Hello.....is anyone there????

It has been a while since I last posted....

These 3  Barbara Brackman Civil War Quilt blocks are all the sewing I have managed in the last 3 or 4 weeks. :(


The title of this post should be "What I have been buying!".......Lol

These fabrics I found in a dress making fabric shop. (Cutting Edge (no website) on Glenferrie Rd Malvern for anyone in Melbourne)

The print on the left of the first photo is a Liberty which will be added to my collection.

The fabric on the right has 4 panels printed across the width. I think it will make an interesting quilt.

Both the fabrics in the 2nd photo are Italian. I am not sure what I will make yet, but I love the designs.
Who else buys fabric with no purpose in mind? Just because it is pretty??

After reading Kathie's recent blog posts about Betsy Chutchian's recent fabric release (Cross Roads to Texas) I caught her enthusiasm and did a bit of purchasing in several places to gather the collection above. The book, also by Betsy Chutchian, not only has patterns and instructions for many quilts, it also tells the story of Betsy's great - great grandmother, Lizzie Carpenter with excerpts from Lizzie's journals.  It made for very interesting reading and plenty of quilting inspiration too. I haven't made a Lone Star quilt before, so I think that will be the first one I make from the book.

Choosing Quilting Designs is not a new book, but still contains plenty of relevant information. At the moment I am leaning towards hand quilting my Morrell Quilt, so this book will be very useful.

Treasures From Holland by Petra Prins is a much more recent publication. It is full of amazing quilts with clear photographs and diagrams and plenty of very clear instructions. Again there are several quilts I would love to make in this book.

Since my last post about the medallion above I have added to the collection of fabrics. There is more of the fabric on the top right coming (thank you Dawn for identifying it for me)
I have also designed my first quilt using these fabrics. It will be a traditional medallion quilt.

Now to wait till my arm gets better so I can sew for more than a few minutes at a time!!!

I hope all is well with all in USA who were affected by Hurricane Irene.

Fabric identification help

If anyone could please let me know any details of manufacturer and/or line of the above fabric I would be very grateful. :)

Thank you very much to everyone who has left a comment on my Morrell Quilt top finish, or the finishes of my first Friends of Baltimore block and first Roseville Album block. Much appreciated. :)


Thank you to Dawn who identified the fabric for me! I have found the fabric and have some on the way here! Bloggers are the best!!!

First Roseville Album block finished

I finished this block last week.

Thank you for all the suggestions for the vase fabric. The red was the most popular suggestion, so I went with it.

No more sewing is going to happen here for a while. I need to keep resting my elbow.

Here are a few photos from my garden today.

Have a great week everyone! :)

My Morrell Quilt top is finished!

 

After about 2 1/2 years and many hours of hand (and some machine) stitching the top is finished.

All the blocks and borders, except the triple Irish chain block, are hand pieced or hand appliqued. The quilt features 27 broderie perse blocks. Each of the elements  were hand stitched with one strand of Guterman sewing thread using buttonhole stitch.

 The block with the 3 rows of triangles at top centre was the last block I made.

Each block is 10 inches finished.

The peacock block was the broderie perse block that took me the longest to make.

Some blocks were simple piecing with only a few pieces, others were more challenging.

  Along the way I learnt a lot of new to me techniques. I really enjoyed making this quilt.

The Sarah Morrell quilt was designed by Di Ford and the pattern is available at Threadbear in Castlemaine.  I have a little about the original quilt's history in this post.

Oh no!!!!

I have been working on my Roseville Album block over the last few days.

Here is as far as I have got:

There is still quite bit of stitching to go and I haven't placed any of the circles yet.

I am having second thoughts about the vase fabric!! It doesn't look right to me! I am not sure if I want to change the whole thing or just the appliqued parts.
Here are a few shots with possible replacement fabrics:

Would anyone like to offer an opinion??

The 2 favourite fabrics I referred to in my last post are these:

They are both Phillip Jacobs fabrics. I plan to have the bird appear a few times on my quilt. I am also using some Liberty Marylebone collection fabrics from Glorious Colour.
My stem fabric is from Lecien and is a dark chocolate brown with a tiny mint green spot.


The "Oh no" refers to my elbow. I have tennis elbow, so I need to rest my right arm. No sewing!!! :( ...for a week!!!!!

At least I can type and use my mouse with my left hand....even if it is slowly!

I've been busy.

With a combination of cold, damp weather and a sore elbow that has clipped my wings somewhat, I have had lots of sewing time this week. :)

I have finally started my Roseville Album quilt!!! Yay!!

