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!

Blogger Girl's Block of the Month.

The Blogger Girl's BOM is drawing to a close.

Here is my last block.

And here are all 6 of my blocks.

Monique designed a great setting for the blocks. I spent some time today finishing cutting out all the setting fabrics and I sewed up one set of setting blocks.

I've had lots of fun with fussy cutting with the fabrics. I used all Olde World Style fabrics (designed by Monique Dillard)

To see Monique's quilt and several more see her "Quilt Parade" post here. There is also a Flickr page with lots of blocks and quilts.

I'll be back soon with progress photos of  my two Medallion sew-along quilts and Jane Pizar progress too. :)

Family sewing.

I have been busy working on lots of different projects recently.

First is block 5 of Monique Dillard's Blogger Girls BOM.

Only one more block to go now, then the sashing.

There is sooo much inspiration out there in blog-land at the moment that I have succumbed to the lure of 2 new projects. :)

I started another machine piecing project and joined in with Cheri's piecework sampler. Each day for the last 3 days Cheri has given instructions to make a different block.

These are 3 1/2 inch (unfinished) blocks. These blocka are made with lots of french General fabrics. I am looking forward to the next blocks.

I also joined Lori and Randy's Applique Medallion sew-along. This time I am doing machine applique! It has been so long since I did any machine applique I can't remember just how long!! ( more than 20 years!)

Again I have chosen to use French General fabrics, and I have made 2 different centre blocks.

The first follows Lori's pattern....

...and on  the second block I kept the same general shape of the vase, but did broderie perse. I haven't done broderie perse by machine before.

I used buttonhole stitch for both blocks.

Next week Randy will have the instructions for the beginning of the pieced borders, then Lori has another applique border.

Some progress has also been made on my current WIPs.

Four more delectable mountain blocks have been hand pieced...

 ...for 30 completed now.


More handwork, with applique.

All the blocks are now pinned ready to be sewn down on Joseph's Coat. This is the final corner I pinned down 2 nights ago.

I have been slowly stitching on Wanda's applique block...

Now, I would like to share some of my daughter's work.
She made a wall hanging for her new home.

The fabric is more than 20 metres of silk organza of varying shades and qualities.

I took the photos with my phone and unfortunately the colours haven't shown true.

Last weekend we went for a drive down the west coast past Melbourne and along part of the Great Ocean Road.

You may be able to make out some hang gliders in the photo above. There were about a dozen of them up at the same time.

One several beaches there were surfers. Some beaches were much more popular than others.

Happy sewing! :)

Piecing

Lots of piecing! Machine, by hand and english paper piecing.

Starting with machine piecing, below is my 3rd block for Monique Dillard's Blogger Girls Block of the Month.  I enjoyed choosing all the fabrics and the fussy cutting with this one.  These blocks are 12 inches finished.

The flying geese in my last post now are these 6 inch blocks...

I still have lots more to make.

Now for the hand piecing.

I am still well ahead of my goal of one delectable mountain block a week. Here are some of the most recent finishes,

Late last year I won a bag of scraps from Christine. I have taken some time to think about how I would use them. I wanted to make a lone star of some sort, so I chose one of the lone star blocks from the Morrell Quilt for the centre.

Many of the Morrell blocks have a saw tooth border, but I decide to do half square triangles for this block. I am still trying to decide what to do next. Maybe 9 patches. Any suggestions???

Recently Karen at Somerset had  some more of these little bags arrive.  They are perfect for holding sewing notions.

Several of us Friday girls now have one of these bags, so some of us have added something extra to make them individual.

This afternoon I finished this little block which I will applique to one side of the bag.

If you have made the Nearly Insane quilt you may recognise the centre section (up to and including the flying geese) as the centre from block 22.  I love these fabrics!!! They are from Jo Morton's Square in Square line.
(scroll to page 4 to see all the fabrics in the line)

Have a look here to see what Dorothy did with her bag! :)

One day I will get back to my Nearly Insane blocks! I think I have 8 finished; and  long way to go!

