Lots of sewing!

The last week or 2 has been very productive, sewing wise. Plenty of progress on current projects, some new things, an old project being brought back to life and even a little finish!

Firstly, I completed my 2 Blogger's BOM blocks for July. The Split Ohio Star block comes from Victoria of Bumble Beans.

Bright block...

Repro block...

Only one more block to come now and we have all 12!

I have prepared some leaves ready to applique on my Liberty and linen quilt.

The current Roseville Album block is coming along well.

Last night I finished appliqueing the flower in the top left corner, so the next set of pieces have to be attached before I can progress on this block.

Last week I went to the Melbourne Quilt and Craft Show where I took 2 classes. I had never made socks before or made a clasp purse. Yesterday I put my new skills into practice and made this little purse.

The inside is lined with shot cotton.

You may recall the 2 fabrics from this post when I went to Amitie a few weeks ago.
 

The socks are still a work in progress. They are being made on circular needles, another first for me. :)

There was a wonderful show of quilts to see, including a special exhibition of 16 quilts, several of which were made by ladies who attend the same Friday sewing group as I do. You can see the Mrs Billings Coverlets and read more about them here, here and photos of them all here.




I have started another purse. This one will be made from lots of hexagons. I have about half of the 200 I need to prepare done. Here are a few.

Yes, more hexagons!! This time they are 1/2 inch.

The fabric I am using is the small pieces I had left over from the Morrell Quilt BOM.

The Morrell Quilt will be making more appearances on my blog because I have started to hand quilt it!

 

Hand quilting the Morrell quilt is going to be a marathon effort! It is my project for watching Games. (A huge thank you to Karen for squeezing in basting my quilt so quickly!)  Do you have a special project to work on while watching the Olympic Games on TV?
I have made a start on the centre and I can't wait to get out to some of the more interesting blocks.  The quilting thread I am using is Aurifil 28 and the batting is a wool blend. I have mostly used YLI quilting thread before and so far I am happy with the Aurifil. The hoop has a lap stand so I can quilt while comfortably seated on the couch!

Have a great week!

Liberty and Linen

....or flowers for Wednesday!

Recently I have been pulling out some old projects and working towards finishing them.

Today I am revisiting my One Flower Wednesday project.  In 2010 I started making hexagon flowers with Karen of Journey of a Quilter. At the end of 2010 I had 21 one inch hexagon flowers made from Liberty Tana lawn fabric. I had lots of fun fussy cutting all those fabrics. It has taken me quite a while to get them back out and find a background fabric.
Here they are appliqued on to a piece of linen.

I decided the layout needed something extra, so I have made 10 more hexie flowers. I used the same fabrics as before, but fussy cut some of them from different sections of fabric. I love the pansies on the bottom hexie. :) I plan to use these 5/8 inch hexagons with vines and leaves in 2 corners.

I am still deciding on how to arrange them.

 

There are still lots of leaves to be made also.



While we are speaking of Liberty fabrics, look what just arrived this afternoon!!

A small selection from the Liberty Lifestyle collection - Bloomsbury Gardens.There are 55 fabrics in the whole collection: 11 designs in each of 5 different colours. These fabrics came from here. The fabrics are a typical patchwork fabric weight with new Liberty designs. I am looking forward to playing with them! :)

It has been a while since I posted any photos of flowers from my garden. Here are some to finish up.

Violas and lobelia planted with spring flowers bulbs and below the first miniature daffodil.

WIP

I finished the binding and quilting of the little doll quilt. I am very happy with how it turned out.


Below are all my hexie flowers for One Flower Wednesday. I now have enough finished for the design I want to make. I will be using a light cream fabric for the background.




This is my last hexie flower.



Two more Morrell Quilt blocks this week.





I have just one more block to make!!!!!! Woohooo!!

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!

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.

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.

One Flower Wednesday and a beach walk.

Sixteen hexie flowers finished now.


Yesterday I went for a walk on the beach with my daughter and her dog.







Thank you to everyone who read my last post, especially to those who left a comment or sent and email.
Thank you for all your kind words and thank you for spreading the message.
If one life is saved, the message has worked.



On a happy note, it is Ranette's birthday today!! Go over to Ranette's blog and wish her a Happy Birthday!!!!!

Joseph's Coat progress and more

Joseph's Coat is growing! None of the blocks are joined together yet and 3 or 4 blocks are only pinned at the moment, but I am getting closer to finishing. Tomorrow I have another class with Kellie and I hope to find out how to join all the rows together. I think I will stop at 7 by 5 blocks instead of the 7 by 7 in Kellie's pattern. I have graded the blues and greens to lighter colours in the corners and along the edges and I think I will lose the effect of the colours I am after if I add 2 more rows.

This quilt is my first working with Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I have loved fussy cutting and sewing with these bright fabrics.





Below is my hexie flower for this week. I haven't used my camera to take photos after dark before and I am quite happy with how it turned out.



The plant my hexie is resting in is another Australian native. The Bendigo Waxflower grows mostly in the South East corner of the country.

Below is a close up shot I took earlier in the day.



I have (almost!) completed block 2 of Tail Feathers. The appliqued bird still needs a beak and an eye. I am going to sew on tiny beads for the eyes when I have finished all the blocks.




We have had lots of lovely, steady rain again this afternoon. We expect more over the next week.




Have a great week everyone. I hope you all get lots of sewing time!