Medley

The first "Medley" quilt I made was finished in March 2017 and went to live with my dear friend in England.  Another friend, Elizabeth, in USA, always liked this quilt and we started having email discussions about my making one for her.  Elizabeth found a beautiful turquoise butterfly fabric, Butterfly Garden, that she wanted for the backing and we used that as the basis for all the other fabric choices with turquoise spot on white for the background. None of the plains were used.

The quilt was finished on Easter Monday night and posted on Tuesday.

Making this quilt has been such a delight - so lovely to have someone else making fabric choice decisions and knowing the quilt is going to be loved.

Karen did the quilting in the same "Filigree" design as the first "Medley" but it was spaced out a little more.  "Medley" is a Coriander Quilts pattern by Corey Yoder.

Coincidentally, Elizabeth was the friend who sent me the beautiful Kumari Holiday fabrics to make a quilt for my own bed and those fabrics were by the same designer of the Butterfly Garden fabrics.

"Medley" is Together

The "Medley" quilt top is together - it measures approximately 67" square.  The colours are much more vibrant than in the night-time photos.  I hope to drops it off to Karen over the weekend.

 Backing and binding were sewn up yesterday

and I spent the rest of the evening cutting out extra blocks for my "Summer Nights" quilt - the rest of the blocks will be made by the other Beehive members and should arrive in December so I'm hoping to be ready to sew the quilt top together after Christmas.

My dear friend Robyn has recently returned from a skiing trip to Japan.  She brought home presents!  Very cute Japanese socks and a fold-up shopping bag.

Spending tomorrow with Gulliver - really looking forward to that.  Think we'll visit Auntie Jenni and Uncle Kurt.

Progress

Two blocks are required for April's Bonnie & Camille Beehive - "Fireworks" in the last blog post and "Nantucket".  I've avoided making this quilt because of all of the bias edges so I thought it best to make my sampler block first

before making the block to send off to Nicola next month.

Sewed up May's blocks as well - one of each to send off and one of each for my sampler.

 

 

 

Stitched down the binding on the Hunter Star quilt last week while watching tv.

Medley border 16 flower blocks as at Friday night:

Flower blocks as at Monday night - all done!

Pinned the flower blocks into rows last night at stitching.  Borders 17 and 18 are straight strips of fabric.  Border 19 strips are sewn up too.

Hope to have the quilt top together before Easter.

Fun Weekend

My fun weekend started with Little Sweetheart staying over on Friday night.  It's always a fun time when the my grandbabies visit.

We visited GG for lunch on Saturday then it was hometime.

Saturday night I went to see "Calamity Jane" - a Hayes Theatre production that came to Wollongong.  Fabulous show - so entertaining!

Last night I had dinner with friends to celebrate my dear friend Lynell's birthday - always such enjoyable company.

Weekend sewing was fairly limited - made a start on Border 16 of "Medley"

and two "Fireworks" blocks for April's Aussie Bonnie & Camille Beehive.  One to be sent out to Alison

and one for my sampler.

Karen has finished quilting Hunter Star - very cute star design - will pick it up tomorrow and sort out the binding.

Bradley Street

Last night I stitched down the binding on "Bradley Street".

This is a free pattern from the Moda Bake Shop and I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  The main fabric squares from from 2 charm packs of "Ahoy, Me Hearties" designed by Janet Clare - very stormy looking sea colours.

Karen quilted it with a design called "Ebb and Flow" which works very well with the sea theme of the fabrics.  I'm trying to use as much fabric from my stash as possible and was pleased to find I had fabrics to use for the blue flying geese as well as the binding and backing.

Border 15 is on "Medley" - it is now 42-1/2" square.  Flower blocks are next - they are fun to put together.

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.

Nine Patch Waltz

Last Monday night Karen dropped my off "Nine Patch Waltz" quilt.  This quilt is designed by Fig Tree & Co and is made with their fabrics.  I sewed on the binding late last week and finished stitching it down last night while catching up on some tv shows - any tv viewing lately has been the Winter Olympics.

