Just for something different...

........I did some sewing today!

Not the usual quilty kind of sewing, though.

I spent the day working with my daughter helping her sew up Brides maid dresses. I just love working with fabric...............any kind of fabric!

The fabric in the photo above is from Moda's new Morris Workshop collection by Barbara Brackman. My head is swirling with ideas for how to use this delicious fabric!!!

Antique quilt

Today I sewed the triangular sections onto the centre square. There will probably be more smaller Lemoyne stars appliqued onto the smaller triangles.

At the top of the photo are 2 fabrics I am deciding between for a narrow border. I had thought I would use the green, but now I am leaning towards the brown . Anyone have an opinion???

I hand stitched the Lemoyne stars, but everything else is sewn on the machine. I haven't done very much piecing by machine before. There has been a bit of frog stitching this afternoon!!!




Cootamundra Wattle.



This tree is in our backyard. It flowers in mid winter every year and brings the knowledge that spring is not far away.


Our original Cootamundra wattle was planted almost 30 years ago. They are not a long living tree, but grow quite quickly. This tree came up by itself after the original one died. It is about 15 feet tall.

There are many varieties of wattle trees and most of them flower in spring.

Morrell Quilt Blocks

These 3 blocks are my latest finished for the Morrell Quilt. The first is another broderie perse block with the design cut from the same fabric as the peacock block.

The second block is one of the quicker blocks to finish (thank goodness after some of the trickier blocks!!) This one is just needle roll applique.

The last block is a sunburst star. Well, its certainly not perfect but its done! It was hand pieced in sections like slices of a pie, then sections were pieced in pairs before they were all joined together. The whole star was then needle roll appliqued onto the background fabric. As I got closer to the end my points were getting a bit better. Some are pretty wobbly! LOL More practice!

The next broderie perse block has a border of triangles around it. In the last class we had I learnt paper piecing using freezer paper. That method will make getting those triangles to line up properly a whole lot easier. :)



The last photo is some orchids from my garden. The plant has done very well this year and there are 6 more branches still to flower.

Some recent finishes

Sewing Machine Cover.

I made a new sewing machine cover earlier this year. It was the first time I had done anything other than machine quilting in a straight line. I still need lots of practice! The blocks on the front are hand pieced Dear Jane blocks (A 13 Star light Star Bright......my favourite DJ block so far)


Strippy Quilt.

This is a finish from last year. I made a quilt similar to this one for a friend and I liked it so much I decided to make one for myself in "my" colours. I machined pieced it and hand quilted with large stitches using DMC Pearle thread.
A Sunburst Quilt.

I completed this quilt top last year. It is all hand pieced. Many of the fabrics are from Quilt Gate's Mary Rose collection. I really enjoyed piecing all those little diamonds and triangles. They took hours, but it was relaxing. I intend to hand quilt it............when I think my hand quilting is good enough.





Have you ever cut out a bunch of fabric, then when you started to sew it all up..............realised that.......

..........

..........

.......... you forgot to add the seam allowance!!!!!!!!!!!


Well, thats what I did yesterday! It was right there in the instructions.......I just didn't read them properly....until it was too late!

Luckily I hadn't cut out much fabric and I could reuse most of what I had cut up without wasting much. Lesson learnt......I won't make that mistake again!!


Thank you to everyone who has visited my blog in the last couple of weeks.....especially everyone who has left a comment. :) I have found lots of wonderful blogs and some really lovely, friendly and helpful people.:)........and lots of inspiration!

A Productive Day

I turned this collection of fabric.................













......................into this...................
It is the centre of a reproduction antique quilt.

It is all sewn on the machine. I have never sewn quilt pieces that small (just over 1 inch square, finished) on my machine before. I have always hand pieced tiny bits of fabric. I am happy with how all my corners meet up. There was only one that caused me problems and I resewed that one 3 times!!! All the fabric except the background came from my stash!



There are lots of camelias in flower in my area at the moment. Here is one from my garden.

Another Morrell block

My latest finish is this peacock block. I think my stitches are getting neater now.


I have a new "best friend"!!! Its a fine needle threader!! I have started sewing with a very fine needle with a tiny eye. They are great to sew with, but a real effort to thread. I have discovered my eyesight isn't what it used to be. I'm off for an eye test next week!

Thank you to everyone who has come to visit my blog and thank you to all the new visitors who have left comments. :)



This is the first jonquil to appear in my garden this year. Its hardly the middle of July and jonquils are flowering already. The perfume is devine!

