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. :)

February Stitching

It is the last day of summer here and, now in the mid afternoon, the sun is just beginning to shine. It has been an overcast, humid day with the promise of some much needed rain tonight.

February has had some days of no stitching at all and other days when I have achieved lots. :)

I made a start on Citrus Sweet Love. The first block, Emma's Puzzle finished using all Cotton & Steel fabrics. I machine pieced this block.

I finished a mini with some fabric from a fat quarter swap our sewing group had just before Christmas.

The fabrics are Yuwa and Cotton & Steel. I was inspired by a table runner I saw posted by @quiltsandwichfabrics on Instagram. The mini is machine pieced and I hand quilted it using DMC 80.
More of the Yuwa fabric was used making the pouch I showed in my February 1st post.

My Lone Star is coming along slowly. I've almost finished the 6th section of the star!

Noah and Matilda has been sitting on the side lines, somewhat. I have made more than 20 little grapes for the border. There is still a long way to go!

This week I managed to complete February's CCCQ, block 29, Maria Criswell. Only 4 more block patterns to come for this quilt.

I have also sewn a little more on the hexagons I showed in the February 1st post.

I'm looking forward to a day of hand stitching with friends tomorrow. :) I hope to get that 6th lone star section finished!

New Projects for 2015, finishes and WIPs

Who can resist beginning something new for the new year?  With an enormous choice of new quilts appearing I have chosen 2 that have been around for a little while.

The first is Sweet Citrus Love, a quilt pattern available from Treehouse Textiles and designed by Emma, Sarah and Cathy.  I plan to use mostly Cotton and Steel fabrics for this quilt.

Here I have started auditioning fabrics for the first block.

I am using a mixture of fabrics from both quilting cotton collections from C & S.
Citrus Sweet Love is a great combination of both piecing and applique. I plan to make this quilt by hand.

My 2nd quilt will be La Passacaglia from a Quiltmania book by Willyn Hammerstein. It is the cover quilt in this book.  Again I will be using lots of Cotton & Steel fabrics and stitching by hand. I don't expect to finish this quilt any time soon!!! Lol I have seen lots of versions on blogs and Instagram and the colour choices I have seen are very inspiring!!!  Almost every quilt I have seen has been made using English paper piecing. However, I am going to have a go at making it just piecing.


Now for some things I have been stitching over the last few weeks.

Lots of Noah and Matilda!!

Exotic Flower:

Three Flower Stem:

Four Tulips:

And......

All the blocks completed!!!

This won't be the final arrangement of blocks. I just wanted to see them all together. Next week I will start the border blocks. It is going to take a while; there are something like 200 tiny grapes to make!!!!

I finished block 28 of CCCQ, Mary McDowell. (patterns available here)

Only 5 more blocks to go!!



Mostly I hand stitch at night after dinner. When I have time during the day I stitch on the machine.
At the end of last year one of the stitch groups I am in had a fat quarter swap. I decided to make a mini and a small pouch. I wish I had taken a photo of the original fabric, but you will just have to imagine it! Lol Here is a small peek at the mini. I am still hand quilting...

I appliqued circles from the fabric to use on the pouch:

The exterior fabrics and Cotton and Steel. For the lining I used a piece of fabric by Julie Wallace, and Australian quilter and designer, who passed away late last year.

Another machine project is something I decided to attempt after seeing a quilt on Jacquie's blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Tutorial here. This will be a mini quilt of hexagons entirely pieced by machine. I am about half finished right now, but here is a photo from earlier....

I have used a mixture of Cotton and Steel and Maze and Vale fabrics.  This project has been a huge lesson for me in very accurate cutting and very accurate 1/4 inch seams!! (there has been some unpicking, trimming and re-stitching!)

My Lone Star quilt is still growing. No photos this month, but the next section is more than half done.

You may remember that last year I was lucky enough to win a very generous giveaway on Lynne's blog, Lily's Quilts., where I won 12 fat quarters of Cotton and Steel fabric a month for 12 months from Pink Castle Fabrics.  I really want to again thank Lynne, the ladies at Pink Castle and the ladies at Cotton and Steel. While I still love reproduction fabrics and recreating quilts from the past, in the last few months the direction of my sewing and quilting has been moving to more "modern" sewing. I have been inspired by these new fabrics to take a new look at the types of quilts I make. Now I need twice as many sewing hours every day!! Lol!!!!!

