Excitement!

I have the most exciting news: I learned at the Guild presentation night last night that my quilt placed first in its category - Open Traditional Two Person. A big thank you to my sweet friend Lizzy, firstly for quilting my top so well, and secondly because I pinched this photo from her Facebook page :-)

Hopefully I'll be able to visit with all the quilts at the show next weekend and share a picture of the ribbon with you. And huge congratulations to all my prize winning friends! xox

Montmellick-ing ...

Okay - someone needs to tell me where the past week or so has gone - because I have no clue! I know I've worked - done chores - we're at tennis 6 times in a week - and I guess taking care of the house and fam ... but other than that, I just can't account for what I've been up to.

I can share that in spare moments I've been working on the Montmellick appliqué. I'm almost caught up now :-)

All the broderie perse is finished now, and I've done one side of the appliquéd petal shapes. Oddly, it isn't easy for me to find scraps of red in my stash - I know I have some French General bits and pieces, but I've put them aside for the tumbler project that I'm hand piecing. Maybe I'll have to start cutting into yardage at some point - oh the horror!! :-)

See the red paper pieced hexagons in those corner pieces? The flower shape in the margin of the photo is actually larger than the one closer to the centre of the photo. I thought it would be nice to make the flower shape on the larger square fit it better, so instead of the 1/2" hexies, I used 5/8" hexies. I probably could have gone to 3/4" to take it to the margin of the square, but after making all the hexies I was too lazy to change them :-)

I'm looking forward to the next instalment of the magazine coming out. Quilt Mania is a bi-monthly magazine and I've lost track of which month it's issued, but I feel sure it must be soon.

I have paperwork, housework and shopping on my agenda today - so I don't think there will be much stitching happening. Chatter soon! xox

And now life can return to (something like) normal ...

Finally the big beastie "Omigosh! I still have scraps!" quilt is finished. I took it in to work on Thursday so the girls could have a looky - I had just finished the binding on Wednesday night:

You can see a little of the quilting on the bit that's overhanging the table ... but only if you look really carefully. This is one busy quilt!

And here you can just see the fabric I chose for the binding - it's a cute dark blue repro with a small beige pattern with red berries. I don't think it really would have mattered what fabric I used in the border and the binding - the piecing seems to really divert the eye.

Now that I'm done, I've been able to get busy with some more of the appliqué on the Di Ford Montmellick mystery. I'm getting really close to being done with the broderie perse now, and I'm thrilled!

Just a few little doodads to add in the top left hand corner, and a few motifs on the right that you can see there. And though you can't see, I need to add a few leaves to the bottom right corner piece. If I'm a good girl, I may be able to finish it tomorrow. And the next step will be to add the background for the next round. A whole bunch of appliqué melons. I'm looking forward to them.

But first I have to fix an oops in the pieced triangle border at the top ... I'm glad I noticed it before I got too much further ... can you see it??

The two hourglass units in the centre need to be taken out and rotated one quarter turn each. I have two lights next to each other, and two darks next to each other - oops! I would have kicked myself if I didn't find that until I was working on the quilting!

Well, that's all the exciting quilting news that's happening here. Apart from the belief that I've chosen my next project ... the Burnt Quilt, which is in Di Ford's Primarily Quilts book. We'll see if I actually make a start on that project ... my record for false quilt starts has not been the best lately ...

Chatter soon xox

Holiday Happenings

Hi all! School holidays mean I've had little time to myself, Camo and I have had a mini-break with my Mum, Nanna and Amy - we went down to Goolwa for a few days. Such a nice time, and I managed to find a sweet little quilt store too!

In the evenings there, I managed to finish up the binding on the Christmas Tree Skirt I made for my friend Kath, I'm just thrilled, as I can send it home with her hubby - all the guys are having a weekend away. So here's the finished skirt:

Don't forget that if you love it, the pattern is a quick and very inexpensive download at my Etsy store.

And yesterday I visited with my sweet friend Lizzy to see how Omigosh! is coming along. I'm thrilled with how Lizzy's quilting it, and I hung around a little while to help bury threads.

Here's my sweet friend at work:

And here are a couple of pictures up close of the fabrics, and the quilting too:

Because the quilt is so busy, it's hard to see the quilting very well, but I bet it'll look fabulous from the back. See that mid blue fabric above - that's the fabric from my first ever quilt I told you about a little while back.

The top narrow borders have been quilted too, but once again - busy fabrics make the quilting hard to see.

So, they're all the photos I have to share in my phone - I can't believe I didn't even manage to take any while we were on our little break. Over the next few days I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in binding, a label and a hanging sleeve for this quilt, so things could get a little quiet again. I promise I'll check in really soon!

Breakin' out the appliqué ...

Isn't it amazing how fast a weekend can fly by? Saturday was a lovely day, spent with the 'Not the Farmers Wife' stitching group. This time we were hosted by the lovely Loz, and a great time was had by all. I'm always so sketchy with a camera, but I'm sure you'll see pictures around blogland/Facebook from those who were clever enough to take pictures.

I did manage to get a fuzzy picture of Loz's delightful vintage quilts, aren't they stunning?

For the Pinterest aficionados among you, you may recognise the pink one there - it is famous on Pinterest, pinned from our dear friend Shay's blog. Some day there will be a pickle dish quilt in my future, I'm sure of it!

And then on Sunday, it was lunch and lounging at my parent's house. It was my Mum's birthday during the week, and though we visited on the actual day, it makes great sense to extend birthday celebrations as long as possible.

