Almost made it!

Even though it's the first of August, I wanted to quickly share that today I managed to get July's monthly mini quilt finished! It was so close to being finished yesterday, all that remained was to hand stitch down half of the binding while Mary was napping today.

I pieced the top on Saturday, and basted it ready for quilting - I mentioned in the last post that it's the Highland Plaid block from the Moda Blockheads 4 project.

There are a couple of absolute golden oldies amongst the fabrics I used, this one from the tub gifted to me by Pam Holland:

So vintage - this one is all gone now! The larger sashing strips in blue and the binding fabrics are from the same tub. It's like a lovely trip down memory lane.

Here it is prior to quilting:

I got busy quilting on Sunday, and got about twenty minutes in, and realised I hadn't glue basted the backing fabric accurately. An absolute rookie move - I didn't even bother to check it before I started quilting. I was working on freemotion quilting a fabulous feather border after doing some securing stitches with the walking foot. For whatever reason I turned a corner of the quilt over and saw the most terrible puckers and pleats on the back. Horror! So I then spent the next two hours picking out the quilting! It was a lesson in patience, and I made it through!

After that, I just didn't have it in me to work up a fancy quilting design, instead I quilted a simple allover pattern so I could call it done.

It's all finished now, and in place on the coffee table in the lounge room. I think it can stay there for a bit ... 

Each time I wander past I find another little shard of thread to pick off the top. It'll be a constant reminder to check that the back is okay before I spend too long quilting.

A big thank you to Wendy Caton Reed for hosting the montly mini challenge. Be sure to stop by her blog and have a look at what all the other ladies are working on. Have a great week friends!

And this week - not so productive!

It absolutely makes me smile - I rolled into this week thinking of all the stitching I was going to get done - I had such grand plans! And really, I actually managed to achieve very little in the sewing room. Which is perfectly okay, sometimes life gets super busy with other things!

I looked after little Mary for an extra day this week as her other Grandma has been sick. It was supremely lovely to spend so much time with the little honey, but goodness me it is exhausting minding a toddler! I must have had so much more energy when I was younger!

The only stitching I managed to get done at all was a start on my mini quilt for this month:

Not a lot to show in the picture, just a beginning, probably only an hour of stitching time. I'm reasonably confident I'll be able to get the top done tomorrow during the day, and if I really focus, maybe I'll have the little quilt finished before the end of the month rolls around. The block I've used is a recent one from the Moda Blockheads 4 project - Highland Plaid by Crystal Manning. My plan is to make a few of the little blocks and add a border, I think it will look quite cute.

One thing that has kept be quite busy this week has been painting the little heads for mmmCrafts ornaments. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I'd try popping a few painted heads in my Etsy Store and see how they went. Well, I was quite surprised to find that they have been very popular, and I've sold many more than I ever expected, so I needed to replenish my stocks.

I'm keeping things organised, and happy to keep painting beads as long as lovely crafters are happy to buy them.

I won't hang around online, I'll get back to the sewing machine to piece as much as I can before bedtime. Chatter soon lovelies! xox

June finishes!

It's not Friday, but I wanted to quickly check in before the end of the month to share these June finishes:

This is my June monthly mini quilt. I used an applique block from Sue Garman's Afternoon Delight quilt. I just love everything that Sue ever made! I was able to use plenty from my scrap drawers, and had fun with the quilting too:

Thankfully my machine behaved itself this time, perhaps fooling with the bobbin tension was just what Bernie needed.

And I've made ten blocks towards Chooky Blue's Churn Dash sew-along. Click on the image in my side bar to take you to Chooky's blog and see all the participants.

There are nine blocks in the picture, one didn't make it in. I'm going to sash the blocks using 2" strips, I'll need to rustle around in the stash to find something nice and bright.

I'll leave off here as this is only a quick catch up post, and I'll check in with you all again on Friday! xoxox

Checking things off that infinitely long list ...

I don't know if anyone can relate, but I love a good list. And when I have huge amounts of things to get through on a list, it never seems to stop me from adding more and more things to the list. Fortunately, I'm not easily stressed, so I just keep plugging along and get to most things EVENTUALLY!