I'm so happy with this quilt - love the "Avalon" fabrics, designed by Fig Tree, and especially love the secondary design (circles).

The backing fabric is also from the "Avalon" range.  I love yellow in quilts - always adds some sunshine.

Karen used "Twisted Tatting" to quilt this one.  It looks so good.

Had a busy weekend:  out for dinner with The Schoolgirls on Friday night, family lunch in Sydney on Saturday at Jenni and Kurt's new home (the little ones were in great form after their visit to the aquarium in the morning), ChaCha stayed over on Saturday night and we had a busy Sunday.  Headed into the sewing room after she went home and sewed up the rest of the "Medley" friendship star pieces while watching "Denial" on dvd - an excellent story based on the events of a libel court case in UK.

Blocks

Lots of bits and pieces sewn over the last week or so.

Sewed up the next block for the Aussie Bonnie & Camille Beehive - "Norway".  Each member was assigned a colour with aqua for the outer corners.  This first block is to be sent to Sheena next month

and this very scrappy block is for my sampler that I hope to make early next year.  These blocks are enormous:  26" finished.

Tonight I'm going to try making a "Nantucket" block - two ladies have requested this design and I'm just a bit nervous about sewing this one up.

"Bradley Street" cot quilt is at Karen's to be quilted.  Will feel good to have this cot quilt finished before the baby arrives.

The Stitching Girls came over on Monday evening for the first time this year.  Karen brought "Nine Patch Waltz" which she had quilted for me over the weekend.  It's just lovely!

I really like this yellow "Avalon" fabric I used for the backing.

Finally back to sewing the next border for "Medley", which will be made of 36 little friendship star blocks..  These are 3" finished.

No movies this week but hoping to see "Finding Your Feet" next week.  Looking forward to dinner with The Schoolgirls tomorrow night and lunch with the family on Saturday. 

Busy, Busy

Not a lot of sewing time the last couple of weeks in amongst time spent with family and friends, lots of home basketball games at the end of the season and going to work.

A couple of rounds have been added to Medley.  Very happy with how this quilt is coming together but it's going to be a while before it's all together.

I put Medley aside to make the little cot quilt for Mum to give to Lucy.  The heart/star pattern is from Thimble Blossoms' "Handmade with Love" Christmas quilt and it works beautifully for a baby girl quilt.

For the first time I've joined a beehive.  There are 12 members.  Each member chooses a quilt pattern (the theme is Bonnie and Camille patterns/fabrics) and every month one person is selected and each member makes a block from that person's quilt pattern and posts it to the person.  I've chosen "Summer Nights" by Bonnie Olaveson in all scrappy B&C fabrics.

The beehive members will make the star blocks in scrappy Bonnie and Camille fabrics and I will make the Irish Chain filler blocks.  I'll make a few extra blocks because I want the quilt to be a bit larger.

This week I've been going through my B&C scrap drawer and trimming lots of pieces to 2-1/2" and 2" squares to use in "Summer Nights".   Scrappy quilts are my favourite.

"The Post" was fantastic.  I need to watch "All the President's Men" again if I can get hold of a copy.  Mum and I plus a bunch of friends went to see "Darkest Hour" on Monday night - fabulous movie - made more interesting by having Mum giving a running commentary on all the events and people.  Tuesday afternoon Mum had a cataract removed and, aside from a bit of a black eye, no-one would know she'd had surgery.  She is remarkable.

I have a few quilt tops at the quilters. I dropped off the pink hearts quilt and "Nine Patch Waltz" and picked up "Cakewalk" from Karen.  The binding is sewn on and will hopefully be stitched down next week.

Yesterday was little ChaCha's third birthday - unbelievable!  She is now quite grown up, chatters pretty much non-stop and is a delight.  She was very excited about her new fish tank and fish.

Friends are visiting from Queensland - so looking forward to seeing them tonight.