Sweet

Straight off the clothesline, freshly washed and dried outside on a beautiful spring-like day - we are going to a wedding at the end of September and this quilt is the present. 

I've called the quilt "Sweet" after the fabric range it's made from.  I bought the layercake and yellow background from Bec, can't remember where I bought the border fabric from, and the design is from a tutorial on Cluck Cluck Sew's blog.

We had such a wonderful time at the Attestation Ceremony at the NSW Police Academy in Goulburn to see my nephew take his oath as a Policeman.  My brother and all his family drove down from Lake Cathie, Mum, aunts, uncles and cousins drove up from the Illawarra.  We haven't seen my brother's family for a year and it was fantastic.  Mum was able to meet her little great-grand-daughter and spend some time with her great-grandson as well as give her grandson, John, a big hug on his big day.  John has wanted to join the police force since he was a little boy - it's a magical day when a dream comes true.

John is in the front row, far right

Lots of pomp and ceremony with the Mounted Police

Police Pipe Band

Police Brass Band

and a motor cycle escort for the VIP's.

Proud and happy Nanna with John and his daughter Charlyse

There are some more photos on our phones - I want to upload the one on DH's phone of nephew John with his 3 brothers - John, who is the eldest, is now the shortest.  Mitchell, No 2 son, is 6'8" and Zac, 15, is quickly catching up.

Knitting

A little while before the Sydney quilt show, a friend bought me this pattern book - so many lovely designs.  I decided to knit No 10 for Peta for her birthday and stocked up on wool from Bendigo Woollen Mills at the quilt show.  Jenni told me recently that Peta loves pom-poms so I decided to add a couple to the ribbon tie.

Design No 10, Cleckheaton Book 950, Bendigo Woollen Mills 8 ply, colour Ghost

The quilting on the Sweet quilt is finished and the binding has been sewn on - I'm taking my time stitching it down at night while watching tv - it's a big quilt.

Sweet - based on Cluck Cluck Sew's "Double Hourglass" tutorial

I've also been cutting and gluing more pies and tarts segments - that seems to be never-ending but is a good tv-watching job.

Lovely winter's afternoon - the sun is out.

This Week's Sewing

"Sweet" is on the frame and about 1/3 quilted.  I love the spotty backing fabric.  This is the first time I've used the Aurora on the frame and it's different to using the old 830.  I'm using the BSR and have found it easier to use it with the foot pedal rather than with the stop/start button.  Actually seeing the area to be quilted is a bit of an issue with this machine as the motor over the needle/foot is much larger than I'm used to.  Aside from that the quilting is going really well and I'm happy with the stitch size, tension etc.

Lunchtime stitching is "Pies and Tarts" - I already had 7 pies appliqued to their backgrounds and all these tarts made.  Last night at stitching group I sewed the other 4 pies to their backgrounds and put them on the design sheet when I arrived home (the tarts are pinned in place and the white backgrounds are not trimmed).

When I have a few more pies finished I'll think about sewing some of the blocks together and adding some tarts - I want to make sure I don't have two backgrounds the same next to each other.  The fabrics sent in the BOM from Quilt Fabric Delights are so vivid and fresh and I've found quite a few more in my stash to add to the mix - it's going to be a lovely quilt.  There's a good chance I'll make it a bit larger than in the pattern.

Sweet

Over the weekend I finished off the double hourglass quilt top (block design from Cluck Cluck Sew) using Sweet fabrics and some Moda Bella Solid in a lovely baby yellow that I bought from Bec a couple of months ago.

The quilt has turned out quite large (83-1/2" sq) and I'm now thinking about how to quilt it.  I need to find somewhere at home to photograph larger quilts and start using John's camera so that the colours show up better in the photos - the colours in this fabric range are really lovely, not washed out as in these photos.

There has also been a bit of secret sewing/stitching happening at home.

I am finally making headway with The Wish Quilt - sewing the heart appliques and floral spray filler blocks at lunchtimes and the chequerboard blocks have all been made, so maybe another couple of weeks and this quilt top will be together.

While I was away I started stitching block one of the Gingham Girls "My Favourite Things" quilt - love stitching these girls.  I've come across a couple of mistakes in the patterns - block 1:  thread used for face and hands should be 3859; block 2: background for applique needs to be cut 1/2" longer.

This coming weekend is a long weekend here in NSW.  We will be going to Sydney on Sunday to have dinner with our children and their partners.  So looking forward to seeing Michael and Peta - Michael proposed to Peta on Monday and she said yes - we are thrilled to bits, tickled pink, over the moon ...

Life is Good

Last Thursday morning everything was tidied up in the sewing room

my bags were packed with some clothes and lots of sewing and hand-stitching

ready for me to fly to Diann's later that morning before our trip to Kingaroy on Friday.  I'd taken my old machine at Diann's on my last visit in March (to save on excess luggage) in readiness for this trip.  The large purple bag contains all of Diann's sewing - her clothes bag was 1/4 the size.

The Quilters' Rest at Kingaroy is a fabulous venue where we can sew non-stop if we want or hand-stitch, read, do whatever takes our fancy.

I sewed and sewed so many small pieces of fabric together and the three blocks in the top row are all I have to show for my efforts - the block in the second row was made in March 2010 at Kingaroy and this quilt ("Rosettes" by Fig Tree Quilts) has been untouched since then.

All the block components are together and ready for sewing into 12 more blocks.

We returned from Kingaroy on Sunday night.  Monday we shopped and then spent the afternoon sewing.  I decided on some quick gratification sewing - Double Hourglass from Cluck Cluck Sew (which I'd cut out at home) using some Sweet fabric I'd bought from Bec.

By Wednesday morning all the blocks were made and ready for trimming.

42 of the 84 blocks

84 blocks ready for trimming

On Tuesday we decided to surprise our friends at Homespun and Beautiful, Tereasa's lovely shop where Helen, Teresa, Tereasa, Laurel and Mary get together each Tuesday.  The surprise worked a treat.  Teresa has more photos on her blog and I'll post one with Teresa when she emails it to me.

Helen, me, Diann, Tereasa - the quilts on the wall and samples on the shelves behind are are mostly Helen's beautiful work.

Two days at home before the weekend and back to work - life is good. I'm so fortunate to have met Diann and the other girls via the wonderful world wide web.