Monday, August 26, 2013

Jane Pizar progress and the return of Roseville Album.






I finally have the centre stitched in!! So far, the choice of fabrics for this section has been the most difficult for me. I tried four different fabric combinations, none of which worked. Finally I reread the notes I took while Marg Sampson George was speaking about fabric choices for the quilt. Her suggestion of having a pale centre sent me back to my fabrics and my final choice.





This combination works much better!  Later I may applique 5-petal daisies onto the pentagon shapes.

Yesterday I basted the circle onto its background, so now I am ready applique it down and prepare the applique for each of the corners.

It has been a very long time since I worked on Roseville Album. I have 7 of the 9 centre blocks completed. Below is my progress on the 8th block.


The basket was my first attempt at a woven basket. There was lots of spray starch, glue and plenty of pins involved in getting it down! Lots more stitching to do yet. 
I am in the process of choosing fabrics for the last centre block, so that one won't be far away. :)

At the moment I am working on 4 projects. The other 2 are machine stitching projects and I will share them in my next post.

We are less than a week away from Spring and already there are lots of signs in the garden.




The Bendigo Wax is blooming and, below the plum tree is covered in blossom.




In other news I have taken the Sarah Morrell quilt to a long arm quilter. I believe this quilt deserves a standard of quilting that is far beyond my skills, so I have left it in the very capable hands of Katrina. I am really looking forward to seeing Sarah Morrell quilted!

Friday, August 9, 2013

Stitching by hand and machine..

I am having a wonderful time hand stitching Jane Pizar!

Around the red border are various pieced and appliqued shapes.


Click on pictures to enlarge.
 










The next step (after I have decided what to do with the very centre!) will be to applique this big circle to a square of background fabric and fill the corners of the background with more applique.

Last week I visited Amitie and found some fabric to make a quilt for my MIL. 


 Some lovely Liberty with plainer fabrics.

I bought the Swoon pattern a loooong time ago and now I wish I had started much sooner!
These blocks come together quite quickly by machine.


I love these blocks!





 My plan is to make 4 Swoon blocks, 2 of each colourway, then I want to make a border using the Southern Belle block pattern that was used in the 2nd border of Lori and Randy's Medallion sewalong.


I am still making sashing blocks for Monique Dillard's Blogger Girl's BOM quilt.





It is a wet, windy, wintery day here in Melbourne today, but last month was the warmest July we have had since records began. The garden has been loving the warm days.




Have a great weekend!