Show day, and I ouched Bernie!

This week I did one of the silliest things - I gave my Bernina a big ouch! I had the single hole needle plate in place, and horror of horrors, I forgot about it and switched over to a zig-zag stitch ... Oooofff. So I'm feeling kind of sheepish, because each time I use that darn needle plate I worry about forgetting, and I finally did it!

Anyway, Bernie is off at the health spa now, I think her timing is out. And to be honest, she needed a service anyway, so I have my sweet little Featherweight out for a play. Have I ever told you that her name is Lucky?

As much as I love my modern machines, there really is nothing like the beautiful stitch that the Featherweight makes. And I just love the sweet sound she makes while stitching. Vintage machines really are adorable.

So, all the blocks I've made so for the second half of the Churn Dash sew-along have been pieced on Lucky, and I'm really loving how they're coming along:

I have all the components made up for the sixteen blocks, I just have to sew the remaining ten blocks together. I'd love to get them done right now, but I'm absolutely bone weary!

And the reason for my tiredness is because my Mum, Dad, Amy and little Mary and I went to the Royal Adelaide Show today! We wanted to visit with my quilt and see the other quilts on display. But also we wanted Mary to have her first show experience. And she absolutely loved it. I already shared pictures of my quilt last week, so instead I'll share a couple of snaps of my sweet grandbaby having the time of her life!

Having a great time on one of the kiddy carnival rides. There is a video of this too and she is loving it, but I'll have to figure out how to get that on here.

And here she's starting to run out of steam a little, but enjoying icecream from the dairy pavillion. Mary had the best day with a pony ride, a carousel ride, the carnival ride, and her first bus trip to get there. She fell asleep on the bus on the way home. It was a big day - for all of us!

This weekend I am going to try and get the rest of the churn dash blocks finished - and then I'll get back to the last applique block for Lily Rosenberry. I'm so close to having the centre section finished! Maybe next week I'll be able to start working on the border, I'm super excited to get to that stage!

That's it from me for this week - I'm absolutely ready to catch some zzzz's, it has been a big day! Chatter soon! xox

Catching Up ...

Thank you so much for the kind thoughts and condolences on the passing of our sweet Uncle Bob. He was a wonderful man, and his funeral reflected how highly regarded he was by his family and the greater community. Vale to a sweet man.

So now I'll share with you how things have been going here ... I finally managed to pull some fabric to make my last sixteen churn dash blocks for the sew along. 

I'm sure I already told you that I'm using these blocks to make small donation quilts, this one will be good for kids. The Winnie the Pooh fabric was donated by lovely Jean, and I pulled the others from my stash. I'll get busy cutting out the blocks tonight. I can't wait to spend a little quality time with my sewing machine, it feels like it's been ages!

And in other news, I learned early last week that my Phebe Quilt placed first in it's category at the Royal Adelaide Show, and I was thrilled to learn that it was chosen as the Best Quilt in Show! OMG!

A big thank you to my brother for taking some pictures for me yesterday, I'm not able to get there until Friday.

Those of you that are long time readers may be surprised to see Camo all grown up in this picture - it's been a long time since I've shared any photos of him!

Some new ribbons for my pinboard. I'm feeling so chuffed!

We've also been super busy gardening. We had to cut down a huge tree in our front yard as it was starting to lift paving and compromise the retaining walls and front fence. It was a huge job, and a relief to have it done after making the tough decision. And in it's place we've planted a magnolia tree, and a matching one on the other side of the yard. I took a couple of photos and shared them on Facebook so they'll pop up in our memories periodically and we'll be able to see how they've grown.

To be fair, I wasn't really able to do much of the hard work, I only puttered around in the yard weeding and keeping Marty company. But while I was weeding some of the garden beds I found some pretty jonquils flowering and brought them inside. Their perfume was absolutely delightful!

And in Lily Rosenberry news, I'm so very close to finished stitching down the applique pieces on the fifteenth block, so if I'm lucky over the next week I'll also have the final block stitched and I'll be able to start working on the border. I'm pretty excited about it!

Before I close off, I want to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments you've been leaving for me, they're very much appreciated. I always try to reply personally, but I haven't been able to reply to Elsie Montgomery and Gladiquilts as your email addresses didn't come to me. But thank you for your messages, I loved reading them!

So that's all from me, you're all caught up. Hopefully I'll have some exciting things to share with you next week! Chatter soon xoxox

Placeholder ...

It's Friday ... so in order to keep my commitment to myself to post each Friday, I'm popping this placeholder photo here. This is the block I'm currently stitching the applique pieces on ... and my tin of doodads I use for applique ...

Today was the funeral of a beloved great uncle, and it has been long day with sad moments, and lovely moments with extended family. So instead of posting properly tonight, I'll check back in later on the weekend. Promise! Chatter soon xoxox

One photo!

I had promised to check in at the end of the weekend, or early in the week, but life absolutely got in the way. So, this week I have only one photo to share with you! I'm still obsessed with working on the Lily Rosenberry project, and because there have been times when I wasn't into it at all, I'm just going along with it! Who knows how a brain works, and why fight it?

