Morrel progress and a win

Two more Morrell Quilt blocks finished. I have 4 more prepared ready to sew. After that there is only one block left! The last block has lots of tiny triangles in it, so I have been procrastinating over that one!




A few weeks ago Barb of Fun With Barb and Mary had a giveaway. I was lucky enough to be the winner! :) I won the pattern below. Barb also included a cute Halloween card. Thank you Barb for a great prize!



I started working on the pattern earlier this week. Here is my progress so far. I have found enough fabrics in my stash to make the whole top.




A few photos from my garden.

The tree below is a Native Frangipani. The yellow flowers have a wonderful scent.




Several of my orchids are blooming at the moment.



Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last post. I will reply to you all.
Still feeling not so good.

Goodbye Snoopy

Yesterday our dear loving and lovable dog, Snoopy went to doggy Heaven.

Snoopy was a papillon and was 13 years old. He lived with liver problems all his life.
We got Snoopy when he was 6 months old. It was quickly evident he had health problems.
After a few weeks of intensive feeding to build him up he had a major operation to try to fix him.
The surgeon repaired several things and said he did his best, but would be surprised if Snoopy lasted another 12 months.
Well, Snoopy lived another 12 years!
We changed his diet a few times to find just what he liked and what would keep him healthy. He had his ups and downs and the vet called him their wonder dog because he managed to survive many set backs.
Over the last couple of years Snoopy became blind and deaf. He could still find his way around the house and loved to play with Jasper our cat......yes, the cat! They even slept in a chair together.
Yesterday Snoopy deteriorated quickly and I knew it was his time to go.

Goodbye Snoopy. :(

A Finish!

I haven't posted for a while, but I have been busy with a "secret" project.

It has been a long time since I finished a quilt!!!

This is the fastest quilt have ever made! Usually I post my progress as I make my quilts, but there were special circumstances this time. About a month ago a very dear friend of mine contacted me to say she was in hospital and would be there for some time.

I decided to make her a quilt. I wanted to get it made quickly (well, quickly for me!), use bright and cheerful fabrics and I wouldn't be posting about. My friend reads my blog and I wanted to surprise her. :)


I took my inspiration from several bloggers: the combination of colours alternating with white found in some quilts by Rita of Red Pepper Quilts, the use of bright Kaffe Fasset, Brandon Mably and Philip Jacobs fabrics by Cathy of Cabbage Quilts and the straight line quilting by Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio.

I had a design roll of a recent release of Philip Jacobs fabrics, so I combined that with white and cut out lots and lots of squares. The only part of this quilt not sewn by machine was the stitching down of the binding.

Here is the finished quilt. It measures about 68 inches square.

Click on any of the photos for a larger view.
The quilt is bound with another Philip Jacobs fabric.

A closer view to show the straight line quilting.






For the backing I used a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton.
There were a few squares left over , so I included them in the backing to make it a bit more interesting.




I gave the quilt to my friend today. She loves it!! Her smile was heart warming!

My friend is a star patient and she is making great progress towards her recovery. :)






A corner of my garden.

Wednesday again

I haven't dome much sewing this week, but I did finish one more hexi flower and one more Morrell block.




Only 7 more Morrell blocks to go, then the border.

Below will be my next quilt when the Morrell Quilt is finished. It is the Roseville Album quilt, by Kim McLean. I have all my fabrics now, so I am ready to start. Very tempting!!! It is taking quite a bit of self discipline to keep on with finishing my Morrell quilt. I am a very good starter, and not such a good finisher!! lol!

I have put a badge at the top of my blog's sidebar that leads to the Glorious Applique blog. Glorious Applique is a blog dedicated to quilts designed my Kim McLean. Lots of wonderful, inspiring creations to see there!




Spring brings lots of native flowers in the garden. Below is a bottlebrush. (Callistemon) We have 3 bottlebrush trees in our garden and 2 of them are full of flowers. The flowers bring lots of birds.




He is quite hard to see, but if you click on the photo below you will see a bird in the centre of the photo. He had 5 friends in the garden this afternoon. It can get quite noisy when there are a few birds!!

I don't know what kind of bird he is. Does anyone else know????
(Thank you to Chookyblue and an anonymous commenter. The bird is an Indian Myna bird. They are quite noisy and can be aggressive to other birds. He is not native to Australia)

Next are several shots of rainbow lorikeets. They are much less tame than the parrots I showed last week. It took a few goes before I could get photographs. They kept flying away as soon as I got close enough to get a shot. I managed to get 2 birds in a couple of the photos. They love the nectar in the flowers.





Thank you to all my new visitors and thank you for leaving comments Every one is appreciated! :)


Have a great week everyone!

I have been busy....

On Saturday I went to a machine applique class with Mariya Waters. Today I finish the piece we started on the day. Mariya is a great teacher and an extremely talented quilt maker. A couple of months ago I went to a machine quilting class with her and I am looking forward to the second machine quilting class with Mariya in a few weeks time.


I finished another Tail Feathers block. There is one more waiting to be started.




