Another UFO Bites the Dust

I finished the backing for the Freshcut Quilt which gives me one finish for the Joy In The New Year Challenge. Unfortunately as I only just finished it, and its after midnight I don't quite have a picture of it yet.. This one is getting sent off to be quilted by one of my mums fabulous friends, but I wanted to use up some of the leftover fabrics so I made a really simple pieced back. I'll try to take photo's later!

Now on to the next one! I received all my blocks from the nine patch swap today and decided my plan of attack was to cut them all up! (Oops! sorry ladies!) I want to make applique borders for it so by cutting them into disappearing nine patches it has made the quilt quite smaller and appear a lot scrappier. But as usual now I want to make some extra blocks to make it a little bigger! Here is a very blurry photo of it taken when I was at my sewing buddies house working on it tonight.

The plan for this one is to just get all the center of the quilt finished. I would like to on put an applique border in the style of Susan McCord around it, so it is going to take a while to finish!

Design Wall Fail

Again. I think I need to invest in more and better masking tape...

In other news, I have signed up for Jacquie's Joy in the New Year 'finish it' spree. I can think of four off the top of my head that I want to finish, but I'm aiming for 6. First up will be the back for a quilt top I finished (finally!) over the weekend. More photo's to come when it isn't night time!

9 Patch Finished!

All my nine patch are completed for Christine's Swap. Now on to the next ufo!

I have a problem

This is just the stuff sitting aside from the rest of it, ready to be cut and made into 4 different projects. I just need to cut it! The stack is approx 17 inches high. Eeik!

Setback

Well, I have worked out how many blocks I need to make it as large as I like, have the majority of them made, and a good proportion of the blocks up on my design wall. Then disaster struck. Today during the horribly dust storm, the design wall came down!

So this is what it was looking like, just to give you a teaser, as it wont look like this again for a while...

Growing Slowly

This is only just the start. The blocks are going to be 4 inches square when finished, and I'm thinking the layout will be 20 by 20. And I will still have left over blocks, eeik!

New Starts

Inspired by the quilt on the cover of the latest Down Under quilts I have started something new!

So far all the black and white have come from stash, and most of the Kaffe's would have, except at the time I couldn't find my stash of them! As expected, the night after I bought more to go in, I found the ones I was looking for. Doh!

Block Number 3

Sorry, not the greatest of photo's. It had sat missing only 3 pieces for so long!

The Bigger Picture

I have been asked a few times what the quilt looks like from my header. I did'nt actually have a finished picture of the whole quilt and I had given it to my mother. Here it is 'in situ'.

It's Enormous

In my quest to finish things off, I made the last 4 blocks I needed so I could start piecing a quilt made entirely from Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I started this at the beginning of the year in Melbourne, in a class with Brenda Gael Smith.

This is all the blocks laying on the floor of my lounge room. As you can see, it doesn't quite fit between the tv cabinet (top) and the lounge chair (bottom) because there is actually another row missing from the bottom there - because it was sitting in the sewing machine being sewn together. A conservative estimate has me thinking this will be 2.2m by 2.5m, or, the perfect size for my queen size bed.

I'm excited..

I'm Back!

Sorry for the long absence.

First up, here are my first set of reproduction 9 patch blocks for Christine's 9 Patch Swap. I've had these made a while but I'm still 2 months behind (or is it three? eeik!).

I also handed in my entry to the Ekka last week, but was in such a rush I forgot to take a photo! Opps!

And so as usually goes with finishing something, all I want to do is start something new! I even have the project picked out. Its from Material Obsession 2: Shared Inspiration designed by Sarah Fielk. I'm really excited about it and even have some fabrics being sent to me from far off places, but I refuse to let myself start it until I finish some projects! So over the next week or two you will hopefully see a lot of old projects moving on to the 'finished' pile.

Till next time!

