Cutting, cutting and cutting some more ...

This week I've been cutting and cutting for the next border of my Mrs Billings quilt. There are hundreds of pieces to cut. I need 200 of the diamonds in the background print and 200 in my coloured prints. I need 204 of the little triangles in the background print and 200 in the coloured prints. And then I need to put dots at the seam intersections on the back to make it easier to piece the borders together. Whew!

I've just finished the background print cutting this afternoon, so I'll get busy on the other prints soon ... wow, this has been time consuming. And in other quilty news, I'm almost finished all the blanket stitching now too - just a few leaves to go. How fun to be getting on top of things.

It's been a while since I shared any shoe purchases - and you all know I'm way into shoes, so here are some sweeties that I picked up on Thursday. The weather has warmed up here so I'd been thinking of picking up a cute sandal for Christmas, and these fitted the bill. Aren't they darling? I just love them.

While I was putting them away I found a pair of ballet flats I'd picked up a couple of months ago and instantly forgot about. They're so cute in a gold and black tiger stripe. I'll have to break them out and start wearing them too.

Something else that kept me busy this past week was the final bits and pieces for my Farmers Wife Sampler quilt. Won't be long now until our guild show - I dropped off my quilt on Friday, and believe me I was so relieved to have the hanging sleeve and label finished in time. I'll be sure to share a picture when it's hanging up.

Hopefully my next post will be more newsy, so I'll chatter really soon! xox

And another border ...

I just couldn't help myself. It seems I have impulse control issues. I just HAD to put the next border on my Mrs Billings quilt.

Goodness me, this thing is growing! I said last time that there were only three borders to go, but I forgot about one of them, so there are NOW three borders to go. The next border will be time consuming - filled with Y seams. I'll have to take it slowly to make sure it comes out neatly - but first, I MUST finish all my blanket stitching ... (which can be mind numbing) but I can do it if I just apply myself, right??

All finished!

Yay, my Farmers Wife Sampler quilt is all finished. I sewed the last of the binding in place last night. This quilt is a big girl - I'll have to try and get a better picture, but given that I'm feeling lazy right now, this is the best I can do in my sewing room :-)

 Oops - the one above is quite blurry - that's what I get for using the iPhone in a hurry.  You can see the quilting in the centre quite well can't you? Lizzy did a wonderful job, I'm just thrilled - thank you Lizzy!

And in this one you can see a little teeny bit of the backing fabric. I chose a double wide by Judie Rothermel from the Mill Girls collection. It's really quite pretty. I was glad to have a little left over to put in my scrap boxes.

The only things that remain for this quilt are to place a label on the back and give it a hanging sleeve. Those are things I traditionally do at the Very Last Minute. It would be smart to do it now, but they're my least favourite things to do *lol*.

And in fun news, after I got home from work today, I did some more Mrs Billings piecing. I'm really inspired to work on her lately. I made all the 60 four patches for the next border. I wonder if I can get any more of that pieced tomorrow? I hope so! It's almost bed time, so I'll chatter soon :-) xox

Next border :-)

Given that I've been on a bit of a roll with Mrs Billings lately, and I had cut out the next lot of triangles, I decided it was high time I added the next border. It's tiny compared to the marathon that was the double diamond border, but I'm so glad it's in place.

One thing that thrills me right now is that the top is still relatively flat. With a medallion quilt (and especially one with so many pieces) it can easily get very ripply with the addition of each border. So far so good, but maybe I shouldn't speak too soon ... there are still three borders to go.

I'm off to do some MORE blanket stitching, so I'll check back in soon.

Catching up with Mrs Billings

Yesterday was a fun stitching day with Claire, Shay, Loz, Lorraine and Kay. They're such a fun bunch of ladies and there is always a lot of chatter and laughter - thank you for hosting us Claire!

I decided to take Mrs Billings along to work on - after seeing Victoria's progress on Thursday with her Mrs B's hexagons, I thought I'd like to get some done of my own. I didn't make up many, but I was motivated to work on it some more today, despite other projects that really need attention (shhh, don't tell the Quilt Police!).

Anne of Green Gables was on TV today, so while I watched, I finished off the red hexie unit on the right, made up the hexie unit on the left. I also cut out a most of the hexagons at the top of the picture, and also the little triangles you see there. Believe it or not, there are over 100 of them!

The hexagon units are for the final border of the quilt, and while I'm nowhere near ready to use them, I thought it was a great idea of Victoria's to piece them in stolen moments so they're all ready at the end.

Well, that's been my day so far. I'm going to get busy using the little triangles to piece the next border - it'll be a lot of mindless chain piecing. And tomorrow I'm going to finish up fusing the applique blocks I shared a sneaky peek of. There are 8 of them - so I see a LOT of blanket stitch in my future.

Sneaky Peek!

I'm going to be doing a pile of fusing and a bigger pile of blanket stitching tonight. This is a sneaky peek of a project I'll be teaching next year.

As you can see, I'm just getting started!

FWS Quilted!

Last week on Wednesday I picked up my Farmers Wife quilt from Lizzy, she has done the most amazing job of quilting it. Shame my photography skills don't tally with her quilting skills. I've started working on the binding. You can just see it at the bottom of the next picture, and I've put a little piping in there too.

The border has feathers, and the little red inner border has a really sweet little design with leaves - I just love it!

 In the picture above you can see the clamshell design which is featured in the main body of the quilt.

I really would like to continue stitching the binding on the Farmers Wife quilt, but this morning I had my nails done and I don't want to mess them up with a thimble etc, so I busied myself with these blocks again. I had worked on them on Saturday - and prior to that, it had been more than a year since they'd seen the light of day. I've almost finished them now, so I could probably complete the top within the week if I put my mind to it :-) But of course there are always other projects to distract me ... so I won't make any promises!

Better run, I have dinner to prepare, so chatter soon! xox

Sewing Day

Today I'm spending the day with lots of lovely Guild ladies at a 'sit 'n sew'. We're having a lovely day, lots of laughter, chatter, stitching and feasting.

I've brought an old project out of hiding and my sweet baby is having her first outing :-)