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.

This and That

Not a lot of sewing/stitching over the last couple of days but there was a great deal of house painting last week, most of which is now finished thanks so much to my wonderful sister-in-law and brother.  The house is looking fantastic.  A few touch-ups here and there, a couple of new verandah rails and the house will be looking so good - shame about the windows but replacing them is on the "one day" list.

Two more quilts have been cut out and a sample block of each made:  "Cheerio" and "Niner" both Camille Roskelley designs using a mixture of Bonnie and Camille fabrics.

Early last week I came across "Girls' Day Out" in my sewing room - this quilt was started in February 2008, the quilt top sewn together at a retreat in March 2010 and the last border flowers were vliesofixed on in January 2011.  The quilt top hadn't been touched since.  Two nights' worth of stitching and now the top is ready for quilting then all the beautiful buttons and beads can be sewn on.

I've been collecting some orange fabrics over a couple of months to make an orange "Swoon" quilt and the last package arrived yesterday - think I finally have enough to start cutting it out.  4 Fig Tree fabrics were added to the pile after this photo was taken.  This quilt will be a gift for someone special.

A few rows have been added to Best Friends Forever - I'm on a deadline for this now, so it will be what I sew this week if I have some spare time in amongst socialising.

I have 3 more quilt tops to give to Karen tonight at stitching and then all bar two of my quilt tops will be quilted.  One of these quilt tops was finished in 2011 so it's about time to have it quilted.

Backing for "Basket Case" and "A Year in my Life"

A couple of weeks ago at stitching I cut out another "Goodnight Irene" quilt, this time using 2 Bali Pops jelly rolls in pink, dark red, charcoal and black batiks with a black background.

I hope it looks as good finished as it does in my imagination as this is another gift quilt.

Stitching tonight so I will be collecting "Not Quite Civil War".

A Year in My Life

My "365 Challenge" quilt top is together. I've decided to call the quilt "A Year in My Life" because I haven't really followed Leanne Beasley's design for this quilt although I used her basic idea of making a diary quilt for 12 months.

The quilt is big (78" x 78" - the clothesline is at its highest) and will now join the pile of tops waiting to be quilted - will need to think about how to quilt this one. The diary part of the quilt was started on 1 May 2007 and finished 30 April 2008 - having a record of what happened during that year is wonderful. So many things happened that I'd completely forgotten about.

Definitely feels good to have another UFO off the list.

A beautiful day on the South Coast - much more pleasant than the last couple of weekends. Today we are going to Sydney with friends to see "Turns" starring Reg Livermore and Nancye Hayes - I have no idea of the story but I'm looking forward to a good laugh (hope it's a comedy).

Basting and a UFO

Lots of pinning yesterday afternoon = lots of quilting to happen over the next couple of weeks.

Little Patchwork Village

Vintage Valentine quilt top has been finished since 15 February 2009 - almost 2 years ago to the day.  Funny coincidence that I should decide now is the time to start the quilting.

Vintage Valentine

It's not often I have an uninterrupted afternoon/evening to spend however I want.  Once the pinning was finished I took out a UFO and started sewing blocks and sashings together.

Leanne Beasley's "365 Challenge"

Two rows are together, 3 to go.  The quilt will be fairly large (78" x 78") including outer sashing and posts, so I won't need to add outer borders.  I should change the name of this quilt because I didn't write an entry for every day and I made 12 blocks for the diary rather than individual blocks for the 365 days.  Also need to spend some time tidying up the sewing room - I am a very messy quilter.

Another Weekend is Over ...

Spent some time last week writing up the April block - last block in my Leanne Beasley's 365 Challenge quilt. The pieced block is "Combination Star" from an older Quilters' Cabin newsletter. Sashings are cut out - a few pinwheel blocks to make for the posts then the quilt can be sewn together. Might be a quilt to qualify for Peg's Challenge.




This block is Truly Scrumptious "Elizabeth" - all of these girls are gorgeous.

This has been another social weekend.- John and I went to see "Keating!" - loved it. Yesterday had lunch with The Girls at the refurbished Scarborough Pub - fantastic location, delicious food and the added bonus of whales playing off-shore.

It is our baby boy's 26th birthday later this week and we all went to Elizabeth's today for a bbq. Freezing cold day but fine and sunny. Was lovely to spend the afternoon with our family.

Catching Up

A surprise birthday present received last week from one of my dearest Stitchy Friends. Thankyou.

Leanne Beasley's 365 Challenge - March block and "Stairs to the Stars" block from Quilters' Cache. One more block to write up and one more red star block to piece and it will be time to put the quilt together. "Bubbles the Fish"; "Thomas Turtle"; "Miss Bee" and "Caterpillar". Capricorn Quilts' Stitchery BOM - April and May blocks. Lynette Anderson's Noah's Ark BOM Months 2 and 3.

365 Challenge

In 2007 Leanne Beasley posted a message on her blog about making a quilt with a block for every day of the next year. Knowing I wouldn't have enough discipline to write up a note for every day, I decided to make one block per month to keep track of highlights and decorate each block with stitcheries by my favourite designers. I've wanted to make a "star" quilt for some time, so thought this quilt was a good opportunity to find various star block patterns and hunt out all my red/cream/white fabrics. Amazing how many fabrics can be called "red". The time has gone so quickly and now I'm working on January's stitchery block.

365 Challenge

I have been making my own version of Leanne Beasley's "365 Challenge" http://leanneshouse.typepad.com/ - I didn't think I would keep up with one block per day - one block per month is more achievable for me and I've been wanting to make red star blocks for ages (no special reason, just because). I've been using a different designer's stitchery patterns each month and they are all stitched with DMC 115 (variable garnet). Received some of this thread in a kit last year and have used it so much since (eg Helen Stubbings' Santa Sack). The other blocks can be seen at http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/557730759QLHiMB.

Aside from doing this, I've been tracing, vliesofixing etc so that I have some stitching to take on our holiday. Next week John and I with our dear friends are going to Tasmania for 15 days. We are so looking forward to our trip and meeting up with some other friends during our travels.

Three quilts are almost finished - just little bits of handquilting here and there - don't think I'll get around to that until after Christmas (but then it'll be a bit hot here to be handquilting). They are the last 3 on this page http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/249716811VNCEyA?start=12 (have been having a little trouble uploading pictures today).

And, just to top off today, found out early this morning that another dear friend's daughter had a baby boy last night - what wonderful news. Welcome to the world Johannes!