Tuesday 27 November 2007

Corner Kites



I finished one of the corner kites today - I have appliqued all of the pieces. When I made this corner for my siggie quilt, I pieced the star. I am pretty happy with this one.

I also completed another block today - A5 Cathie's Campfire - but haven't yet taken a picture - So my numbers are now 51:0:1:799 and growing every week!

Saturday 24 November 2007

UFO's and Works In Progress

Amazing what you can do in less than a week when you don't know what to do with yourself.... Last week I wanted to just sew - so, on Monday when it was too hot to do anything else - I pulled out every piece of fabric I own (other than batiks and works in progress) and cut a 5 inch strip. I then cut them into triangles so I could make a 1000 pyramid quilt - I ended up with enough fabric to make 2 quilts. Anyway there are around 2-3 pieces of each fabric and once I have the border on - this quilt will be a whopping 108 inches wide.

I have a lovely red backing fabric from Brenda Wade's "Widebacks" (great service and great fabrics - no affiliations but gosh what a great idea Brenda had).

I want to custom quilt this quilt in every individual triangle - all 1040 of them. It is a quilt for my caravan - called "The Beach Quilt". This is a snapshot of my stash in 2007 - and it doesn't even look any smaller - and...I now have a crate full of scraps that I can use in my applique work.

The next project ... well if you remember I went from these little blocks.....












now to this huge quilt (for my bed). My husband is holding it upside down so you don't get to see the lovely 6inch blue batik border or the way I have arranged the blocks so they go from dark to light - I wanted to recreate the dappled light through the water. I am putting a pantograph on this quilt that I designed - with seahorses, leafy seadragons and kelp/seaweed. fingers crossed it goes okay. I will post a picture when I have quilted it.





This is the border and the next photo is of the lovely backing that I got from... you guessed it... "Widebacks". I can't say enough about them - so check it out yourself - here is the link... http://www.widebacks.com.au/ I did wash this batik fabric backing and it has come up lovely - so should be nice to quilt on my Longarm.




And this little quilt - well it has been a UFO for two years...I have finally finished piecing it - I had a two in one pattern - finished the first one and was left with all these triangles - so I have put them together with a border, organised the backing and binding - and just have to do the quilting now. Easy Peasy!













So next weekend - I will have to do more Dear Jane and get some quilts onto the machine.

Dear Jane - 50 blocks done

Yesterday was a Dear Jane day - I finally got around to working out paper piecing and did 4 blocks. The other blocks were done this week also.


So I am now at 50 blocks done! Whoo Hoo - only 25 to the next milestone of 75. I am trying to concentrate on getting row A done this week - I only have a couple of blocks to go in both row A and B.








Friday 9 November 2007

41 blocks down 128 to go plus tris and corners!


It has been a slow Dear Jane week - I have only completed this one block so far - maybe I can do more on the weekend. I am enjoying the quite solitude of piecing at 3am in the morning though! thankfully I don't get insomnia every night.

Tuesday 6 November 2007

The Beach - where you see the most delightful things

You see the most delightful things at the beach - here are some of the tiny little flowers that are underfoot in the sandy soil at the beachside. These flowers were no bigger than my thumb nail.





These ones were in the State Forest about half a kilometre away from the beach - but still in sandy soil.




These little lovlies were absolutely everywhere and they are so tiny - I think they are my favourite - I love yellow flowers.






This is breakfast being cooked by the chef!
The BBQ is Mark I - the legs look a bit spiderish... but it does a lovely job of cooking breakfast, and dinner...I guess the next time we go to the beach the BBQ will be remodelled a bit more!
And this is the view from our bed in the caravan - you can't really go past this can you?
I'm so glad I spent the weekend at the beach. I got quite a lot of hand quilting done and it was very relaxing spending time with my family.






Dear Jane - hit 40 blocks

This is what I did on the weekend - prepped about 12 blocks for hand piecing as well as pieced 4 blocks. It is amazing what you can do with a clean hot bbq plate and a clean painters scraper - use it as an iron to iron on freezer paper to fabric - worked a treat. I really can do it all at the beach!







This block was pieced last week...















So was this one...















But these were the 4 I finished at the beach - so I am now officially at 40 blocks - nearly a quarter of the way there for the blocks.


I was worried about hand piecing the curved blocks - but they are really easy - just need to take one stitch at a time - lol!



More Quilted Diamonds



This is my second diamond - I made it last week but I am not too happy with my thread colour choice to do the reverse applique as it is too shiny - I may have to redo this. But it was fun making this little baby! Only 40 to go and I have made my 42 for my table cloth.

Friday 2 November 2007

The Long Weekend

No quilting this weekend .... I will be happily spending time at the beach - hand quilting my Dear Jane blocks and enjoying life with my James and son Jonathan.

This is the life - in the caravan relaxing right on the beach front.... fishing.... snoozing..... reading.... playing card games ... listening to the ocean sounds and walking along the beach - what more could you want (apart from quilting that is!)

This is James enjoying a scrummy lunch at New Year this year. He is really fishing 'cause the rods are out!




And this is the view from the caravan door - oh what bliss - I wish you could all be here - lol!