Recently I was asked when I was going to release a couple of my patterns from a few years ago for sale. Because I've been working on other people's quilting, and other magazine projects, some of my quilt work has fallen by the wayside.Because of the 'free' time I had recently, I was able to finish up the pattern for my Daisy Chain quilt, and uploaded the details to my pattern website.This is one of my dearest quilts, because one of my favourite friends made it up for me. I had designed it at a time when I had a LOT of quilty work going on, and my wonderful friend Linda offered to piece the blocks. I had a selection of pink prints I liked, an example of the background fabric, and sent them with a very rudimentary diagram across the Pacific to her.To my wonderful surprise, a short time later, a completed top winged it's way back to me. Linda had sourced a background fabric, added more pink fabrics, and had also selected a border and cut binding strips. I was amazed, entirely thrilled and so thankful. Linda is such an amazing friend, and does so much for me, I am so lucky to have her in my life. Love you to pieces Linda!
Wow have I been motoring along on this quilt. Last night I quilted it all and attached the binding. I just need to do the hand sewing now.
For the purposes of stash reporting - last week I did have five metres of fabric come home with me, but this week I used up four metres for the back of this quilt, and about 40cms for the binding. So 60cms more, and I'm back on track :-)
The family have just come home today from three days at the sheep station, so my completely uninterrupted sewing time will draw to a close. I'll also have to give up on the mega-late nights too. I was on such a roll with the machine quilting, I didn't want to stop, and when I saw that Citizen Kane was on TV, I knew I'd be in for a late one.Ever since my wonderful friend Linda and her husband Jerry kindly took me to see Hearst Castle when I visited with them, I've wanted to see the movie. Because it's so old, it's not the kind of thing you can pick up anywhere. What serendipity that it would be on late at night when I had no time pressures. I loved it, and I'm glad I've seen it.This afternoon I just need to package up the patterns for the store, and I'm all caught up with work I needed to do by tomorrow. I still have another pattern to write up and get ready, and a lot of things I need to add to my website, but that's 'nice to do' work, rather than 'have to do' work. I'm really feeling like some pressure has lifted!
The last couple of days I've been working on things that really just aren't that interesting to share. My classes start again next week, so I've been preparing a project for the students. I've also been working on some new patterns, and preparing a pattern order for the store. That coupled with all the machine quilting I've been doing, last night, I was just mentally worn out. There was a movie on TV that I was interested in seeing - Gosford Park - so I thought I'd pick up some of my hand quilting that I hadn't done in a while.I've shown it to you before, it's called 'Holiday Wholecloth' and it's one of those Benartex Holice Turnbow pre-printed kits. Linda kindly sent me a different one of these many years ago, a cot size one, which I made up for Cameron when he was on the way. I love it so much. So when I saw this one advertised many years ago I snapped it up. I haven't quilted on it much this past year, I wonder if I'll have it finished in this decade? At my current rate, the odds aren't good. I really enjoy hand quilting, I hope I can make more time for it.
First up, I just thought I'd share with you one of the customer projects I've been quilting on lately. This one I started yesterday, it's Helen's quilt, a Thimbleberries club project, called Raspberry Swirl. It is very cute. I'm enjoying the quilting, and having fun adding dimension to the leaves and applique.It's my hope to have this one finished today, so I can start working on the Royal Cross quilt.
And in peachy news ... Kathy asked if I could share a picture of our peach tree. Of course I'm happy to oblige. The tree is only around three or four years old, and it only started fruiting last year. You can see that there is still a lot of fruit ready to pick - I'll have to get busy this afternoon and pick some more. In the lower right corner of the photo is our little orange tree. It's very young too, if you click on the picture, you can see that there are a few green oranges on there - can't wait until they ripen!
