Two finishes.

It has been a long time coming, but I have finally finished Joseph's Coat quilt top!

I began this quilt during an online quilt-along with Kellie Wulfsohn of Don't Look Now blog. I was lucky enough to take some classes with Kellie when I first started the quilt. After making lots of the circles the quilt was put on the back burner while I made (started!!!) a few more quilts.
When I finally got the circles back out again I had to figure out how to put them all together! I decided to applique them to a background. Luckily I still had plenty of the background fabric.

The quilt is all hand appliqued. Each melon was prepared using a wash away backing, cut in the melon shape, which was ironed onto the fabric. I then used a glue stick to glue the edges of the fabric around the melon.The melons where then hand appliqued down with matching thread onto a background square to form the circle shape. A photo of a single circle can be found at the top of this post. I cut away the excess fabric before appliqueing each circle down. Half circles where made to fill the gaps. There was lots of preparation time before I put the top together!

All the fabrics in this quilt are designed by either Kaffe Fassett, Brandon Mably or Philip Jacobs.

This quilt will be for my DD and her DH.

I will back it with one of the more blue fabrics.

While trying to decide how to finish the quilt, we did think about making a scalloped edge following the shape of the blocks, but decided to keep the quilt a rectangle and maintain a border of white around the blocks.

I did also consider hand quilting it, but I want to finish it before the decade ends (Lol!!!), so I willl be machine quilting it!


Just a sneak peek of my other finish. I will have lots more photos after I given the quilt to its recipient.

Swooning Southern Belles quilt is finished!


Happy New Year to everyone!!

A big thank you to everyone who visits my blog, reads any of my posts or leaves a comment!!

May 2014 bring you all that you wish for.

Miriam.

Edited to add.... Katrina, who quilted my Sarah Morrell quilt, has just posted  about how she quilted my quilt, see here.
To see more photos on my blog of my finished Sarah Morrell go here.
Lots of progress photos in several posts here.

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! :)

Australasian Quilt Convention and stitching.

Last week I visited AQC here in Melbourne.
Once again the quilts didn't disappoint, with quilts to see from Korea, South Africa, USA as well as Australia and New Zealand.
I don't know the makers, so I couldn't ask  permission to show photos of their quilts on my blog, but following are links to "official" photos of 2 of my favourite quilts.
The first quilt is by Rachelle Denneny and was the winner of the National Quilt Award. (Photo From Quilters Guild of NSW showing the winners of their 2012 Sydney quilt show) This quilt was quilted on a home domestic sewing machine!!! Amazing!!!
Another favourite was by Jenny Bowker, who won the Rajah Award for 2013. (photo from AQC website)

AQC was held at the Royal Exhibition Building. As well as looking at all the quilts and vendors at ground level I looked up and took some photos of the glorious architecture and decoration around the ceiling of the building.

One of the best parts of AQC is catching up with other bloggers. I had a lovely cuppa and chat with Deb and Maree.

I was lucky enough to run into (almost literally! Lol) some other bloggers too, including Sharon.

I did make some purchases.

I have been looking online at Quiltworx paper piecing patterns for some time, and I found one vendor selling their patterns at the show. It was a difficult decision as to which one to buy, but I finally settled on Dragon Star. It looks very intricate and I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew! Lol I do love a challenge, but this one won't happen till I get some other WIPs done.
I found some lovely Liberty fat eighths and a piece of fabric to back a quilt I will make with some Japanese fabric I bought last year.
I also bought this....

More than once I have had my ruler slip while using a rotary cutter and this product is put on the under side of your ruler to stop it slipping on the fabric. Has anyone had any experience with Clear Grip?

L'uccello was one of the first-time vendors this year. They had a tiny, but very cute stand. I made a (compulsory for me! :) Lol) visit to their shop on the way home and came out with some goodies.

Three beautiful fabrics! Even their bags are stunning!

On the stitching front I have been working on Oso. Lots and lots of practice FMQ on a scrap of fabric and batting first, before I started this...

I have a long way to go yet!

And Jacob's Coat...

Don't get too excited, the blocks are only pinned so far!! Lol



After my recent epiphany* I have been pinning all the completed blocks to a large piece of backgound fabric. Everything fitted together quite well, but there were a couple of blocks where I unpicked a melon or 2 and made "better" fabric choices. There is only one block I will remake completely. I am still working on some of the blocks at the paler end  of the quilt.
Overall, I am happy with how it is coming along.

