they achieve and so quickly!

Left - Friday evening; Right - Saturday afternoon

Top left - Friday afternoon; bottom left and right - Saturday afternoon

By Saturday afternoon another long garden bed had been dug along the opposite fence.  I've had this old treadle sitting on the verandah for ages (a friend used it for a fish tank stand) - Tracy decided it was a very appropriate garden feature and next minute it was in the garden.

Rained all Saturday night and most of yesterday morning, so I thought I'd sneak in a bit of sewing to finish up some more Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks.  The rows have been pinned into blocks for a few weeks.

35 blocks finished, 5 ready to sew together - another 24 to cut/piece

Many of the lovely Bliss pieces that Marina sent to me are in these blocks and the layer cake leftovers from X and Plus will be in the next batch of blocks.  This will be a large quilt (96" x 96").

The garden gurus arrived late yesterday morning and, once the rain stopped, we spent the afternoon working outside again - lots more exciting things happening to the house as well as the yard.

Goodnight Irene Sew-Along

My short attention span has struck again.

Something I've been trying to do over the last couple of years is use up a lot of the fabrics in my stash.  Often when a quilt top is finished, it doesn't feel like I've used very much fabric at all.  The first Floral Bouquet in a variety of Fig Tree fabrics is one example and so is "Tone it Down", the APQ Quilt-Along Quilt - even though I used about 77 different Fig Tree fabrics, there's still an awful lot left over.

I've had a pack of Timeless Treasures Pink Lemonade Treat Strips along with backing, binding and border fabric in my cupboard for a couple of years.  While browsing through some blogs the last few days, I came across the Goodnight Irene Sew-Along and thought these blocks would look pretty in Pink Lemonade.  I needed to make a couple of test blocks.

I've never used Batiks and find that although these feel different to the cottons I'm used to working with, they sew up and press beautifully.

Also found out that the blocks go together easier if the seams are pressed open.  Because I want to make quite a large quilt, I will be using the fabric I bought for borders in the "X" blocks - there is just enough fabric in the strips to make the required number of blocks.  The way the quilt is set out a border is made with the white and contrast fabrics.  I have no idea what the white fabric is - it was a 3m piece in my background fabrics box.  It feels finer than Moda Bella Solid and is a bit milkier white than the White Kona Solid I have.

My curiosity was satisfied and I did some more of Floral Bouquet 2 in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" while watching the tennis.

Floral Bouquet No 2

I first made this quilt in 2011 as our Tuesday Girls quilt-along for that year.  In April 2012 I cut out a second Floral Bouquet using a jelly roll of Fig Tree Breakfast at Tiffany's and all the pieces have sat in a bag ever since.  I came across the bag when going through all of my Fig Tree fabrics for the APQ Quilt-Along and left it out on the chair, thinking I would get to it once Tone it Down is finished.

Telling myself I needed a little break from Tone it Down (I can rationalise with the best), on Monday night I sewed all the snow squares onto the strips.  Yesterday, after work I pressed and trimmed them

 

and sewed one block together while watching/listening to Lleyton Hewitt's match.

After dinner, I just kept going.

The mis-placed block has been turned around.

I'll add the outer fabric to the blocks tonight then might get back to Tone it Down - I still have a few sashing pieces to cut and need to decide on final placement.

I have a little bag of the triangle off-cuts from both Floral Bouquet quilts - all Fig Tree fabrics with Moda Bella Solid Snow.  The pieces are small - about 2" across the straight grain edge.

If anyone would like these, please say so in a comment - first in gets them.  Happy to post anywhere.  The little triangles have been claimed.