Melanie

Malfunctions

Hi All,

I unfortunately have had some major computer malfunctions occur meaning I will not be able to update for a while. This is terrible timing as I have a few things on the go which are nearly reaching completion (or at least photo/blog completion) including my blocks for the Block-A-Long, and a quilt I plan on entering into the Ekka. And the thought of living without the Internet is just.... scary.

I will hopefully be back in no time, a little bit poorer and with a more regular updating schedule soon.

See you on the other side

Melanie

Oh I like...

42 down (only 12 behind!) and 28 to go. I might try getting some more reds...

9 Patching all over again

I had almost 50 blocks made for the Block a Day Quilt Along when disaster stuck - I hated them all! But all is ok, after looking at some other people's blocks I decided that I would do something completely different with them. Out came the unpicker!
And now I have this lovely box full of 2.5" squares.

So to catch up with everyone else, I started making these (which I am liking a whole lot more than the last lot). I have used 18 different yarn dyed woven plaids and checks and I have 36 already assembled and the makings for about another 50. So I am still a little behind but I will be catching up shortly!

Freshcut

Well I promised pictures and here you go.

Yesterday this was all still a bunch of 4.5 inch squares, now here it is up on my design wall waiting for the blocks to be sewn together.



I'm hoping to get it done later tonight, but at the moment I have started thinking about borders and started piecing the back. I would have liked to have used either the pink or peach coloured flower for the border, but it seems to be the only one I don't have any more of! So it's going to have to be green/blue.

Congratulations!

Just a quick post to say Congratulations! to Helen who is the lucky winner of my Sewn fabric giveaway.

Thank you to everyone who participated and congratulations to all the other winners!

I have been doing a lot of hand piecing over the past couple of weeks which is very slow and therefore not good for updating, but I finally have a little bit done to show! But you will have to wait for a sunny day that I am not working so that I can take some photo's!

Spring to Finish

All in all, I got two items finished. The baby quilt I from my last post and this - a deconstructed quilt.

I made a simple quilt using squares of Fresh Cut by Heather Bailey and a cream muslin but once it was all together I didn't like it. It made it to a half finished quilt top two years ago before it got rolled up and hidden in the cupboard. In a clean up two weeks ago I decided it was time to unpick it all and start again from the beginning. I'm going to replace the cream I was using with a white on white polka dot (I have yet to buy) and then make a quilt using disappearing nine patch blocks.

All this unpicking has actually made me a bit behind on my One a Day quilt along, but that is soon to change after I received a HUGE bag of scraps from a friend, delivered by my Mum on Friday.
There were some pretty cool fabrics in there and I can't wait to start sorting them out! I have already picked out some of my favorites and that the little pile sitting beside the bag.

(And I will have a photo of the baby quilt soon, I took some photo's tonight but the colours were all off so I'm going to need some real light to take a good photo of it!)

Binding Away

My Auntie asked me to make a little baby quilt for a girl being born in July. I bought the fabric last Tuesday (well some of it) and got to work. By Thursday it was pinned and by Saturday it was quilted. Now I am up to the slowest part of all for me - the binding. I cut it out Monday, attached it Tuesday and now I'm just slowly stitching away.

No matter when I finish there are two things I already know - this is the quickest I have ever made a quilt from start to finish, and I will finally finished something for Spring to Finish! Its good timing too because the temperature has been dropping into the 'teens at night, and here I am, stitching away with a little quilt on my lap and socks on my feet.

Nothing but scraps

Here are my nine patches for Crazy Mom's Quilts Block a Day Quilt Along.


I definitely need more green. There are a couple of blast's from the past in there with the pansy fabric and a couple of others that came from my Mum's stash ages ago but I really like them all together.

Working On and a Give Away!

I started cleaning up my sewing room on Saturday. This might have been a big mistake because right now it's messier than when I started. Anyway..

I came across the box that was holding all my yo-yo's and decided I might work on it for a little while. Last time I spoke of them, I had them sitting on my coffee table. Shortly after that they all got packed up into the box again. Until last night. I pulled out the piece of black fabric I had about a quarter of them attached to. Now I have just under half attached.


