Hand quilting challenge

 I've just been reading Bonnie Hunter's post on doing an hour of handwork during September to coincide with it being Sewing month.  Bonnie has challenged her readers to join her in working on an old project you might have hanging around.

This quilt has been waiting many years to be finished, I've had it sitting in my bedroom all winter waiting for me to do some more hand quilting on it.  As I've missed winter and we've moved onto spring maybe I better get a move on.

I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it, bought the book and knew straight away that I had to make it.  The book is called Pink Lemonade and Other Delights by Linda Johnson and this quilt on the cover was called Pink Lemonade.  At the time I'd made special quilts that I hand quilted for my Mums 60th Birthday and my Brother In Laws wedding present.  I decided that as I was 38 I could start a special quilt for my own 40th birthday.  I felt 2 years was a  reasonable amount of time to finish it.  Hahaha.  I think I'd started the quilting by the time I turned 40 and now as I edge towards 50 it is definitely time to try finish it.

There have been quite a few obstacles along the way and I think I've learnt some very valuable lessons as well.  One important lesson is don't leave anything you're working on folded up in the corner of the lounge room when your teenage daughter has a sleepover with 10 of her closest friends.  I discovered after the sleepover that someone had spilt coca cola on the back of my quilt!!  It was such a dilema I wasn't sure what to do, it was partly quilted but the stained part was only basted.  The fabric wasn't prewashed or the cotton batting either.  I decided  to leave it in the too hard basket and now that its well and truly set I'm going to cut stained piece of backing off and applique a new piece on.  Luckily stain didn't get to the front of the quilt.

 My other important lesson was don't mark quilting lines on quilts late at night.  I was trying to mark lines for cross hatching in middle applique block, never realised before I started how tricky that could be.  I came close to ruining the centre block because I was using pencil and realised my lines were going to be crooked.  I was determined it wouldn't beat me but after 2am is not a good time to be doing it!!

 This is such a large quilt 87 3/4" x 87 3/4" that I found it very challenging to quilt by hand.  Don't think I want to make quilts this big again.  It seems to be a pet magnet too, they all want to sit on it when I work on it.

I still love it though so I would really love to get it finished.  I found the hour glass blocks were a bit tedious to quilt, I'm looking forward to getting to the borders and doing them.  More cross hatching though, does anyone have a fool proof way of marking cross hatching??

Maybe by the end of September I'll be well on the way to finishing!!

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Fathers Day visit with Mum and Dad

It was Fathers Day here yesterday, I decided to make a card for my Dad myself.  I'm sick of the same old silly joke cards I'm sure he's sick of them too.

I had a photo of myself as a baby which I photocopied onto some card.  I then cropped it and used a decorative punch for the corners before sticking it onto a card I made up from some card stock that I already had.  I used my alphabet stamps to write the message.

It was fun to make and turned out well.  I think I might go back to making more of my cards it's so much more satisfying than buying one.  Dad liked it too.

Mum cooked a really lovely lunch as usual.  Roast pork with honeyed pears, roast pumpkin and potatoes, green beans and sauteed zucchini.  It was really good.  I took Harry over for the visit, he was very well behaved.

The sampler below is Mum's latest finish.  Isn't it fabulous?

We weren't sure which way was up but it looks good any way you look at it.

The sampler above which is called The Token was made by Mum a year or so ago.  Mum and Dad's wedding date and initials are embroidered on it, I really love it and I kidnapped it when they were on holidays a couple of years ago and it has been on my wall since then.  I will be very sad to see it go when Mum decides to reclaim it.  It's so beautifully stitched and such a lot of work.

After lunch Mum and I worked on our crochet projects for a while then it was time to go home.   It's always nice when we get to do some stitching together.



Happy stitching

Debra.

Scrappy Star Quilt

Not much sewing this week so I thought I'd show a couple of my collections.I love my pink depression glass collection.  The pink glass  isn't easy to find so its always exciting to get a new piece.