About the Morrell Quilt.

A photo of the original Sarah Morrell Album Quilt and a little about it can be found in Glorious American Quilts by E. V. Warren and S. L. Eisenstat. (p 26 & 27)

The quilt I am making is a reproduction of the original 19th century quilt. This design was done by Di Ford, a lady who had her own quilting shop for over 20 years. The original quilt was an album quilt that had blocks signed by 58 different people and dated between 1848 and 1843. All the people came from Philadelphia or New Jersey. The original quilt measures 93.25" x 95.25". The reproduction is 86" x 86".

The name of the quilt is derived from the signature on the center medallion. The original central block is broderie perse, but the reproduction is a pieced block.

I started the quilt as a Block of the Month project. The BOM is not available now, but patterns will be available soon from Threadbear in Castlemaine. www.threadbear.com.au

I love the variety of methods used in the quilt. Some of the blocks will be a challenge. Several had lots of tiny pieces!

Disappearing Nine Patch

My cousin had her first baby recently and I decided to make a quilt. I wanted something I could make quickly and a friend suggested making a disappearing nine patch. I had never made one before, but I am pleased with how it turned out. I love all the bright fabrics! My daughter and I chose the fabrics, although she is the one in the family with the eye for colour! This quilt was pieced and quilted by machine.


These are some black swans, and a few ducks, that I saw while I was out walking yesterday.

More Morrell Quilt blocks

These are a few more Morrel Quilt blocks I have completed. The first 2 are broderie perse blocks. They are stitched by hand with buttonhole stitch using a single strand of matching Gutterman cotton thread. I have finished 6 of the 24 broderie perse blocks so far. I had never done broderie perse before and I am finding it quite enjoyable...........although I do need to make a pieced or appliqued block in between. When I started this quilt I didn't realise how long it would take to make all those tiny stitches!! With practice I think my stitches are getting neater.

The 3rd picture is of a pieced block. Several of the pieced blocks have lots of fussy cutting, which I love.

The last block is another appliqued block. I used Gutterman silk for this block. On the recommendation of a wonderful quilting friend I have since started using YLI silk in a taupe colour. Gosh, that is wonderful thread to use!!!
To finish today here is a photo of a flowering daphne from my garden. The plant is 7 years old and was propagated by my mother from a cutting taken from a plant in my grandfather's garden. It is in a large pot by my front door and at the moment the scent is wonderful!

Dear Jane Blocks

These are the Dear Jane blocks I have made so far. They are in no particular order.

I finished my 52nd Dear Jane block today. A 11 Pebbles Protest.

I am making a scrappy Jane. All of my fabrics are from projects I have already made, gifts from friends or pieces bought as a memory of a particular day out. I started in January 2008 and I can say I have learnt lots so far on this journey. In hindsight some of my fabric choices may not be the best and I may decide to do some blocks again. I had no plan at the beginning and just jumped in and made a block from a piece of fabric I thought would suit that block. I intend to start sashing my blocks soon and I am considering whether I will place my blocks in a layout that suits my fabric choices, rather than layed out in the traditional manner of A 1 to M 13.

52,2,0,1071


More Morrell Quilt blocks next time.

Morrell Quilt BOM

This is my most recent finished block for the Morrell Quilt. This is an appliqued block, but most of the blocks are broderie perse or pieced. I am making the quilt all by hand. I will post more photos soon.

A finish for today

2009 has been declared the year for finishing quilts!!!

Here is my latest finish. It was a very fast quilt to make, all machine pieced and machine quilted.

Some of the fabric was new, but some is fabric I purchased in Tokyo when we went to Japan for our 30th wedding anniversary in 2007.

It is a lap quilt for my husband.

I found a quilting shop that had a hand worked sampler class and this is the quilt I made.

Sampler 2005.

Close ups of the bird quilt.

Sorry about the overlapping photos! I will get this blogging thing worked out one day!! VBG!!

In The Beginning....

I thought I would start back at the beginning, when I first decided to make a quilt. In 2004 I found a wonderful BOM at a craft show. I had never made a quilt, but I found something that I fell in love with and "just had to make"!

This is where it all began............

I lost myself in hours of embroidery and embellishment and enjoyed every hour of making that quilt top. When it was almost finished I decided I needed to find a class so I could learn how to turn this top into a finished quilt.............as you can see I haven't actually finished yet.....it will get done one day!