And I found a few more floating around so it might end up bigger than I expected. Oh, and not only did I lay them all out, I sewed the first few together. The bottom left hand corner is actually joined. The hold up now is that I want to get some more thread colours to blend in. I started with two shades of grey and white which works great on the blue's I started on but I'm up to that red patch, so I want to get some red and also green to use on those colours.

Finally, to celebrate the launch of a new Australian Quilting website, I'm joining the Blog Party Giveaway! Leave a comment and your in the running for 4 fat quarters, posted straight to you! I haven't actually chosen them yet, so you'll get a say in what you get!

Good Luck!

Edit: I have been checking up on the people who have entered and so far a large number of people have no email address for me to contact them if they win - they either have none attached to their blogger profile or have their profile set to private. Please leave an email address if you are one of these people otherwise I wont be able to contact you if you win!

Kitty Cat Quilt Top

Well, I'm a little late for what I planned on finishing this for, but better late than never. This has been sitting with the center pieced together for a while now, just waiting for some borders.


I was originally going to use a different stripe for the inner border, and had made it to the ironing board to iron it when I realised I didn't have as much as I thought. On the way back to the fabric cupboard I walked past the Prints Charming stripe on the floor (oops) in the hallway (oops) and decided to use it instead. And I had been holding on to the the black and white cat print for a while unsure about what to use it for. I love it! The fat smug cat on it always reminds me of this box loving cat.

So far so good

That would be 4 completed blocks down the back, a half made one at the front, and the stacks of 11 more blocks to make. Just please ignore that stack of half square triangles down the back under the blocks, and that stack of fabric to the right.. You didn't see that...

I'm probably crazy

When I signed up to Spring to Finish on Tallgrass Prarie Studio's blog, I wrote a list of 12 things I wanted to do - which would have meant I got 4 or 5 quilts closer to to getting finished. Well, I failed miserably. I finished 2 off that list of 12.

Which is why I am crazy to be signing up for a Quilt-a-Long with Crazy Mom Quilts. But I think its what I need. For the past couple of weeks I have been working some pretty odd and long hours (I have to say the most impressive day would be working from 5am till 8am doing a freezer stock take then going to my other job from 9.30 till 6.45pm on only 3 hours sleep) and all this isn't helped by the fact I still don't have a car yet, making me dependant on very unreliable public transport - most of which takes more than an hour and a half to get from A to B. This means that when I get home 12 hours after I left, I'm pretty tired and don't feel like doing much at all.

But I'm hoping just one block a day is achievable. Last night I went on a bit of a cutting marathon and now have more than 100 2.5 inch squares for this project, and sewed my first two blocks together. I'm thinking of doing two at a time to save on stopping and starting and with my little cutting mission I have about 10 blocks worth of fabric ready to be sewn together. So here are my first two.

PS. I'm thinking of doing a clean out of some of my sewing supplies meaning there are going to be some destashing going on soon with some giveaway's. I just hope someone will want my stuff!

Basting away

Just a little update. I plan on entering this one in a quilt show (if I ever get it finished) so this will probably be the last you see of it for a while. I finally got the top together and in a way I like it after a fair bit of unpicking to straighten it up.

This photo shows it getting basted. I have bought some beautiful silk threads to quilt this in so I can't wait to get started. I just need to decide on the design I'm going to quilt on it!

Re-entry

Sorry for the prolonged blog break, I had a bad week which included being locked out of my unit overnight, small appliances breaking, my car dying a painful death in the left hand lane in front of an intersection in pouring rain whilst on my way to work, oh, then finally a birthday. All that left me a little drained to be honest.

So I do have projects to show- like my crochet which is off to a roaring start. And I have also joined a few other people with a Spring to Finish! challenge on Tallgrass PrairieStudio's blog so I have 14 days now to finish some things up. I have six projects I would like to get finished over the next couple of months as I want to enter them into some quilt shows so I need to get going! (All in all this might be a tiny bit tricky as I pretty much have 3 jobs on the go now so I can afford to get a desperately needed new (to me) car!)