I wanted to change the quilt on my quilt hanger.   But first I had to remove everything off my sideboard and then dust.  Then rearrange and put away some of my things.  I keep telling myself I need to downsize but then I'll see something that I can't live without and my  collections end up a bit crowded.  It sure looks nice when its dusted. 


I love the scrappy reds and creams in this quilt.  Scrappy quilts are definitely my favourites.  Need to stop buying full fabric ranges cause quilts in one range aren't the quilts I like to make.....Need to stop buying fabric altogether.  One day.





I also can't resist a cruet set.  I'm partial to any cut glass or crystal and I've got a few of these now.  They remind me of having dinner at my Grandparents house when I was a young girl.  My Grandmother had a little dish with salt and a tiny little spoon to use with the salt, a very novel idea.  Then there was the dish of butter curls, haven't seen them for a long time.  Does anyone curl butter any more?

I have some of my seed beads stored in the little shakers.   Aren't they cute?

Some more progress on my crocheted hexagons.  I think I've got about 5 more rows to do.  It seems to have taken more time to make than my granny square rug.  Its still fun though.

I did get a start on my first applique border for my jubilee quilt.  Might manage a photo next time. 

Bye for now

Debra.

Cupcake Party

Hi there, I had a very enjoyable afternoon today.  Harry and I were invited by a friends daughter Emily to a cupcake party to raise money for the RSPCA.  

 It is the first time Harry has met another Spoodle,  after a wary introduction  they were soon running around playing and having a great time.   That's Harry on the left and Max on the right.  All four dogs had a great time running around playing.  It was very entertaining, they were all very cute to watch.

Max didn't want to share the water bowl with anyone else.  Isn't he adorable?  On the right are Bailey, a very handsome Cockerspaniel cross and Sparky, Emily's Pugalier.  Sparky sure lives up to her name, she's non stop run run run.

Here are the lovely cupcakes Emily made for afternoon tea.  I had a chocolate choc chip cupcake it was delicious.  I never met a choc chip I didn't like!

One of Emily's friends wins the award for most interesting pet, she brought along her six month old Ferret.  She was really quite cute, if a bit hard to photograph in her cage.  She couldn't come out of her cage cause Max got really scared when she first arrived and barked for about 15 minutes.

 At one stage Harry fell into the garden, he might have been pushed....

 Last night I finally got the last 2 sides of the inner border sewed on.  What do you think?  It's only taken me about 4 months to get this far with this border.

This morning I had a very exciting time.  I was checking out my facebook page and saw that Bonnie Hunter had her webcam on and was streaming live while she sewed.  I'm sure everyone is familiar with Bonnie and her Quiltville site.  She has only been streaming live for a week and I didn't know if I was ever going to see it. 

Yes, I am a total quilt nerd!!

I spent the rest of the morning watching Bonnie sew while I sewed along as well.  Luckily I had trimmed more of my string blocks last night so I stitched the white and black corners onto them.  Here they are on my design wall below.

The absolute highlight of my morning was when Bonnie had a break for a few minutes I sent her a comment on her Quiltville blog.  When she came back and stopped stitching for a few moments she read out and answered a few of the comments.  I was watching when she read my comment out!!  It was so cool and so amazing.  I'm in my sewing room in Melbourne Australia and she's in her sewing room in North Carolina America and she's reading out loud something I wrote minutes earlier.  The internet is awesome!!!

I just love her scrap quilts and her whole quilting philosophy.  She is incredibly generous with her ideas and has a lot of fabulous patterns you can use on her website.  I got her latest book in the mail last week and there are a few quilts calling my name.

Must go now, I think bed is calling my name.


Bye for now,

Debra.

Busy week

Hi there, here are some of the pages from the photo album I made for Aleisha's birthday last week.  She was such a beautiful baby, but I might be biased!  I was very happy cause she really loved it.  It was so much fun to do and brought back so many memories of those years.  I really can't believe it was 20 years ago, the time goes so quickly.  I've got plans to do a few more albums in the future.

 

 We had a very nice dinner out at the local Mexican restaurant with my parents.  I even had a Wicked Woman Margarita! Yummm.