It's hard to get a nice picture indoors at night - my photography skills aren't great, and it would seem my arms dont quite have the reach to take a good square photo on the floor. What I wouldn't do to have a fabulous big design wall!

The blocks aren't quuuiiite finished - the two blocks bottom right are glued down and ready, but the applique shapes aren't stitched in place yet. And in the second row, the second from left is the one I'm almost finished stitching, but it hasn't been trimmed yet. A big finish on the centre of the quilt is imminent, and then the next step is the border!

Some sweet readers asked about my applique technique - I am a fairly recently converted 'glue baste' appliquer. I would gladly describe in detail and do a tutorial for you - but our lovely friend and fellow blogger Teresa from Fabric Therapy has written and photographed the most amazing tutorial, so instead I'll bow to the master, and encourage you to visit her tutorial. Thank you so much for being interested in my technique, I first learned needle turn applique and absolutely loved it, but when I learned glue baste, it opened up a whole new world to me. The accuracy and scope of pieces that you can applique are endless!

It is my great hope that this weekend I'll get some churn dash blocks made toward the sew along *fingers crossed*, but I can't imagine I'm going to get a mini quilt made this month. I hate dropping the ball like that, but maybe I'll make an extra next month if I can get the applique out of my mind for a few minutes?

Thank you so much for the comments on the last post - I've been a bit of a slacker responding to emails, so I'll get on to that now. Chatter soon friends! xoxox

Still all applique ...

I'll just check in tonight with a quick applique progress post - I'm feeling like I'm on a roll and would love to get right back into applique prep!

Block 13 is all stitched and finished now, so this week I started prepping all the pieces for the last three blocks:

Gosh I love glue baste applique, it has rocked my applique world!

This afternoon I had all the pieces ready to position on the blocks. I'm so thrilled to have this done!

And now I have the pattern sheet on top of my lightbox, the background fabric on top of that, and I'm slowly putting all the shapes in place ready for stitching. 

So, because I can't sit still right now - I'm just dying to get back to it, I'll sign off here, and check back with you all at the end of the weekend with how far I've gotten. Chatter soon! xox

All applique, all the time ...

This week applique was the only thing I was interested in doing. So I finished up my twelfth Lily Rosenberry block, and started prepping the thirteenth:

My goodness, I love these blocks! It wasn't long before all the pieces were in place, and even though I hadn't stitched everything down, I wanted to lay them out and see how it was looking:

My picture is terrible, but I'm thrilled with how the project is coming along, and I simply cannot wait to stitch all these blocks together. They're only laid out roughly so please don't panic if things don't look like they're lining up properly xox

Also, I need to apologise, I've been a little busy this past week (and more) so I haven't caught up on as many blogs as I'd like to, but I promise I'll catch up really soon! Chatter soon friends xoxox

Small blocks only!

Heavens, after our house has been hit by another nasty gastro bug this week, I only yesterday found the energy to drag myself into the sewing room. And I didn't have the brain power to work at anything tricky, so I caught up a little on my Moda Blockheads 4 blocks:

Bonus Block 2 - Mix and Match by Michelle White

Bonus Block 4 - Zipper

Bonus Block 7 - Step to it

Block 19 - Clover by Robin Pickens

Bonus Block 8 - Star Turn

I've used a motley assortment of fabrics from my scrap baskets, so it will be interesting to see how the quilt turns out. The tan print in the Star Turn block was used in my Dear Jane quilt, so that means it came to me in the late 90's. Possibly sent to me by my lovely friend Linda from the USA.

Energy levels are still low, I'll sign off here with a hope that I get lots done over the next week so I can share a newsy post with you next week. Chatter soon! xox

Almost made it!

Even though it's the first of August, I wanted to quickly share that today I managed to get July's monthly mini quilt finished! It was so close to being finished yesterday, all that remained was to hand stitch down half of the binding while Mary was napping today.

I pieced the top on Saturday, and basted it ready for quilting - I mentioned in the last post that it's the Highland Plaid block from the Moda Blockheads 4 project.

There are a couple of absolute golden oldies amongst the fabrics I used, this one from the tub gifted to me by Pam Holland:

So vintage - this one is all gone now! The larger sashing strips in blue and the binding fabrics are from the same tub. It's like a lovely trip down memory lane.

Here it is prior to quilting:

I got busy quilting on Sunday, and got about twenty minutes in, and realised I hadn't glue basted the backing fabric accurately. An absolute rookie move - I didn't even bother to check it before I started quilting. I was working on freemotion quilting a fabulous feather border after doing some securing stitches with the walking foot. For whatever reason I turned a corner of the quilt over and saw the most terrible puckers and pleats on the back. Horror! So I then spent the next two hours picking out the quilting! It was a lesson in patience, and I made it through!

After that, I just didn't have it in me to work up a fancy quilting design, instead I quilted a simple allover pattern so I could call it done.

It's all finished now, and in place on the coffee table in the lounge room. I think it can stay there for a bit ... 

Each time I wander past I find another little shard of thread to pick off the top. It'll be a constant reminder to check that the back is okay before I spend too long quilting.

A big thank you to Wendy Caton Reed for hosting the montly mini challenge. Be sure to stop by her blog and have a look at what all the other ladies are working on. Have a great week friends!