And because I need a picture here:

This is one of four of my tomato plants that is growing on my balcony. I always thought I was a patient person but for God's sake! How long does it take for a damm tomato to ripen!! You may be able to notice the stalk towards the bottom of the plant with some rather large cherry tomatoes on it? Well this promising little plant has had two of those large cherry tomatoes on it for almost three weeks now and they wont turn red! And now that same shoot has 16 other tiny tomatoes growing on it as well! HURRY UP I WANT TO EAT YOU!

Moving on

So I finally got this all together.


Not sure what to do with it now though - its too small for a lap quilt meaning that it will probably end up being something that just goes over the back of a lounge. You can see the first of probably many fabrics to be auditioned for a border though I have changed my mind about this one.

Another hobby

I've been oogling the many knitting and crochet blogs around lately and decided to jump in and give it a go myself - crochet that is. So that means getting a big bag full of wool!


I went a bit silly at Spotlight today and bought 18 different colours of 100% Australian Wool. This stuff is normally $2.99, as a VIP member I got 20% is why I travelled to a different store to get a couple the first store didnt have. And after all that travelling, still need both cream and white, a couple more greens and a brighter yellow. I am being thaught by a friend on Thursday and can't wait!

Pile 'o' Blocks

Finally finished all the blocks for this quilt - all 180 of them. This is going to be a HUGE quilt.

Choqua?

This will be a gift for a friend who was crazy enough to abandon me and move to Melbourne, where I am told it can get 'cold'.


Would you describe it as blue, mocha and coffee? I already have a border picked out from Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope range.

And just to show I haven't given up on the hand piecing here is a little preview of Block 3. Gnomes!

I'm going to have to be a bit more careful where I put it though, it got splattered with soup during dinner tonight!

Nice skirt!

I cannot take the credit for this though, Mum made it. She was even nice enough to send back the scraps (which have already been put to use)! The fabric is by Valori Wells.


Not the most flattering photo due to photographer lying on a chair and not willing to move to get a better photo, unshaven legs and the fact I'm wearing my pj singlet... I'll take better photo's later in the week Mum.

Another block bites the dust

On to block 3!

Scrap Queen!

I started this in my Scrap Queen Odyssey Class with Brenda Geal Smith at AQC a couple of weeks ago. This was a very very enjoyable and relaxing class, and over the course of the day I had pieced a lot of scraps together. I was piecing them all into long strips about 20 to 24 inches long (as thats how long my cutting mat and ruler are) And this entire thing is scraps. Even the colourful Kaffe Fassett fabrics came from the previous days class.


And despite the bad photographs appearence, it isnt curving in, thats just poor photography skills. What this photo may point out to you though is that the left side is about an inch higher than the left side, so I need to do some unpicking to get the right side up a bit. And there is still a little bit to add on the right but I am pretty proud of this considering what I started with!

Tesselations

Sorry, a wee bit of illness knocked me out for a little while, but I do have some hand piecing to show for it!

This is block one of possibly 9 or 12 hand pieced blocks I am making.


The quilt only calls for nine but I am having so much fun making them (and have so much fabric to make them!) that I am thinking of making more.

This is block number 2 however I am not sure about what triangles to put around the outside, so I'm auditioning fabric here. I think I might need to start block 3 while I ponder this one.


PS. Thank you to all the ladies who have been making comments, I have tried to reply to thank you except not many people leave me email addresses to get back to! (This includes you Carmel!) So then I track down blogs but for some reason my comments haven't been getting published or I'm not allowed to even publish the comment. Hmm, hopefully my problems wont continue though!

Home again home again..

I'm back from the AQC with lots of goodies! Now at this point in time I would have loved to have shown you some pictures from the event but I was very bad with my camera, and did not take many photo's at all. Ooops.