One of the list items was to get this month's mini quilt together - these are a joy to make as they come together so quickly.

This is 14 inches in size, and has a lovely Sue Garman applique block in the centre. It's made entirely from scraps, some of them quite small, so I wasn't able to use the same fabrics all the way through, but I suppose that adds to its charm. I'm yet to quilt it, but that won't take long and will be something fun for this weekend. If you'd like to see the projects from other sweet ladies working on mini quilts, do check out Wendy Caton Reed's blog.

I enjoyed the applique block so much I made another:

The green and yellow fabrics are golden oldies - Smithsonian prints from the late 90's. I just loved those collections so much. The green was in the big box of reproduction fabrics kindly gifted to me by Pam Holland, and the yellow was a gift from lovely Sue Flego in NZ. Quilters are so kind! I'm really enjoying the glue baste applique technique these days, it's hard to imagine I'll return to needle turn any time soon.

Other sewing I did this week was a couple more churn dash blocks, but I neglected to take a photo, I'll have to save that for next week. But on my other churn dash project, I finally settled on a fabric that I will use for the border:

It's a pretty William Morris print, and it seems to go with the rest of the quilt. I'll have to make sure I cut it out so that the grapes are all even across the quilt top or it will drive me crazy! It feels good to have finally made a decision toward finishing this top.

I had a little happy mail again this week, this time in the form of patterns:

I have absolutely loved the Morrell quilt from the very first time I saw it, so I will be super excited to make it. Before I can even consider it, I need to finish some other things, so who knows when I'll begin, but let me tell you, it's all I can do not to rip the pattern open and start sewing right away! The other birdie wreath pattern is just gorgeous also, and though I know it will be in my future sometime, it's not keeping me awake at night planning which fabrics I'll use :-)

And last of all for today, I shopped for a little fabric for Miss Mary, as I've decided I'd like to make a Dresden Play Mat for her. Here are the fabrics I chose:

You can't see in the picture, but the fabric is irresistibly sparkly. I can't wait to cut into it. I often joke with my friends that Amy and Mary have no idea of the tsunami of quilted and crafty items that are heading their way haha!

I feel like there are more things that I should be sharing with you, but I'm feeling flaky and can't think what they might be. So if I remember, I'll check back in on another day. I hope you've all had a great week, and I'll chatter soon! xox

May Monthly Mini

First up, a big thank you to Terry and Gladiquilts for your lovely comments on my last post. Your email address didn't come to me so I wasn't able to reply to you personally, but I very much appreciate you taking the time to connect. <3 <3

I'm feeling good about my accomplishments this week, I had been dithering over what to make for this month's mini quilt - on Monday I just grabbed some blue and a background and went for it. Nine patches to the rescue!

Once I finished the nine patches, it was my plan to use the same background fabric as setting squares. But I was hit with some inspiration and pulled some Dutch chintz fabric out of a scrap drawer. This was the leftover piece from when I made the Mountmellick quilt with all the broderie perse - it looked like a piece of Jarlsberg cheese with all the holes in it - and it still does, but it's a smaller piece now! It's a much busier looking quilt than I had originally planned, but I still love it! At 19" square it's a little larger than my other mini quilts, but it still qualifies as a mini, right?

Here's a bit of a closer look - warts and all! The blue fabric is a favourite of mine, it was purchased on one of my trips to the USA to visit with darling friends. All the yardage is gone now, there are just the leftover bits from the strip piecing and the binding to go in the scrap boxes. While it's sad to see the end of some fabrics, I always get a thrill when I can use something up.

And a little sneaky peek of the back - it's quilted simply with crosshatching and fairly plain feathers. I'm getting low on that check fabric now, and that thrills me too. It's a favourite, but I can't really use it on the front of quilts as it has some poly content. I just can't press it as hot as I'd like - and I learned this the hard way. It does make for nice soft backings though. Only one fat quarter and a few scraps before it's all gone - I'll endeavour to find a good replacement in 100% cotton.