This English paper piecing project has been going for a while and I finised one section of it a little while ago. You may remember seeing some little half inch hexies on my blog last year. Slowly they have been joined together to make one side of this purse from Brigitte Giblin.

A little closer look at the fabrics.....

Every one of those fabrics are from the scraps left from the Morrell quilt BOM.

I have started the 2nd side, but it is slow going!

Next post I hope to have some appplique to show.

Here in Melbourne at the moment we are trying to keep cool. We are on to day 6 of an expected 10 day run of temperatures over 30 C (86F). Today was 36C  (96F) here and we expect about the same for Monday to Wednesday next week. Night times are not getting below 20 C (68F). Very unusual for March!

Have a great weekend everyone. Especially those of us who will have an extra day with our Labour Day holiday on Monday.

Oso top finished, BOMs and a giveaway....

Giveaway now closed.

I finished my Oso top this week. It was my first Schnibbles quilt and I am quite happy with how it turned out.
In the instructions there is quite a bit of trimming to size during the construction of each block. For my next Schnibbles I am going to try to constuct the blocks to size removing the trimming steps which I found became quite time consuming. I have a pattern and fabric chosen already. :)

This is my second block for Blogger Girl's Block of the Month.  My variation!!!  I didn't get the fabrics in quite the right places! Ooopps!!! There may be a bit of operating on this block in the near future!

Block seven, William and Harry Clendenen's block for the Chester Criswell Quilt is completed.

Lastly, some hand piecing with my delectable mountain blocks.  Eight completed, so I am a week ahead! :)

I will be making more today.



It has been a little while since I had  a giveaway, so, in celebration of having 200 followers, making over 200 posts and, just because it is a lovely, sunny day here I have a book to give away.

Thank you to everyone who has become a follower, everyone who leaves a comment, or even if you just "lurk". :)
No hoops to jump through, just leave a comment and I will choose a winner randomly in a few days. Please make sure I have a way to contact you by adding an email address if you are an anonymous commenter.

Giveaway now closed.


Have a great stitching week everyone. :)

Keeping busy. New projects and WIP.

I was excited when I read late last year that Monique Dillard of Open Gate Quilts was going to have a Block of the Month this year. Blogger Girls Block of the Month will run for 6 months and there are also 6 other bloggers involved. On the 1st of each month 2 blocks are shown. Both are the same design, but by using different fabrics they can look very different. You can choose to make 12 blocks or just 6 blocks.

I have had stashed away for a while a fat quarter pack of Olde World Style, which was designed by Monique. I will be using these fabrics for my blocks. Below is my first block.

In my last post I wrote about a win from Monica.

Here is the first finish! A little pincushion :)

I used a layer cake of Wiscasset (by Minick and Simpson for Moda) which I have had for some time.

Wiscasset is also my fabric for my next start...

Lots more of these little blocks to go!

My next new project is to once again join Lori's annual Quiltalong. This time her little quilt is called Abundance. The first installment of instructions are on Lori's blog today.
I have started choosing fabrics.

Looking at them in the photo I am considering changing a couple. I think I need a brighter pink in there.


And not forgetting any of my current projects....

I have to have a hand stitching project to work on in the evenings.

My 6th block for the Chester County Criswell quilt is coming along nicely. Just the centre red piece to stitch now.

When this block is finished I will go back to another of my (many!) hand stitching projects.


I have also been working on last year's Bloggers BOM quilts. All the setting pieces for the bright quilt have been cut and laid out ready to sew together.

Looking forward to some cooler weather and lots of sewing! :)

Have a great week everyone!


PS. Recently my inbox has been bombarded with "junk mail" trying to sell "who knows what" , so,  instead of going back to having every commenter try to copy an often indecipherable code, I have enabled comment moderation. Keeping in mind I am in a different time zone to many of my readers it may take a few hours before comments appear on my blog.