My week has been very busy, I usually only work 2 days but have worked 4 days this week.  I'm always happy to get some extra work, helps pay my fabric debt.hahaha

I brought this great cat scratcher/play centre home this week.  This is Dougal inside the cat cave and Ruby investigating, they seemed to enjoy playing and scratching on it.  It fits in a corner of the kitchen perfectly.    You can tell these guys aren't spoilt at all can't you?

Here's Harry after a visit to the vet to get his sore paw fixed.  He is quite fond of lying with his head hanging over the edge of the couch.  He is such a sook but he did behave very well while the vet did his examination and while he got his paw bandaged.

I took him back tonight to get the bandage cut off, I decided I'd rather the vet did it.  Harry was very patient and stood still while it was cut off and his foot seems back to normal.

I've eased up on crocheting for a while cause my little finger was starting to get sore again.  I have done a few more leaves on my applique borders, and finished a few more string blocks.  I'm hoping I might get some stitching done over the weekend.  I might have more to show you next time. 

Happy Stitching

Debra.

Show and Tell Journal

 This fabulous journal was made by a friend of mine who wants to remain anonymous.  She's very camera shy but gave me the go ahead to show her work all the same.  I think Ms A has done a brilliant job with the journal.  It uses lots of vintage pieces that she has saved over the years and some she has been given or bought online as well. 

Every page is full of interesting quirky pieces.  The family photos haven't been added yet so it isn't finished but it will be a wonderful family keepsake when it is.  It would be hard to choose a favourite page, there are some great old photos, pockets to put things in, old envelopes and tickets.  Lots of work to put it all together which Ms A has done beautifully. 

 I did love the photo on this page of the two ladies out shopping, with the caption above it- shop till you drop.  That's one some of us can relate to!! 

I think its great to be able to have a go at lots of different creative projects and this type of mixed media is very exciting.  Finding the time to do everything is our greatest challenge don't you agree?

On my design wall are the blocks that I have made so far from my leftover strings.  I like them so far, I cut a selection of white and black prints for the corners those big black spots really stand out don't they?  Next time I'll show you some photos of the photo album that I made for Aleisha's birthday.  I finished it early which is quite an achievement for me.  It was fun to do I sure hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed doing it for her. 

Happy Stitching

Debra.

String piecing and crochet

First up a photo of my wonderful son Jack on Saturday ready to take a girl to her formal.  There's something special about seeing your child all dressed up in formal gear, definitely a photo op.

Not so smart was my decision to keep sewing and crocheting till 3am Saturday night waiting to see if I needed to pick him up from the after party.  I have a very bad habit of staying up too late stitching.  I find I get a lot more done at night time, I guess cause I don't get the guilts about not doing the housework at night!  It is a bad habit I really need to break, I get so engrosed in what I'm doing that I often don't feel tired.  How do you get to be middle aged and still not want to go to bed??  Can a night owl be reformed?  I think if I'm going to survive the next stage of my life I need to try.  I've been spurred on by the sight of a good friend out on a run this morning, I can barely drag myself out of bed and there was Kay running down beach road.  Last time I saw her she told me she had just taken up running, she's very inspiring.  Stay tuned.

As well as working on my hexagons on the weekend I made these squares.  They're a bit bigger than the grannies I made last year I like playing around with the colour combinations.  I'm trying not to get too distracted from my hexagons I think I'm about halfway there with them.

I also decided I wanted to do some more string piecing.   This was a pattern in the book Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again.  The block was called Liberated Wedding Ring its supposed to turn out at 14".  I'm using the leftovers from the fabrics I cut for my Jubilee quilt.  Of course I cut way too many strips so I should be able to make a  quilt just from the leftovers.  I'm going to do black and white prints in the corners, should be fun.  Its nice to have some piecing that you don't have to think too much about.  I haven't done much machine sewing lately.

I did get 2 of the inner borders on my jubilee quilt and I think they'll be staying.  It has taken me weeks to decide what I was doing with it.  Next up will be the applique border, thats when things will get really interesting.  If I don't get it right I might have to find a floral.hahaha

Happy stitching till next time,


Debra.