If you're enjoying seeing these monthly mini quilts, do click over to lovely Wendy Caton Reed's blog, you'll find a list there of all the other sweet ladies making mini quilts. They're always beautiful eye candy!

And for Lily Rosenberry, I've prepped block 11 ready for stitching:

It's so much fun playing with a variety of fabrics in this project, it's always fun to find little shards of the colours I need and be able to put them into the quilt.

I've also been getting more little berries ready:

I need about five hundred to complete the rest of the blocks and the border, so I'll keep busy making them, I won't be finished any time soon!

There should be a few hours this weekend I can spend in the sewing room, so it's my hope I'll be able to make up some more of the Moda Blockheads blocks, and get organised for the Churn Dash SAL. Isn't it fun to have plenty to occupy oneself in the sewing room! Chatter soon xoxox

Oooops!

I nearly forgot it was Friday today - it's only 9.30pm, but I was buzzing around in the sewing room - not making plans for a blog post - and suddenly I realised that I needed to get busy on the computer.

Though it wasn't completed this week, I have this month's mini quilt to share. A big thank you to Wendy Caton Reed for hosting this fun project - click over to her blog to see the other participants for the month.

The applique in the centre is from Sue Garman's Afternoon Delight quilt, and after that I was just winging it. I was happy to find the red stripe fat quarter I could use in the border, it's thrilling to me to use things up right now, especially things that have been sitting around for a while. I had fun with the quilting, but I still need to be braver. Baby steps I guess?

And for things I've worked on this week, I did end up making the 9" version of last week's Moda Blockheads 4 block:

I haven't made this week's block yet, hopefully that will be a project for the weekend. But I did enjoy the churn dash block so much that I tested it in another colourway with a view to making a larger quilt:

Yummy fabric! I only have enough of the teal print to make sixteen blocks, so this project is destined to be a cute lap quilt for winter. This is where I'm at so far:

The pink sashing fabric was used as the border in my Farmers Wife quilt back in the day, and this quilt should use up the last of it. It's so much fun to remember past quilts when I'm working on scrappy quilts.

I'll get a bunch more piecing done tonight while I wait for a phone call - I dropped Camo off at a friend's party with a promise he could call me to pick him up later, and I don't mind how late! I definitely don't want him drink driving so I'm always happy when he asks for help. How is it that my little baby is turning 20 soon? It seems like yesterday that he was this tiny little guy scooting around the house! Time flies!

Well, that has been my week from a quilting perspective. On the home front I've also been doing a little sorting and clearing out this past week. I haven't discussed it on my blog, but around the same time as my FIL passed away, my Nanna was getting to a stage where she couldn't live independently in her unit anymore and was moving into the nursing home which is part of the facility she lives in. Though I haven't been doing nearly as much sorting/clearing/cleaning as my Mum, that was something we finalised this week. It is amazing how much a person accumulates in a life, and as a result when I came home I cast a different eye over the house and our posessions. I've resolved to send a bag of items each week to the op-shop - it will be difficult, but I'm hoping really freeing also.

Alrighty, that's enough from me for this evening, I hope you've all had a great week, and I will chatter with you again next week! xox

Stitching time aplenty!

This week I've been super happy with what I was able to achieve in the sewing room, I finished two little projects, and started a surprise project!

First up, I completed the March mini quilt challenge, which is hosted by Wendy Caton Reed. It's such a fun challenge to work on - it's a great way to try a new technique, and in this case I sampled a project I'd like to make larger later on:

This little quilt is approx 16" square, the applique blocks are from Jo Morton's Little Favourites III, and then I just put it together how I wanted from there. 

This is the light fabric I used in the half square triangles (one of the many fabrics gifted by Pam Holland) - I think it came out in the late 90's? I definitely used some fabrics from this collection in my Dear Jane quilt back in the day.

Be sure to visit Wendy's blog at the end of the month for links to the other participants in the monthly mini quilt challenge. A big thank you to Wendy for hosting!

Last week I shared that I'd cut out the pieces for a mmmCrafts Elf ornament. Well, I finished that too!

