Quilts in the Barn 2015

This weekend is the annual Quilts in the Barn, organised by Linda and her army of helpers. Today I spent a few hours admiring quilts and catching up with friends.

What a stunning welcome!

This beautiful quilt hung above the entrance to the barn.

The theme this year was scrappy quilts. Most of the quilts had no names associated with them, so I am sorry I cannot acknowlege the creators of these magnificent quilts.

This year Linda invited 2 guests from USA. Mary Koval came with a beautiful collection of old fabric and quilts available for purchase.

Jo Morton displayed several of her quilts.

Leonie Bateman had a small stall where fabrics designed by Mary and Jo, among others, were available for purchase.

Now for a few of the quilts.....

This stunner is the raffle quilt for this year. It was made by Jenny Bear using Jo Morton fabrics. It was quilted by Deb Burville. There is a pattern for this quilt available.

This quilt was entirely one inch squares!

Tiny flying geese:

More one inch squares used as a border:

A brave use of blue as the background..

Applique and piecing..

A small appliqued quilt

...and some detail...

I love this red and white....

If you are in the Wonga Park area, or would like to go for a lovely drive, tomorrow is the last day. The day starts at 10 am and finishes at 4pm, when the winners of the raffles will be drawn. Once again proceeds form admission, the food stall and the raffles are donated to breast cancer research. It is a wonderful day for a great cause!

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My Small World

Earlier this year I started a new quilt. My Small World is designed by Jen Kingwell (of Amitie here in Melbourne) and was published in The Spring special of Quiltmania, 2015.

I have completed 3 sections of the 6. Here is my progress so far

I got a starter pack of fabric from Amitie (several fabrics the same as in Jen's original quilt) and I added lots of fabrics along the way

Since is it called "my small world" I have used some fabrics that have significance for me.

I used "Rose" because it is in my blog name, but it is also a family name.

This little piece of lace was crocheted by someone in my family. Either my mother, one of my grandmothers or my great grandmother! They all sewed, crocheted, knitted etc. I wish I knew who made it.

This one is for my children. All 3 of my children did gymnastics and my daughter also danced for many years.

Some elephants for my husband because he is from Laos.

Scissors for all the sewers in my family.

A piece of fabric that my daughter designed.

A piece of Liberty with all things "tea" because I love a cuppa! :)


Lastly a favourite section of little pinwheel blocks.

I have hand pieced everything so far and I am loving it! Thank you Jen for a fun quilt.

There are a few more progress photos on Instgram. My page is @mjnorindr . Look for #miriamsmysmallworld to see all my photos of this quilt. To see many other wonderful versions of this quilt on Instagram look at #mysmallworldqal, #mysmallworld or #mysmallworldquilt.

Mountmellick Progress

Last night I put the last stitch in the part 4 border of Mountmellick, a mystery quilt by Di Ford and published in Quiltmania magazines in 2014.

The corners are English paper pieced. I am hand stitching the whole quilt.

Before we went away to Japan I had all the little triangles cut out ready to piece. I managed to do only a little piecing in Japan, but I had a stitching marathon on the plane on the way home! :)

Next is a narrow appliqued border, then a wider pieced border. Still a long was to go!

I did finish one small quilt earlier this year..

Here it is with its new owner inside his teepee..

I'm back, with a new project and much more...

Well, it has been far too long since I updated my blog! There has been plenty of sewing happening, so I will start with my most recent start and come back with some more posts of what else I have been doing.

I have bitten by the clamshell bug!! I have never made clamshells before, so got some advice from others about what might be the best way to go.

I decided to make my own clamshell template from template plastic. I found an old Mathomat one of the kids used at school to draw a 2 inch clamshell.

Next I traced several clamshells on to freezer paper and tried applying spray starch with a paint brush and ironing over the curved edges. I didn't have much success with this. The freezer paper got soggy and stretched. Now I am using glue to stick down the folded edge.

I plan to make just a small quilt with an Alison Glass Ex Libris in the centre and surrounded by clamshells. I have an Alison Glass border fabric that I plan to use also.

For the clamshells so far I have chosen a mixture of Alison Glass, Cotton and Steel, Karen Lewis Textiles and Maze and Vale fabrics.



Since I finished the 2 quilt tops in my previous posts, I have mostly stuck to making progress on 2 projects.

The first is a new project using a pattern by Jen Kingwell. My Small World originally appeared in the Spring 2015 edition of Quiltmania. It is now available as a separate pattern. Below are parts 1 and 2 completed. I have almost finished part 3. I will do a new post about this quilt. Its been lots of fun!

I  have been continuing to work on Mountmellick, Di Ford's mystery quilt from Quiltmania last year. These little blocks are for Part 4. I have 2 sides attached and just the other 2 to sew on. Stand by for a separate post about Mountmellick too!

You may notice the photo above was taken in a plane. We recently had a short holiday in Tokyo. There was some fabric shopping in amongst all the sightseeing!! Of course there will be a post about our experience in Tokyo too!!!

Back soon! :)

Two Quilt Tops Finished!!!

It is always a long time between finishes when I have several projects going at once and many of them are by hand. Well, this month I have finally finished 2 quilt tops!!! Woohoo! :)

The first finish is my hand pieced Lone Star. I started this quilt with several other ladies in my Friday Sewing group at Somerset Patchwork.

Every stitch is by hand, so it took me almost exactly 12 months to finish this top! I plan to machine quilt it (it is huge so would take too long to hand quilt!!), but have no idea how....yet!

As usual. I have had several other projects on the go this month.

I made a little pouch with some Cotton and Steel fabric as a gift.

A little more progress has been made on Mountmellick.

One of the corner blocks...

...and the completed border attached to the centre medallion I made last year!

.
.Sorry its upside down!!

I have started the next border. So far I have made 5 out of a  dozen hexie flowers using half inch hexies.

Next is another machine stitched block for Citrus Sweet Love.

Last night I finished stitching the very last block of the Chester County Criswell Quilt, block 33.
There have been several challenging blocks in this quilt and I think I found this one the most challenging!!

Today I machine stitched all the blocks together!!

I made the first block in August 2012 and there has been one block a month since then. Lots of hand applique!! I am going to miss stitching one of these blocks every month.
This photo was just a quick shot taken outside. I hope to get some better photos over the next few days. It was fun pulling out all the blocks and remembering those I had stitched many months ago.

Already I have chosen 2 more new quilts to start!!! Plus I have plans to keep working on some older WIP and get some more finishes!

May stitching

I have all my Noah and Matilda blocks sewn together! I opted with this layout because I want to hand quilt it. The original has the blocks on point with lots of blank blocks in between.
I still have the borders to make. I (hopefully!) have all the grapes made and I have made a start on the flowers and leaves.

Here are a few of my favourite blocks...

I have kept up with CCCQ, so here is the penultimate block!!

Block 32 Alice Carlile.

I have started back stitching Mountellick from last year's Quiltmania mystery BOM. I am working on part 2, the first border around the centre medallion.

I am using BOM fabrics from Threadbear.

I have put together some hexies using Cotton & Steel fabrics.

These are for the top of a small bag.

Earlier this week I visited a new shop here in Melbourne.  Cutting Cloth has been open only a few days and is run by Kellie of Don't Look Now. The shop is set out beautifully.

I came home with a lovely piece of Cotton & Steel lawn, some fat quarters of Alison Glass fabric and the perfect piece of fabric for my Joseph's Coat quilt that I started on line with Kellie several years ago! The top has been finished for ages. I have just been trying to find the prefect backing fabric.

Today I put the last stitch in the binding of small quilt.

More photos when the quilt has been gifted.