An afternoon at the sewing machine

and some shopping.

It has been quite hot here the last few days, so I spent the afternoon at my sewing machine.

These are the next blocks for Blogger's Block of the Month. This month's block is by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter.

Now I have 6 blocks in each colourway.

I also finished my last 2 blocks for the Civil War Quilt.

I have been playing with arranging the blocks in several different ways, but I still haven't decided which way to go.


Recently I had a morning in the city and after seeing this shop referred to a couple of times I decided to take a look. What a treasure trove of goodies L'uccello is!!! I could have spent hours in there!

Here is what I came home with.

A lovely collection of wool felt, ribbon, thread and some Barbara Brackman fabric, all of which will be used for a needlebook....or three. :)


Does anyone remember this book???

This is my very well loved copy. I've had it since I was five years old. I can remember my Mother reading it to us at bed time. A year or so later a teacher read it to us at school. Later still I read it on my own...several times. :)

Weeeelll, look what I found at Spotlight yesterday.....:)

Aren't they cute!!!!  They are going in to stash until there are Grand babies! :)

Variety is the Spice of Life!!

So far this year I have managed to do quite a bit of sewing on a few quite different projects.

First hand piecing....

Seven more little houses to add to my collection. I have decided to not stress about trying to keep up with making one a day. I will make as many as I can and keep enjoying the process.

Some machine piecing....

Four more blocks for my Civil War quilt. Only 3 more to finish now!!!

I have decided I will put a log cabin border around each block to get them all an even size. (Some of mine didn't quite make it to 8 1/2 " !) I am still deciding how I will join all the blocks, but I am thinking about making 2 or 3 smaller quilts instead of one huge quilt.


Hand applique....

Here is the start of my next Roseville Album block. Still lots of stitching to do on this one. Looking forward to doing some reverse applique with the vase and the large flowers.

I haven't forgotten about Friends of Baltimore!! More on it in my next post.  (click on the link and scroll down to a photo of Sue Garman's completed  quilt in her November 6th post)

Some preparation for a new quilt...

Yesterday I cut out the background and sashing and prepared some stems for Trailing Vines. Can't wait to start stitching on this one!!
When I went searching for the fabric for this quilt I fell in love with a couple of the fabrics and bought "the rest" in the shop. Consequently, I don't have quite the amount specified in the instructions, so my quilt will end up being slightly smaller. 

A little dress making...

I had a wedding to go to last Saturday and nothing fitted in my wardrobe. I went shopping but couldn't find anything suitable, so (on Thursday) my DD suggested....why don't you make something!!!! There was a race around fabric shops on Thursday afternoon with the rest of the day (and half the night!!) taken up making a toile. I spent all day Friday (and half the night again!!) sewing the dress. Saturday morning found me stitching the hem and sewing a few beads on the lace.

 

 

Next time I won't leave it so late to make something! Lol

Even more hand applique.....

...this time on a wedding dress. My DD made the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses for a very good friend of hers. I helped by hand appliqueing the lace around the hem of the wedding dress. The lace motifs were cut from the original fabric and rearranged on the organza of the skirt. A band of satin was sewn to the hem.

There were 24 motifs around the hem and each one took about an hour to stitch (I am slow!!!). I looooove hand sewing, so I stitched on the wedding dress while my DD made the bridesmaid dresses on her machine. Plus, I got to spend time with my DD! :)

The bride looked stunning on her wedding day!

The Australian Open is on here in Melbourne at the moment. I am looking forward to a few hours in front of the TV with plenty of stitching to keep me occupied.

More houses and some catching up

I have managed to keep up with making a little house every day of the year...so far. Here are my next 4 houses.

Rouenneries House.

Westminster House. (Kaffe and Brandon fabrics, mostly)

I don't have many of these fabrics with small prints so this house was a bit of am experiment. I want to make a few  houses with just one or 2 pieces of bright fabrics included.

Another mostly red house.

The last one just had to have some green!

Each of the house blocks is hand pieced.

My sewing machine also got used this week.

I finally caught up with my Bloggers Block of the Month block. These blocks were designed by Pat Sloan.
Below are my 2 blocks.

Pat had a great, simple way of piecing those 16 patch sections.

Here are all 4 blocks in each fabric combination.

I also finished 3 more Civil War Quilt Blocks.

Only 7 more blocks to go now.

Thankfully, the weather here has cooled off significantly. :)

What have you been sewing this week?

Just a short post

I have finished the 4 corner blocks for Tail Feathers, so I plan to sew the rest of the top together today.

These 4 Civil War Quilt blocks bring my total to 42 completed. I am now up to date.




Some hand applique has been happening too. My 2nd Roseville Album block is about half finished.
I have also cut out some fabrics for my 2nd Friends of Baltimore block.
 

The next post should be my complete Tailfeathers top!!

Blogger's BOM, a win and some good news.

I have joined in with Jackie of Canton Village Quilt Works and many other bloggers in the Bloggers Block of the Month Quilt Along.  Jackie has invited some talented bloggers to design a different block each month for 12 months. If you click on the icon on the right it will take you to all the details on Jackie's blog.

I couldn't make up my mind which style of fabrics to use, so I decided to go with fabric designs from two different eras.

 Repros in cheddar and red and Kaffe Fassett/Brandon Mably/Philip Jacobs fabrics.















Here are my first 2 blocks. They measure 8 inches. This block was designed by Sherri Mc Connell of A Quilting Life.

Since my last post I have also finished 2 more Civil War quilt blocks.

Confederate Rose (well, Lily in my case Lol) and Ohio Star. I have more than 30 blocks finished now.


Recently Anna from Thimbleanna had a giveaway which I was lucky enough to win. :)
The package arrived during the week.

All tied up with string and a cute little note! Thank you Anna!!!


Here is what was inside:

Look at all those string colours!   The Ruby charm pack contains some great fabric designs and colours.  I have a pattern in mind to use it with.


During the week I also got out a project from earlier this year that I had almost all cut out so I could do some machine sewing (and work towards finally finishing a WIP!!)

So far only 3 diamonds are sewn together.

Now for the good news. I have been given the green light to hand sew again! Woohooo!!!!


It has been a loooong time!   


Right next to me is the partially finished second block of the Roseville Album quilt. For the next couple of hours I am going to enjoy some hand stitching while watching the AFL grand final on the TV. My team was defeated last week, so I am just hoping for a close and exciting game. So far it is living up to expectations. May the best team (on the day) win!!!

Start of medallion quilt

Here is my medallion quilt so far:

Just 2 half in borders completed. The background fabric will make another half inch border after I have squared the project up with a row of triangles top and bottom.

I have also finished 3 more Civil War quilt blocks.





Just one more block to make and I will have caught up.

I have found a new fabric line that will be coming out before the end of the year. If you like Margo Krager's chintz centre panels, you will probably like this!  :)

Happy sewing. :)

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.

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!! :)