A couple more Morrell blocks finished! :)





On Sunday I went to Quilts in the Barn. Linda holds an annual exhibition of quilts in her barn. The exhibition raises money for breast cancer research. This year Linda invited Di Ford and the Secret Sewing Sisterhood quilters to exhibit their quilts. I have been aware of the exhibition for the last 3 years, but I had never been before. This year I had to go! I learnt to quilt with Di at her shop.
There were around 90 quilts to see, new people to meet, fabric and patterns to buy and lots of inspiration! Linda has some photos on her blog and will have many more soon.

I have another of Di's quilts on my list to make. I hope to start Hommage to Sallie Ann before the end of the year. I plan to use William Morris fabrics and I have started collecting.

Another couple of dresden plate blocks are finished. Now to decide on a background fabric.

We had a friend from overseas visiting us for a few weeks. Late last week we took him around the hills in our area and we found these Crimson Rosellas. They let us get close enough to get some photos.

Flowers

One more hexie flower this week.



Below are the most recent completed Morrell blocks together...


......and one more I don't think has been on the blog yet..



Only about 10 blocks to go now! :)


This wonderful collection of fabric arrived in the mail today. It is a fat quarter pack of Olde World Style designed by Monique Dillard (Open Gate Quilts blog) for Maywood Studio. I first saw this fabric in a post by Carrie of La Vie En Rosie.



I have plans to make a bag with some of this fabric. There will be plenty left to make another quilt too.


Thank you to everyone who visits my blog and especially to everyone who leaves a comment. I try to reply to each and every comment, however there have been a few people recently who have been "no reply". I would love to be able to reply to everyone and visit your blogs (if you have one).


My favourite azalea; Gretel.

More Morrell blocks

Three more Morrell blocks completed.




One pieced, one appliqued and one broderie perse.




The first block has quite a few flying geese units. I haven't made many flying geese before. I think they will look better the next time I make them. There is a block coming up with even more flying geese so I hope they will look at bit more uniform.


I have ordered the background for my Roseville Album quilt. I chose a Kaffe spot. The colour is called water and is a pale green. Green is my favourite colour!


On Friday I spent the afternoon sewing with my DD. We sewed hundreds of beads and crystals on some bridesmaid dresses. Slow work, but very relaxing.


My Dresden plates are coming along.


I finished another one after I took that photo, so there are 6 now. I plan to make 12, then applique them to a very light coloured fabric and sash with the stronger colours. I am still deciding whether to use corner stones and whether to set the blocks on point. Its fun not following a pattern and making my own decisions as I go along.

I will get back to Tail Feathers and Jacobs Coat in the next few days.

Hmmmm....I may have a few too many projects going on at the same time! lol


It was a beautiful sunny, warm day here today. I spent a few hours in the garden this afternoon. A perfect day for the first day of Day Light Saving. The sun is just setting now and it is still warm outside. Spring has arrived! :)

One Flower Wednesday

My first hexie flower for Spring. My first hexie flower for quite some time!!

Below are all the hexie flowers I have made so far.




Here is my second dresden plate block. I have 2 more cut out ready to stitch.

It looks like a fabric bomb has gone off here!!!!

Over the last 2 or 3 weeks I have had very little time for sewing or blogging. I have been busy with other things. This weekend I am making up for lost time! Lots of sewing and preparation has been happening here over the last 2 days . :) I have pulled out several projects and lots of fabric.

The Morrell block above is my latest finish. Yesterday and Friday I prepared the next 6 Morrell blocks. Now I have plenty to keep me occupied for the next little while.

I also finished off block 3 of Tail Feathers (below) and prepared block 4.




I hope to get at least one flower made for One Flower Wednesday by Wednesday.

Later today I hope to prepare another few blocks for Jacobs Coat.

A couple of weeks ago I entered a giveaway on the Minick and Simpson blog. They were giving away scraps (their words!!) from their latest range of fabrics called Charlevoix. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the winners. :)

Below is the huge bag of fabric they sent, along with one of their patterns they also included.
Thank you Laurie!!!





Well, last night I started to think about what I might make with all that fabric. I had ideas about something with lots of triangles. I pulled out a book of block patterns (The Quilter's Block Bible) that had been given to me by a friend. I wanted to chose a block that was designed in an era that matched the fabrics (The information on the selvedge says 1910 - 1935) There were lots of blocks to chose from and I made a long list. Several of the blocks had lots of triangles and looked good. I kept looking through the book and the second last design was a dresden plate. I have never made a dresden plate block before. I am not one to back away from something new, so I changed my mind about triangles and decided on a dresden plate block design.

Below is what I came up with. I was sewing till one o'clock this morning (I just had to get one finished!), so it is not perfect, but I am happy with how it turned out.








Isn't the fabric gorgeous!

There is so much fabric in that bag that I will still be able to make something with triangles too.
Stay tuned.


Here are a couple of photos from one of the places we visited this week. The views were wonderful even though the weather was cold and windy.






Just a couple of spring flowers in my garden.




Rhododendron Bibiani.





Ranunculus.


I hope to be back reading and commenting on blogs this week, but now it is back to sewing for me!! :)