I am in love with this little guy! This afternoon I'll start working on his sweet elf girlfriend, and over time I'll make some more - a set for little Mary and other family members, and then I'll get busy on other patterns in the series. I did make one change from the original pattern - I decided not to add the pointy elf ears - I don't have any cardstock that would be suitable (and can't head out to buy anything) and I thought they looked a touch spock-esque anyway.

The surprise project I mentioned is Moda Blockheads 4. I saw a few people working on their first blocks, and on impulse decided I wanted in!

This is my version of block 1. I decided I'd once again like to dig in to the lovely fabrics Pam Holland gave me last year, so my block is made from a selection of delightfully aged reproduction prints. The only exceptions are the tiny pink square and the spotted background fabric which came from my scrap drawers.

If you'd like to join in or investigate the project, the Moda Blockheads blog has all the information and links, and Kansas Troubles Quilters who designed block 1 have lots of details on putting the block together. Enjoy!

And the last picture for the day is some more happy mail that I received during the week:

Di Ford-Hall's daughter and sister have been selling fabric here and there on Instagram, and when this lovely yardage came up I was sold. I can imagine so many lovely borders, fussy cut projects and more with it. And they added a little extra treat too which was so kind.

Isolating this past week meant I had plenty of sewing time, and I still have some more days to go, so I wonder what else I'll be able to achieve. My kitchen refresh was meant to start on Monday just gone, so that has been postponed after waiting quite a while - hopefully I'll have something to share on that score soon also.

If you're still reading along - I wanted to mention that I've been reading a few new to me quilting blogs. Time is often a factor getting as much reading/commenting done as I'd like, and a lot of blogs I read in the past have dropped away. So that I can see blog updates, I've started adding blogs here and there on a blogroll in my sidebar (which is new for me) so if you'd like to have your blog added, please mention your blog in a comment. I also use bloglovin, but I've added the blogroll so others can see updates too.

Anyway, chatter next week, and thank you for stopping by! xox

Today was a Kaffe kind of day ...

This has been a challenging week, so I was super happy to complete the quilting on the mini quilt top I made last week. I'm so pleased with how it looks now!

I started out doing some ditch stitching with the walking foot, which is something I rarely do, and I just didn't like how it was coming along. However when I went back and added more free motion quilting I started to fall back in love with it.

 See if you can tell where I ran out of thread:

Playing thread roulette seems to happen a lot with me! And I don't really mind when there are funny little things like mismatched threads in a project, it's all part of the story of the quilt. So now I've finished my first little quilt for Wendy's Monthly Mini challenge, yay!

Recently one of the Mum's of a school friend of Camo got in touch on behalf of Cranio Facial Australia regarding a need for quilts/blankets and comfort items for children undergoing surgery. I passed the information to our guild, and also chatted to my quilting ladies about what we could do. This week two beautiful friends Jean and Pam had brought in some fabric that was surplus to their needs, and I decided to get busy cutting so we can make up some quilts from the beautiful fabrics.

Today I started with the fabric Jean donated - a gorgeous pile of Kaffe Fasset loveliness!

So the photo is quite deceptive - it doesn't really illustrate well how much fabric is actually there - and on the right there are some of the I-spy fabrics that Pam donated.

Look at these lovelies that were hidden in the pile, just gorgeous!

It took me most of the day today, but I'm so happy that I managed to get all the Kaffe fabric cut into 2.5in, 3.5in and 4.5in squares. I have a plan for putting some cute scrappy quilts together.

When I was done I just felt like I needed to sit at the sewing maching for a few minutes, so I enjoyed a little time stitching some pairs together - this will be fairly mindless sewing, and sometimes that's just what's needed:

Thank you for sticking with me if you've read this far. I wanted to say thank you for the messages of support that lovely readers and friends have sent over recent weeks. My father in law passed away last wekeend, he had been in hospital for about a month after having collapsed at home. This has been and will continue to be a hard time for my husband and his siblings, and it's not at all easy to see them going through it. So thank you for the kind words, they mean a lot.

On that note, I'll sign off here with a promise to check in soon. Big love and hugs xox