I started by making about 16 yards (14 metres) of 1/4" bias tape for the stems and about 50 circles. (thank you Karen for the circles tutorial)

I have chosen 2 or 3 favouite fabrics on which to base the colours for my quilt. I am a bit afraid that when I lift that freezer paper my block may look like an explosion in a paint factory! There is lots of colour there! This may just be version 1.0. lol

I have used reverse applique on the vase and I plan to use reverse applique again on 2 of the flowers.

I have the rest of the elements for the block cut out. I plan to have more to show later in the week.


Does anyone remember Cheddar Cheese and Crackers from Lori's blog? Weeeelll...I started quilting mine last year. I was not happy with how it was turning out, so I unpicked everything and replaced the batting with something a little thicker than I had been using. I am much happier this time.This hand quilting has kept me occupied late at night while watching Le Tour De France on TV.

I am about half way through and Le Tour finishes on Saturday!!

I spent yesterday trying to catch up with my Barbara Brackman civil war blocks. Here are the six I managed to finished. Only one more to go....that last one wasn't cooperating yesterday! lol

Lastly, a bit more hand stitching. I have completed making the triangle borders for my Morrell Quilt.

...and a little retail therapy...

This is a chintz centre  panel from here and a fat quarter bundle of coordinating prints.
This won't happen for a while (I think I might just have enough to go on with for the time being! lol), but I plan to make a small medallion quilt of my own design.

So, it has been a week of starting something new, working on a continuing project and slowly progressing on finally getting some older projects finished.....and always planning the next project!

Have a lovely week and I hope all of you find some sewing time. :)

Finished......

...Block one of the Friends of Baltimore is finished!

A few close ups...

I made a couple of changes and used some silk ribbon for flower buds and I beaded the centres of the pink flowers.  I also used metallic star charms for the flag.
Overall I am quite happy with the block, but I know the next block will be easier (and hopefully better) for all I have learned while making this block.

Here are my next 2 Barbara Brackman Civil War blocks.

 I also fixed the block I sewed incorrectly from my last post.

Two of my DD's friends have recently had babies. My DD wanted to make a quilt each for them, so over the last 2 weeks I have been teaching her how to put a quilt together.
She has one almost finished.

I am still having problems with blogger!! I have changed my bloglist settings so that now only the most recent 5 postings are shown. You can still see all the others by clicking on the "show all" tool at the bottom of the bloglist.

Today I am starting my Roseville Album quilt!! :)

Friends of Baltimore progress

Block one is growing:

There are a few more leaves, stems and some flowers to add yet....and of course the eagle's other foot!

Since I last posted I have finished 4 more blocks for the Civil War quilt:

I think the bottom 2 are my favourite so far. I am slowly catching up.

I have been working on the border for my Morrell quilt too. I now have the four corners and 2 1/2 sides hand stitched together:

Two blogs that are inspiring me at the moment are here and here. Some great things on both blogs and some great projects coming up.


I am experiencing a small problem with blogger; one that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. Whenever I visit my blog, instead of staying at the top with the header at the top of the screen, the cursor immediately goes down to the middle of the page! I need to scroll back up to see the top of the page. Does this happen to anyone else who visits my blog?? Does anyone have any idea why blogger wants to start half way down my page? Any solutions?  Help!

A great birthday card I received from my sister recently. .....entirely appropriate for a quilter! :)
Thank you Missy!
Cathy has a link to a blog with a proposed quiltalong for a similar quilt.

Happy sewing everyone.

Friends of Baltimore Block 1....progress...

I have finally got to the stitching part of the first block of Sue Garman's Friends of Baltimore

Last week I made the flag....
 

There will be stars added to the flag later.

For placement I used transparencies for the first time. I took the pattern sheets to Officeworks and had them photocopied onto overhead transparencies, I tried printing with our home printer and then also tracing with a pigma micron pen, but in both cases the printing rubbed off.
So far I have found using transparencies works well.

I started to applique with freezer paper templates on top. I found the freezer paper lifted when sewing small pieces (thank you Crispy for all your hints!) I traced around each FP template and cut each out with a narrow seam allowance and removed the freezer paper. I stitched with needleturn and used matching YLI silk thread on most pieces.


Today I prepared the eagle's wings and body. Instead of appliqueing all those tiny gold ovals I decided to reverse applique them. The largest ovals are about 2 cm ( about 3/4 inch) long.
The original eagle is blue, as seems to be the tradition with many BA quilts. I decided to make my eagle brown.

Tonight I started to applique the eagle. Here is as far as I have sewn...

Next will be the rest of the eagle,and leaves and flowers.

Click here to see a photo of the Friends of Baltimore quilt on Sue Garman's blog. Sue is still hand quilting the quilt.




Today I have also been enjoying the perfume of my jonquils.

To see the other projects I have been working on see my previous post....