All this merriment meant that my stitching time has been limited, but you'll be pleased to know that I've gotten a few things done:

Kath's tree skirt is now quilted, so I just have to cut the opening, and bind it. Her hubby is visiting in the last weekend of the school holidays, so if I'm a really good girl, I will have it ready for him to take home. Fingers crossed!

And because I've been missing it, I've broken out the Di Ford mystery 'Montmellick' so I can catch up with everyone. Here's where I'm at:

Part five has come out in Quilt Mania, so once I've finished with the applique component from part three, I will put the next lot of background fabric in place and get busy with the applique melon shapes. If you're interested in seeing what the next round looks like, you can check out the Quilt Mania magazine website, or check out the Quilts - Di Ford on my Pinterest site. I just love pinning things on Pinterest - such great eye candy and inspiration.

Alrighty - I'm going to get busy working on some more applique while Camo is occupied, and later I'll find something we can do together. I do love school holidays!

New projects ...

This has been an incredibly busy week, and it's not quite over yet. Tomorrow however, I don't have so much on my schedule, so I'm going to kick back a little while Camo is at school. Next week brings the school holidays, so things will ramp up a bit in the social department, but at least we'll be able to sleep in at times :-)

After I finished the Omigosh! quilt top, I immediately got busy working on the next project on my list. I had promised my Paris loving friend Kath that I'd make her a tree skirt, and that I'd have it to her in time for this Christmas.

These are the fabrics I selected - actually, I chose them over a little while ...

I just love the Eiffel Tower fabric - it's super cute. I think it's a Lakehouse print, and sadly I really only just got enough for the project - I only have a small strip left.

And here's where I'm at with the tree skirt so far:

Just needs quilting, trimming and binding. This is a pattern I designed a while back, and is one of the most downloaded patterns on my Etsy store. If you feel like you'd like to make one, just click here.

Something else I've almost finished this week is a pair of socks I've been knitting for quite a while.

On the grey and white pair there, they'd been sitting at a point that always has me stymied. Each time I need to graft the toe, I have to check YouTube to remind myself how to do it. For some reason it just doesn't stick. I made myself get busy and finish that step and now I just have to weave in the ends. They're a gift for my sweet friend Vivienne. And because it's nice to have something on the needles at all times, I started a new pair immediately - I'm using some new-to-me sock yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills, and it's really lovely.

Last of all, at work today the lovely Victoria shared her show and tell, a project she has been hand piecing on all year:

Teeny tiny 3" LeMoyne star blocks. I'm just in love with them - the fabric choices are just delightful. Today we basted the quilt sandwich and Victoria is going to get busy hand quilting this gorgeous quilt.

Well, that's it from me for now - I really need an early night, so after I'm done making lunches, I'm hitting the sheets. Thank you all so much for your comments this week, they have all been just lovely. Chatter soon xox

Omigosh! I still have scraps!

And I'm done! Just a little bit exhausted, but very much relieved to have this quilt top done before my self imposed deadline :-)

Today I attached all the borders after taking Camo to his tennis training. I had made up some of them last night - so I finished sewing the border strips together first. It's a little more wasteful with fabric, but I enjoy being able to mitre the corners all at once. And to make that easier, on the top and bottom borders, I press as innies, and then the side borders, I press them as outies - makes the seam intersections so neat.

And finally after wrestling with this HEAVY quilt top, and all its borders, it was completely done ... and it is HUGE! I can't lay it flat anywhere without moving furniture around.

When I laid it out, I noticed that I have indeed got two blocks with the same fabrics close to each other, but you can be sure I'm not going to change it now - it will have to be part of this quilt's charm. Love that I've taken a blurry picture once again - photography is not my particular skill it would seem :-)

Thank you for all the lovely messages and comments from the last couple of days - you're all so kind. Well, I need to clean up the sewing room and get myself cleaned up too - I am covered in threads! Chatter soon xox

Flying (sewing machine) Needle :-)

I was determined to have the centre of this quilt top put together by bed time last night. And this girl with a deadline is nothing if not determined :-)

Originally I was going to just sew the rows together as I picked them up - but thinking on it decided it would be way too easy to have the shoo fly blocks with the same fabrics too close together. So I laid them out on the lounge floor to arrange them as best I could. I'm not too stressy about similar colours together, but definitely not happy with the exact same fabrics. Loving it so far!

The most time consuming part of this process was pressing each row carefully, and then pinning super carefully - but both utterly worth it. I really wanted my seam intersections as good as they could possibly be:

I'm really happy with the results of those labours. There aren't too many seams I'd be bothered to undo and stitch again. Don't forget friends, those small squares are 1/2" finished. The largest squares are 1.5" finished. Crazy!

Because I had school drop off/pick up and my own tennis training on the schedule yesterday, sewing time was not uninterrupted, but happily I finished sewing all the rows together just before midnight, what a relief! Here is the finished top (minus borders) draped over the ironing board.

And on top there, those are the fabrics I'm considering using as the borders. I'm not certain yet, but they're front-runners. The next step though is to press the top really well so I can measure for the borders. Pressing will be a tough job, as this quilt is HEAVY!

Yesterday I weighed the top without its borders, and the weight of all the pieces was 1992 grams. So that's almost 2 kgs of fabric. I've just weighed a metre of fabric from my stash, and it weighed 170 grams, so by my calculations I have sewed 11.7 metres (approx 13 yards) of scraps into this project so far. Amazing! Of course some of that will be the weight of thread used for piecing - and I know I've used at least four of the large Gutermann spools so far, but if we were to round down to 11.5 metres, I think that would safely account for thread.

Anyway, today I am going to take care of some chores that have been ignored for a little while, and then get busy again in the sewing room. Wish  me luck friends :-) xox