The latest bundle from Pink Castle's Cotton and Steel Club:

Love those butterflies! :)

Lastly, a photo of the flowering gum in our back yard.

Have  a great weekend, everyone! :)

Learning to rock, and lots more.

Well, its been a couple of weeks since my last post, so there has been some stitching happening here! :)

Each summer Somerset holds a Summer School with various classes held over about 2 weeks. This year I attended the hand quilting class. I have, unsuccessfully, tried to hand quilt by rocking before. This time, just one little change to my technique and it works!!! I know I need to keep practicing, but I am happy with how my stitches are progressing.

I tried both the Thimblelady thimble and the Roxanne thimble. At the moment I am most comfortable using the Thimblelady thimble.

Here in Melbourne the week before last we had a 4 day heatwave that saw temperatures well over 40 C.  I hid inside and distracted myself with some sewing.

The week before I had been in the city and visited my favourite shop and purchased this pattern.

L'ucello collaborated with French General to produce this sewing accessory pattern using a French General line of fabric that will be released later this year.

I made 2 needlebooks for friends having birthdays.

I used French General fabrics I had on hand. The flowers on the covers are appliqued with hand broderie perse.

The inside is finished with mother of pearl buttons. I did a machine buttonhole stitch around each leaf of the book.

Last week was the annual Fabric Frolic here in Melbourne. I was lucky enough to win a voucher from Ringwood Sewing Centre! :)
This is what I came home with.

The Clover pen was one recommended during the hand quilting class. The Swatch Buddies will mean I won't have a purse full of little scraps of fabric! Lol. Now I will be able to use those clips instead of pins when I am stitching down bindings.  The Japanese fabrics just had to come home also...can't resist half price!

A little bit of hand applique has also been happening.

Block 2 of Noah and Matilda is complete.

Block 4 is underway.

I'm still not sure whether to continue with the print fabric for the 8 outer flowers. I am wondering if a plain red might look better. What do you think??

I have started to prepare block 3. All the templates have been cut, fabrics chosen and cut and an overlay made. Its a doozey!!!!

We are experiencing another heatwave here in Melbourne! Luckily we get a reprieve tomorrow, then its a few more hot days with an even hotter weekend!

I rescued these roses from my garden this morning.

A cure for the flu????

Well, maybe not a cure, but a lot of hours of hand quilting have certainly helped me pass the days of not feeling well.

 

Finished: A Piecework Sampler from instructions by Cheri of quiltsbycheri blog.


The back..

For the quilting I used DMC 80 thread. This thread is often used for tatting, but I found it lovely to work with for hand quilting. For the binding I brought the backing fabric around to the front and hand stitched it down.  All the fabrics in the quilt are from French General.

This enforced rest has allowed me to finish a couple of other projects too. More posts coming soon.

I'm hoping to go here tomorrow.

Blogiversary!!!

Today is the 4th anniversary of starting this blog! What a ride it has been! :)

I have revelled in the inspiration, friendship and encouragement I have recieved. It has been wonderful to meet so many talented and friendly people, both online and in real life! I treasure the friendships I have made through blogging.

Thanks to many bloggers my quilting making skills have been stretched to the point that I feel like I can now tackle any project. (well, anything I have seen so far Lol)

Thank you all!


What have I been stitching over the last few days?

I have started hand quilting the Piecework Sampler. The thread is DMC 80. It is much finer than Perle 8 or 12, and a little thicker than the YLI quilting thread I have used before. My stitches lie somewhere between "big stitch quilting" and fine hand quilting.....leaning towards the"big stitch" size. :)

On the machine I have been making pinwheel border blocks for my 2nd medallion block.

Again they are all made with French General fabrics. I have about 8 more to make.

Lastly I have been working on another fleur de lis block as a swap block for the Chester Criswell Quilt. Here's a peek of my progress..

All of those projects were found on blogs!!!

Here is another one that has piqued my interest in the last week. It is an amazingly intricate quilt that would be a wonderful challenge. Since I am not one to back away from a challenge I am seriously thinking about joining in!! :)  What about you??

Beautiful flowers from my DS for my birthday. Yes, he knows my favourites are yellow roses! :)