* As you will know, Kaffe Fassett type fabrics are all very brightly coloured and there are very few paler fabrics. My idea in making this quilt is to grade my colours from deep, bright blues and greens, down to much lighter shades from one end to the other. I got to the point of having plenty of brighter fabrics, not many light ones and no idea how to continue until I waited until some more lighter fabrics came out in future ranges. I collected one or 2  and put them away with the blocks.
When I spread the completed blocks out again after having them in the cupboard for about 2 years it suddenly dawned on me that I could use the palest blocks I already had by shifting them to the end of the quilt and fill the gap with new blocks using mostly the next lightest fabrics which I already had! Why did it take me that long to realise it was all there already????

Lastly, an early morning rainbow out the back door earlier this week.

Thank you everyone for your kind and comforting words after my friend's passing.

Applique, mail and another finish

This week I have 3 applique blocks in various degrees of completion.

One finished....

This will be the second last complete block that I need for Joseph's Coat. Only one more of these to go then several half blocks and I will start appliquing each block onto a large piece of fabric.

I am about half way around CCCQ block 9, Eliza Whiteside's block.

The next block I haven't started stitching yet, but it is ready to go.

I have long admired the block Wanda  of  Scrap Happy Quilter, has on her blogger ID. (Look top right on Wanda's blog).  Wanda was kind enough to send me a file of the pattern!! I looove it!!

The applique suits a 15 inch block. I have set it on point so I can make a small quilt with room for some quilting around the applique.

There were 2 quilty packages in the mail this week.

First, the next issue of Quiltmania magazine.

Lots of great inspiration in this issue.

Speaking of inspiration, look at this.............

..woohoo!!! Di's book arrived!!!

My very first quilting lessons were with Di when she had her shop, Primarily Patchwork in Cantebury here in Melbourne. I consider myself  very lucky to have learned hand piecing, applique and quilting from Di.
As well as great information about each quilt, Di has inclued hints (such as fussy cutting) on how best to make your version of each quilt. There are patterns for 16 quilts in the book. Primarily Quilts is a wonderful book to add to any quilter's library.

I did finsh a couple more delectable mountain blocks this week, but I forgot to photograph them!

I finished my knitting bag.

I used a Lecien linen and three Bloomsbury Gardens prints from Liberty's Lifestyle Collection. The quilting is all straight line quilting.

Tonight we see the end of daylight saving, so we have an extra hour. I wonder if I can stay awake long enough to stitch for the extra hour!



Lastly a request.

A friend of mine, a very special lady, is very ill in hospital. Could you please spare a thought, or a prayer, for her. If everyone who reads this sends positive thoughts and prayers for her complete healing. it will help her gain the extra physical and emotional strength needed to get her well again.
Thank you!!!

Lots of sewing

This post has plenty of WIP photos and one tiny finish! First the finish.

I finished a little pin cushion from my 12 projects in 12 months challenge.  It is from a Schnibbles pattern called Sweet Liberty - Tuffets. This one is machine pieced.

There are some delelctable mountain blocks peeking out of that tin. More about them later.

I have really only finished 2 projects so far, but I am well on the way with Oso. It has been pin basted now, so next is some machine quilting.

Now for some hand applique...

Here are all 8 of my completed Chester Criswell Quilt blocks.

I am really enjoying all the hand applique on these blocks. Today we received the pattern for the next block. :)

Lots more melons prepared to finish Jacob's Coat.

I have decided to take each of the completed blocks and applique them to a large piece of fabric, rather than join each of the circles as Kelly showed in her tutorial. Has anyone done their Joseph's Coat this way?


Two machine pieced scrappy blocks and 3 hand pieced hexagons.

These are my next batch of delectable mountain blocks.

I love the two blocks with the dark red fabric. I have 23 blocks finished now.

I am still playing with the flying geese blocks in previous posts. There are about 50 6 inch blocks, but I can't decide on the way I want to arrange them. I will probably make some more and have another play in a few days. :)

My plans for the next few days include some more hand applique and making a new knitting bag. I have had my current knitting bag for over 30 years, so I figure its time for a new one! Lol
The weather has finally cooled down here so its time to get the knitting needles out. :)

Have a happy and safe Easter.