And it's finished!!

Just minutes ago I put the final stitches in the binding of my Turning Four-T quilt. I am just in love with this quilt! I think it's my new all-time favourite.

I know the picture I'm sharing is not great (and that's largely because I'm not a good photographer) but also because I wanted you to be able to see the effect of the quilting with the natural light running across the quilt.

The binding I selected was a navy stripe fabric from my stash - it's a Jo Morton print. And though it doesn't appear anywhere else in the quilt, it looks really wonderful curving around the edge.

Now I can begin working on the directions and some 'in progress' pieces for the magazine. But more importantly, today I will work on some more Nearly Insane blocks, and start cutting fabric for the Kaffe project I've been dying to start. Happy days!! :-)

Oops!

Oops! It seems I must have indulged in a little 'clickage'. Twenty five yards and a jelly roll of clickage!! I can't imagine how these things happen?!?

A girl can get in a lot of trouble clicking away at buttons on the computer. I won't worry though, I'm sure the quilt police are very busy on other matters. :-)

Turning Four-T top quilted!!

Can you believe it? Lizzy has quilted my top already, and I have it in my hot little hands.

She has made a wonderful job of the Baptist Fans I requested, and her suggested thread was simply perfect. Thank you so much Lizzy!

I hope to have the binding cut and machine sewn in place tonight. Then I can hand sew the reverse side down at my leisure. I think I will use one of the blue fabrics - I had thought I'd maybe use the blue-green, but I don't have any of that left. Amazing how these quilts can dictate how they want to proceed.

Gotta dash - very exciting binding to be done! :-)

Turning Four-T top finished

Whew! My Turning Four-T top is entirely finished, and I just love it! Last night at 11.30pm I had put three of the borders on and was just too tired to stitch any longer. Any other day there is no way I could walk away so near to being finished.

And here is a close up of a few blocks and the backing fabric I chose. At first I was thinking I may not use it, but the more I see it, the more I like it.

I've just come home from Lizzy's, she's going to machine quilt the top for me. Lizzy always does a wonderful job, so I can't wait to see it when it's finished.

And the wonderful news is that I can now get back to working on other projects, and even make a Nearly Insane block or two if I choose!

Turning Four-T is getting bigger

After I had my brain wave to make the Turning Four-T quilt bigger, I set about making more blocks. And because I decided to replace three blocks I wasn't thrilled with, I needed to make a further 27 blocks. So, effectively my quilt has doubled in size :-)

Here are all the blocks laid out ready to stitch together - a job I'm going to start tackling this evening.

I also purchased backing fabric today, but I'm actually not convinced that I'm going to use it. I really like the print (it's a taupe with a white 1/4" spot), but I'm just not sure if it's right for this project. I'll share a picture with my next post. I do have a backing on the way over from Whittles fabrics, if it's here in time it will be just perfect, but it's all about timing right now.

For the first time ever, I'm having this project professionally machine quilted. My dear friend Lizzie is doing it. I have known Lizzie for such a long time, and she is just a darling. She also has a blog, and I have been meaning to provide a link to it forever. Be sure to go and visit with her, she has some beautiful quilts pictured there, along with happy snaps of her gorgeous family.

Well, that's it from me - I'm about to serve dinner. I'll check back in with you all soon. xox

Indigoes

Apologies for the very poor quality picture. I took this with my phone at the shop, and the window was directly behind the quilt.

But you can see what I've been working on in stolen moments at the quilt store. Isn't it cute? :-) I really love the indigo fabrics that are around at the moment, and I was excited to have a play with some.

The pictures and red squares were from a panel. I had planned to slap a border on the panel and call it done, but then I realised that some of the little critters were upside down. So, I cut it all up and put it back together after sashing each square, and I really like it.

At home I'm still working away at my Turning Four-T blocks, and hope to have them all finished within the next couple of days. Once it's at the machine quilter, I will be able to get back to my NI quilt, and also get moving on the Kaffe Fassett project that Linda gave me. I'm soooo looking forward to that one.

Chatter soon! xox

And yet more Turning Four-T's

Goodness me, here it is a week since I last posted already. I'm sure I never intended to have a weekly update cycle. Let's see if next week I can have more interesting things to update you with :-)

So, what have I worked on this past week? Along with a couple of things I really can't share, I've made some more Turning Four-T blocks. I can't remember if I told you that I really want to make the quilt bigger and replace a couple of blocks I'm not super happy with. This necessitates a further 27 blocks being made. I've done twelve now. *insert sound of crickets chirping here*

In the picture are six of the blocks I made this week. I'm going to try and cut some more out tonight before I head to bed.

I just love the fabrics. The two conversational prints I picked up while in Kentucky. Very appropriate to have the horses as a tribute to our visit to that state don't you think?

The navy fabric in the three blocks at the front of the picture is from the Sturbridge Village Blues collection by Judie Rothermel (Marcus Fabrics). Does anyone out there have any idea where I may be able to purchase some more of this fabric? I've checked all my usual fabric sources with no luck, and I've just run out. Any leads would be much appreciated. xox

Tomorrow I'm so looking forward to watching our Aussie girl Sam Stoser in the final of the French Open Tennis. Good luck Sam, we'll be cheering you on. And a huge treat for my friend Kath and I on Sunday. We have gold class tickets to see Sex and the City 2. Another glass of champagne darling? Yes, yes I think I will :-)

Nearly Insane Blocks 23 & 41

I have been posting here so scarcely lately because I'm so hooked on my Nearly Insane quilt, and mostly I post those blocks on the Nearly Insane Fans blog. But I have had a few requests from readers here to see more of the blocks, so with a lack of anything else to post, I've cut-and-pasted the same blog entry here for you to see. This quilt has really drawn me in, and I'm having such fun working on it.

**For readers not familiar with the Nearly Insane quilt, it's a reproduction of a quilt from the 1870's. Each of the blocks is 6" finished, and some of them have as many as 200 pieces in them. The quilt truly deserves it's "Nearly Insane" status. **

Here are a couple of my recent blocks. The pink one was the last one I needed to add the fifth row to my quilt top.

This is block 23 - love the pink fabric. The thin red pieces were fun to work with - they're 3/8" finished, so seam allowances were so important. Even being a little bit out meant the strips looked too small or large. I did unpick a couple of pieces for accuracy.

This basket is block 41 - and it was fun to have a bit of applique to play with. I love needle turn applique, so that was the technique I used. I was fretting that the triangles weren't lined up well enough in the basket, but it doesn't really show so much. Overall it's a very cute block.