Swell 2

The last stitch went into Swell on Sunday night.  This is the second time I've made this quilt and used many of the same fabrics.  It's a great scrappy quilt.

I love the swirly snail quilting design

 and this wideback backing.

Making 36 Friendship Stars for the next round of Medley is a slow process

so I made the rest of the scalloped borders instead.

The weekend was great - basketball on Friday night, visits with my two sweethearts on Saturday, friends over for dinner on Sunday followed by another basketball game.

Last week I took three quilt tops and backings over to Karen for quilting:  Swell, Spool Sampler and Hopscotch. 

Picked up Swell from Karen on the way home from work last night - it looks fantastic -

and Spool Sampler quilting is almost finished.  It's looking great too.

FigTree Diamonds quilt top has been a fun challenge to put together using a pile of half-square triangles I sewed up ages ago.

I made the backing last night and was so pleased with the joins in the fabric - it's great when the fabric design is so helpful.

For some unknown reason I had a bee in my bonnet to start Medley, again using my FigTree stash and Bella Solids for the backgrounds - I have smaller pieces in Ivory, FigTree Cream and Butter.

I think there will be just enough of each bakcground colour to make the quilt top.  This is where I stopped last night.  Friendship Star border is next.  This quilt will contain the last of many of my favourite FigTree fabrics.

We had another family birthday last week.  I made another crochet basketweave scarf - this time with fringing at each end - using Bendigo Woollen Mills Bloom wool in grey.

Had a great weekend.  Out with friends for dinner on Friday night for Robyn's birthday (Fruit Tingle cocktails are very nice).

My little Sweetheart ChaCha came for a sleepover on Saturday night and GG (Mum) joined us for dinner.

Starlight

Sarah quilted Starlight and sent it back with Cheerio.  Starlight was started in March this year and I finished stitching down the binding last night.  I love the "Hello Darling" fabric range by Bonnie and Camille, and loved using it for this big quilt (85" x 101.5").

The quilting is an all-over large wave design which is a nice contrast to the points.

Had a great weekend - fantastic basketball game on Friday night and lunch on Saturday with The Schoolgirls at Sublime Point.  Such a shame the weather was dull as the view from the cafe is spectacular.

Lynell and I picked up ChaCha on the way home from lunch.  ChaCha came for a sleepover on Saturday night - lots of fun with my sweetheart.

Was able to spend yesterday afternoon sewing and finished putting Hopscotch together (another quilt using "Hello Darling" - this has been slow-going because of bias edges and lots of points to meet up - I'm really happy with how it looks but now wish I'd made it queen-size - it will fit a single bed.

Borders have been added to Spool Sampler and I hope to add borders to Swell tonight so I can take the three quilt tops to Karen for quilting sometime soon.

The carpet in the two back bedrooms was laid this morning.  It will be so nice to have the house back to its normal state of chaos, four months after the "rain event".

Cheerio

The blocks for Cheerio were cut out in January 2015 and they were all sewn together in July this year.  Sarah did the quilting and the quilt arrived back at my place on Tuesday, along with Starlight.  I made the binding on Tuesday night and just as I'd started to sew it to the quilt there was a total blackout for over 3 hours so I spent some time trimming the two quilts by candlelight.
 

Sewed the binding on yesterday morning before work and then stitched it down last night while catching up on some tv shows.

I love the modern loops quilting - it gives the quilt such a great texture without overwhelming the block design.

NSW had a long weekend last weekend - so good to have time to spend with the family (one little sweetheart had her first sleepover at Nanna's) and also time in my sewing room.

Over the last couple of weeks I've sewn two other quilt tops together, Spool Sampler and Swell.

They both need borders before they go to the quilter.

And I've started another two scrappy quilts hoping to use up more of the stash.

Another fun weekend coming up.  Basketball season starts tomorrow night, lunch with The Schoolgirls on Saturday and my little sweetheart is coming for another sleepover.

Birthdays

We have a few family birthdays in September - my two daughters and a dear cousin for starters.

My cousin celebrated a big birthday and I was invited to the family lunch

and one of my sweethearts was my lunch date - he had a ball and loved all the delicious dumplings.  Gulli looks so grown up now he's had his first haircut.

Last week was my elder daughter's birthday and we had a family bbq yesterday at their new home.  Jenni made the birthday cake - Rocky Road Riot - it was delicious.

I made Elizabeth a cowl/scarf as part of her birthday presents.  I love this rainbow wool from Bendigo Woollen Mills.

Another Swell quilt is underway using the same batik fabrics as last time, plus a few more to make the quilt a bit bigger.  All the blocks are made and I hope to have the quilt top together in the next day or so.

On Saturday night Mum, Robyn and I went to see "Bridget Jones's Baby" - LOVED IT!!!  Best movie I've seen for ages.  Sad in some parts but so very funny overall.  We all had tears streaming down our cheeks from laughing so much.

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 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.