Angry Birds

I'm still quilting away on Mrs Billings. It's so relaxing, and it's keeping me warm in this cooler weather too. Here is one of my favourite sections that I've worked on recently:

Doesn't he have angry eyes? It looks like he's glaring at me! I'm sure he's telling me to get busy and quilt some more! Chatter soon xox

A visit with friends :-)

Today I had a lovely outing at Hettie's Patch - I was on a mission: To meet up with Sue, Pip and Sheila (no blog). Sue is over on holidays from New Zealand, and it seems having a great time! She and I have corresponded for quite a while over our blogs and mutual love of repro fabrics, so it was like meeting up with an old friend.

In a moment of complete dim-wittedness, I managed to leave not only my camera, but also my cell phone at home, so I had no means of recording the outing for posterity, but when I get the chance, I'll steal a pic from Pip or Sue.

Here are my modest gatherings from a little retail therapy:

A small pack of batiks, perfect for the Gloria Loughman workshop I'm attending soon. A really neat set of templates to make up the cog wheel block, and a back up blue washout marking pen. I'm doing a lot of marking on Mrs Billings, and it would really make me cranky if I ran out of ink in the middle of a quilting session!

And speaking of Mrs Billings:

I moved the hoop last night and started on a new area of quilting. I'd ideally like to move the hoop once per day - the middle section was very heavily quilted and took two days. I have a deadline, and I'd like to reach it. I have my fingers crossed ... but not for too long, it'd make quilting tricky!

A few comment follow ups: A bit thank you to Lin and Kim for putting me on to some leads for the cute pink repro fabric I'm so in love with. I'd say given the age of it, I've probably missed the boat, but a girl can hope right?

And thank you also for the lovely comments from the following 'no reply' commenters: Laura in IA, and Lynne from Hawaii. I do try and respond to everyone personally via email unless I don't have an email address to contact you on.

Sjoukje from the Netherlands asked why I don't hand quilt more often. I'd really like to, but I reserve hand quilting for the most special of my projects. Like the Nearly Insane that I finished year before last, now Mrs Billings, and the occasional wholecloth project. Because hand quilting takes so much longer than machine quilting, it's just not practical for me to hand quilt a lot of the things I make. And I love to machine quilt too, so it's win-win for me really.

Alrighty, I'm going to tidy up the dinner dishes and get busy with some more quilting - chatter soon! xox

Ready, Set ... Go!!!

Quilting on Mrs Billings coverlet has begun, and I'm thrilled with how it's coming along already. Getting up close and personal with all the little bits and pieces and deciding how to quilt them is really fun.

While I was stitching just now, I found a little area that had come undone. I'll have to applique it down to secure it - you can just see it there on the left side of the square, by the lighter floral fabric. I'm sure there will be lots of little bits and pieces that will need fixing up as I go along.

This is going to take a looooong time ... hopefully I'll still be able to find interesting things to share with you over the next several months. I'm  heading back to the quilting hoop, chatter soon! xox

This Week's Stars

Just a few stars to share that I put together last night. You know, I lost count of how many I've made. I shall have to employ Bonnie's technique of pinning them together in groups of 10. A job for when I get off the computer.

I cut a few more fabrics to add to the mix, it was nice to get a couple of brighter ones in there. My commitment to putting 15 minutes aside clearly hasn't had 100% success, I'll have to do better.

Does anyone have a clue what the fabric is in the large (pink) square top left? I just love it, and have no idea where the small piece came from that was in my stash. It's so pretty, I really wish I had more of it.

And in completely unrelated news:

I don't have a problem ... honest!!

Pottering along :-)

I'm quilting away in stolen moments, and having fun with this little project. Something I haven't done in a long time is trapunto work. There are so many different ways to do this, but I'm using a technique which is traditional, and also called cording.

A while back I purchased some balls of trapunto wool from Hettie's Patch, and I've been putting them into use. You work from the reverse side of the quilt, using a trapunto needle, thread a short length of the wool. Gently tease apart some of the threads making up the fabric, and pass a length of wool into the area you want to emphasise. Tease apart the threads in  the area you want the needle to come out again, and carefully pull the needle through.

You do need to be careful not to break any of the threads in the fabric and make holes. If you work carefully, you'll be able to tease the little gaps closed again, and once I've washed this project, you shouldn't be able to see any evidence on the reverse side.

I've only done about a third of the swirly sections with the trapunto, and though it's hard to photograph, you can see some of the areas are raised. It should be much more apparent after I've taken the quilting out of the hoop, and when the blue lines are washed out. The narrow circle outlining the design has also been done, and it's much easier to see there.

Lizzy has loaded Mrs Billings and she's due back to me any time now, so I probably won't get too much further on this little quilt. I'm so looking forward to quilting on Mrs Billings, I really can't wait! xox

Hand Quilting

Just for fun (and to get some practice) yesterday I prepped a pre-printed mini wholecloth project that I've had laying around for a little while. I have a feeling I may have picked it up from The Stencil Company while I was in Paducah in 2010 - I have a few of them now.

This one is called King Arthur's Crown, and it's a 16" square - I don't think it'll take long to get it done given the size - this is what I achieved in about 90 minutes last night:

Hopefully I'll get a little more speed going with practice, or Mrs Billings is going to take a LONG time! Chatter soon :-)

Top Finished!!

Go me!! Last night (while watching an amazing episode of Survivor) I put the top and bottom border on the Civil War Crossings quilt top. Ohhh, and can I mention for those in the know ... I'm on Team Malcolm!! Yay!!

And I'm back ... I'm just so easily distracted ... Here's the completed top:

Seriously  now, would it kill me to hit the top with a little best press and an iron before I share it with you all? Apparently I'm just to impatient for that ...

Even though you can't see the corners because of my mad photography skillz :-) I can share with you that after this baby is quilted, I will be rounding off the corners as the pattern suggests for a fun little touch. This also means that I'll be cutting the binding fabric on the bias. The binding fabric is the brown stripe at the bottom there, so I'll be curious to see how that looks cut on the cross.

Camo and I have some shopping to do today, and then I'm either going to do some work on my hexies, or maybe break out a little hand quilting for some practice. I haven't done any in a while, so need to brush up on my technique :-) Chatter soon!

Almost there!

I've almost finished putting the Civil War Crossings top together - all it needs now is a top and bottom border.

I hope to get the borders on shortly, and tomorrow when there is some nice natural light, I'll take a much better picture. It's so much fun to have another project approaching the finish line!