Wow - didn't the flash wash this picture out? I still have a lot to learn about taking pictures! Here are the results of the last few days of 'canning'. I used 1.5kgs (3 and a bit lbs) of fruit to make the 9 jars of Peach Conserve. And 2kgs (about 4 1/2 lbs) of fruit to make the stewed peaches in the background. I added a touch of cinnamon to the stewed peaches, should be super yum!I can't wait to make up a peach cobbler, and I'm looking forward to trying the Peach Freeze recipe that Toni sent along earlier this week. Mmmm ... in peach heaven :-)
Finally, the top is finished. (It looks a little bumpy in the picture, but that's because I just didn't lay it out very well) Thank you all for your wonderful and supportive comments on my progress with this quilt. I always feel like it's not very interesting for you to see blow-by-blow pictures of my projects in progress. But I guess that's how I'm working on stuff, so you get to come along for the ride :-)I'd like to get quilting on it ASAP, but I forgot to buy batt at the quilt store, so I will have to make some time to go there soon. The back will be made from stash, and I'd like to think I'll put together a scrappy back for it ... let's see how far I go with that idea :-)
Who knew there were so many fans of Lego out there? So you can see how I've been occupying my time with Cameron, here's the city we've been working on. The picture makes it look small and not so interesting, but to give you in idea of size, that red boat to the right of the picture is around 16 inches in length.He also has a really large passenger airplane that we're dying to put together, but he has misplaced one of the crucial pieces, so I need to decide whether I order a new piece or wait for it to materialise. Lego are wonderful like that, you can get spares as easily as can be.Last night I made up some peachy goodness - 9 jars of peach conserve. I have never tried it before, but it looks and tastes just lovely. I meant to take a picture to share, but I'll do it next time. I got the recipe from the back of a packet of Fowlers Vacola Jamsetta. I will need to harvest some more peaches tonight, and perhaps this time I'll stew and bottle them. This year we lost most of our apricots to birds. Next year we must remember to net the tree. I think we may even get some oranges later in the year. We have a mini orchard happening!That's it for now ... catch you later :-)
... and many stash reduction steps back! It's okay though ... you all know I don't shop for fabric that often, and I was struggling to find an outer border for the Royal Cross quilt.I used around 40cms (half a yard) for the inner border on the quilt, and about 5 metres of fabric came home with me. First up, I purchased the navy on the right at Quiltaholics. Later on in the day I had the chance to visit a store I've only been to once before - Hettie's Patch. They had a sale on their reproduction fabrics 30% off, so I treated myself to a few that I wouldn't normally have access to. The blue fabric on the left is the one I've decided I'll use on the quilt, as the first blue fabric I purchased I've used before on a different quilt.I haven't gotten as much sewing done lately as I'd like to. I've been spending some time with Cameron, building up his Lego city. He just adores his Lego, and I have spent seriously hours and hours helping him out. It's actually kinda fun, like reliving my childhood a little :-)And time will become scarcer soon ... our peach tree is ready to explode with ripe fruit, so I've been researching peach jam, peach butter, peach cobbler ... all peachy all the time. I'll fill you in with pictures as I have them. TTFN :-) x o x
I'm on the home stretch now with the Royal Cross quilt. I've completed the middle section of the quilt top. Now I need to select a fabric for the inner border. I'm thinking of a red coloured reproduction style fabric, what do you think? I haven't decided on the outer border fabric either, but I have an inkling I'll be using a navy blue reproduction.It almost did my head in putting all the blocks together, I'm not sure why, but toward the end I was really having to force myself to work on the quilt. Not something I've experienced a lot in the past?!?I will probably start working on the borders this evening - it will be fun to rifle thru the stash :-) Today I've spent the day quilting on a log cabin quilt for a customer. I've just now finished, and have only one more top to do, and then I'm up to date (for now) :-) Well, I should get busy, I'll check in with you all soon ... TTYL x o x
Here's something you haven't seen from me in a while - a couple of Dear Jane blocks. After finishing quilting a customer quilt last night, I wanted something small and easy to work on, and the DJ just fitted the bill.On the left is E13, Moth in a Web. It's sitting under my ruler, because the corners wanted to pop up and I couldn't get a good picture. You can still see the details tho. I made some alterations - in the book, the outer pink triangles are much more pointy, which are at odds with the picture of the original, so I added a couple of seams and pieced the triangles in rather than the applique which would have been required. I used the freezer paper piecing technique which is great for the DJ blocks.And on the right is C3, Rayelle's Fence. This was an easy one to just cut out and piece. You can see in the background there my colour and progress chart for this DJ. I'm using 30's prints in a Trip around the World colour scheme rather than the Civil War reproductions like I used for the last DJ quilt.Completing these two blocks means I've now made 69 blocks. Ohhh my goodness, that means I've still got 100 to go!
Recently I was asked when I was going to release a couple of my patterns from a few years ago for sale. Because I've been working on other people's quilting, and other magazine projects, some of my quilt work has fallen by the wayside.