Here is what I bought. This first pile comes from a lovely shop called Amitie

And then there is this assortment, bought from many different shops at the AQC itself.

And this little pile was a wonderful and unexpected Christmas gift from one of the ladies I was down with. The buttons sitting in the bowl came all the way from an antique store in Vienna!
Anyway as I don't actually have photo's of the work I did while I was away I will hopefully be back in a few days with some! (and hopefully one of them will be on its way to be finished!)

Leftovers

I was cleaning up my stash trying to find 'scraps' for a class I am going to in Melbourne next week and came across some left over squares from a project from way back (if projects were measured by the house they were made it, this one was two houses ago...)

So its high time they got put to better use. I made some extra's to make it a little bigger and hopefully a little more useful however I am still not sure what it will be, and I still need 7 more blocks.


And this little pile of fabric is going towards another class in Melbourne. What do you think? The requirements ask for 'high contrast with no large prints' and I would say only the spots and the stripes fall into that contrast but oh well, I like the look they will hopefully give.

Moving on

So I might at least get two things finished before going to Melbourne at the end of the month where I will start 4 more new things. First on the list is this little baby


It is all quilted, and patiently waiting binding.

Then there is another old one which is already quilted, but has waited a couple of months to have the threads woven in. I have it sitting on the arm of the lounge chair so that when I watch tv I sit there weaving them in. I am 1/3 done, yay! and have no new picture of it yet. I have even pulled out the fabric to start thinking about the binding for it, so I am getting there slowly. The one thing holding up the binding process for both of these quilts is that I haven't got a space to set up my cutting mat until I clean up a bit...

And lastly, there is this one which will definitely not be finished before the end of February, I started doing a bit more quilting on it (the white lines) and boy do they take a lot of time! I am not marking where to quilt on this one, just eyeballing it so that I get some wonky lines here and there and so far I am really liking it.

Still here

Well the move from one place to another was completed a couple of weeks ago, but the net was only connected Tuesday. It was at this point that I realised I hadn't done anything crafty for over two weeks to post about so I got to it and got some things done. Now I thought today would be a great day to post something on my neglected blog, however, it also dawned on me today that I may not actually know where my camera is. I guess there is still a fair bit to be unpacked....

In other news, this is my 50th post.

I have a lot of stuff...

The lack of posting is due to the lack of sewing, caused by having to move house again. This is the 6th move in as many years and I really am starting to get sick of it. Though, despite some serious thowing out of old things, we still have so much stuff! I am sitting on the floor in the lounge room of our old place (as my desk is at our new place, in 5 different pieces) looking around at the loose crap that is still to be taken and its quite shocking how much there is!

Also unfortunately moving has caused me to actually realise how many unfinished quilts I have. For example:

I have one completely quilted quilt awaiting the threads being woven in and binding.

I have 7 quilts at least half way through being quilted. This includes 2 which only need borders done.

I have 2 completed quilt tops, another waiting for a border to be added, and the entire makings for 4 quilts cut out and just waiting to be pieced!

Now thats just from what I can think of off the top of my head, I have 14 quilts waiting paitiently to be finished. Gosh.. This is disturbing.

With that all said, I really don't think I will make it in this month to finish something! Mostly because moving means I will need to set up my sewing stuff again, and gosh that takes time! And I only have 7 days left!

I will leave you with another in progress shot of my yo-yo quilt (by the way, this one isn't even included in my quilt tally above, and I have ALL the pieces for this one...) Its very slowly getting every yo-yo pinned to a piece of black fabric. Which means I had to go out and by 600+ pins..


See you on the other side.

Ziggin and Zaggin

A little sneak peak of something I've been working on.

To Pin or Baste

Its sitting on the floor waiting for me to decide. If I pin, it means I will free hand quilt, if I baste, it means I will quilt squares on the diagonal across the quilt. I need to decide quick because its pinned where the roof leaks, and its been drizzling all day (not enough for the roof to leak but its threatening to get worse).

So help please! I need some opinions on how to quilt this baby!