Two Quilt Tops Finished

Over the last 18 months or so I have been slowly working on hand stitching 2 quilts
Last month I finally finished Mountmellic.

Mountmellic is designed by Di Ford Hall and was the Quiltmania Mystery Quilt for 2014.  I received all the fabrics from Threadbear Quilting in Castlemaine in their Block of the Month program.
The whole quilt is stitched by hand. Piecing was with Aurifil thread and I used YLI slik for the applique.

In June I finished My Small World top.

My Small World was designed by Jen Kingwell and the pattern was published in the Quiltmania Spring 2015 magazine. This quilts is also made completely by hand and took almost exactly 12 months to finish.
At the moment I am hand quilting it...

I am using Aurifil 12 for the sky and Perle 12 for the rest of the quilt.

I am working on finishing a couple of other projects too. More about them soon. :)

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! :)

Mountmellic block 1 finished.

This year Quiltmania magazine is publishing a Mystery Quilt, designed by Di Ford, called Mountmellic. 

I have completed the centre medallion using all French General fabrics.

I've made a start on lots more applique

In a previous post I showed a photo of the French General fabrics I selected to use on Mountmellic, Di Ford's mystery quilt in Quiltmania. I finally made a start! All the flowers and leaves for the broderie perse have been chosen and I have started appliquing them down. The fabric I used is a chintz-like print from La Belle Fleur. It has been lightly tea dyed to match the background as closely as possible.

I also chose to receive the BOM fabrics from Threadbear. I will make the quilt up in these fabrics as well, but (at the moment!) I plan to just make the centre block from my French General fabric collection. It has been fun to sort through fabrics, just restricting myself to French General fabrics, and make choices for all the parts of this block.
Part 2 has been released already, so I need to get a wriggle on! Lol

I have also made a start on block 19 of CCCQ

This one won't take too long.

I've also started selecting fabrics for 3 of the next 4 Noah and Matilda blocks.

The 4th block is much more intricate and will require more fabrics. It even has some embroidery!! :)

Photos and news from in interstate holiday in my next post.

There is also quite a bit of secret creating going on here. :)

More Noah and Matilda blocks

These are my 4 completed blocks for the 2nd month of the Noah and Matilda Album Quilt.

A couple of weeks ago I bought this piece of fabric from Somerset.It is from Kathy Doughty's collection called A Wandering Mind.

At that time the ladies were busy cutting up other fabric and I noticed one that looked like it would go with the birds perfectly...

The fabric on the right is from Authentic Miniatures by Judie Rothermel.

When I got home I searched through my Dargate fabrics and found a few more possibilities

Not sure what I will make with these fabrics yet.


Over the last couple of days I have started preparing fabrics for Di Ford's mystery BOM with Quiltmania. Photos in my next post.

New projects for 2014 and a WIP

The new year always begins with a flurry of new projects appearing in blogland. Lots of them are tempting, however there are never enough hours in the day to do them all!! Lol

I have chosen 2 new quilts, both in BOM format.

The first is the Noah and Matilda Album Quilt from Dawn. Dawn owns the original quilt and, together with her DD, they have drawn up patterns for the quilt. Each month a set of four patterns is available for purchase.
Here is my first block completed.

I chose to piece the flower pot, then applique it down. The blocks finish at 8 inches.

These are the fabrics I have chosen for this quilt.

The solid green, far right, is actually the back of a print, which I may use both ways around. I hope to not have to buy any fabrics to finish this quilt (except for the backing).

The 2nd project appears as a mystery BOM in Quiltmania magazine.  The edition with the first set of instructions arrived here on Friday.

Di Ford's mystery quilt, Mountmellick, began with the centre medallion instructions. There is also a great video of Di making the first block on Quiltmania's Facebook page.

(I am having trouble getting on to Quiltmania's web page at the moment. I will add links later. There is a photo of the first block on Threadbear's page....link below)

Even though I will be getting my BOM fabrics from Threadbear, I had a play with my fabrics here yesterday (all French General) :)

I may not make the block with these fabrics, but it was fun to play.

Another very tempting project is the Benjamin Biggs Quilt. There is a blog for this quilt here. This is another (mostly) red and green album quilt, free to download, but the blocks finish at 16 inches! It will be a huge quilt! My first idea was to maybe shrink the patterns down to make smaller blocks. At the moment I have chosen to print out the patterns while they are available, and keep them for another day.

I'm not ignoring all those WIPs I have here!!! This is my progress so far on my latest Roseville Album block.

Lots of stitching to keep me busy while watching the Australian Open tennis on TV.

With expected temperatures forecast to be around 40  degrees C (104F) for the next 4 days, I will be spending lots of time inside in front of the TV!

If you are in Australia, keep cool, if you are in the Northern Hemishere, keep warm. Stay safe everyone!