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!! :)

Friends of Baltimore progress

Block one is growing:

There are a few more leaves, stems and some flowers to add yet....and of course the eagle's other foot!

Since I last posted I have finished 4 more blocks for the Civil War quilt:

I think the bottom 2 are my favourite so far. I am slowly catching up.

I have been working on the border for my Morrell quilt too. I now have the four corners and 2 1/2 sides hand stitched together:

Two blogs that are inspiring me at the moment are here and here. Some great things on both blogs and some great projects coming up.


I am experiencing a small problem with blogger; one that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. Whenever I visit my blog, instead of staying at the top with the header at the top of the screen, the cursor immediately goes down to the middle of the page! I need to scroll back up to see the top of the page. Does this happen to anyone else who visits my blog?? Does anyone have any idea why blogger wants to start half way down my page? Any solutions?  Help!

A great birthday card I received from my sister recently. .....entirely appropriate for a quilter! :)
Thank you Missy!
Cathy has a link to a blog with a proposed quiltalong for a similar quilt.

Happy sewing everyone.

Friends of Baltimore Block 1....progress...

I have finally got to the stitching part of the first block of Sue Garman's Friends of Baltimore

Last week I made the flag....
 

There will be stars added to the flag later.

For placement I used transparencies for the first time. I took the pattern sheets to Officeworks and had them photocopied onto overhead transparencies, I tried printing with our home printer and then also tracing with a pigma micron pen, but in both cases the printing rubbed off.
So far I have found using transparencies works well.

I started to applique with freezer paper templates on top. I found the freezer paper lifted when sewing small pieces (thank you Crispy for all your hints!) I traced around each FP template and cut each out with a narrow seam allowance and removed the freezer paper. I stitched with needleturn and used matching YLI silk thread on most pieces.


Today I prepared the eagle's wings and body. Instead of appliqueing all those tiny gold ovals I decided to reverse applique them. The largest ovals are about 2 cm ( about 3/4 inch) long.
The original eagle is blue, as seems to be the tradition with many BA quilts. I decided to make my eagle brown.

Tonight I started to applique the eagle. Here is as far as I have sewn...

Next will be the rest of the eagle,and leaves and flowers.

Click here to see a photo of the Friends of Baltimore quilt on Sue Garman's blog. Sue is still hand quilting the quilt.




Today I have also been enjoying the perfume of my jonquils.

To see the other projects I have been working on see my previous post....

WISP

Everything is progressing slowly, but progressing nonetheless!

Yesterday I finished the last block of Tailfeathers. Here they are all together.

I now have to sew them together, make several borders and the four corner blocks.

Over the weekend I completed 2 more of Barbara Brackman's civil war blocks.
Here are the 16 blocks I have completed so far...

I have also been working on my first Friends of Baltimore block. Today I plan to do some (tiny!!) reverse applique. I will post some photos later today.

Little Grace finished, a meeting and more

I finished quilting Little Grace late last week. The quilt is only 34cm by 42 cm (about 13 inches by 16.5 inches), but it is hand pieced and hand quilted. The pattern is by Jeanneke. Thank you Jeanneke for choosing me as the winner of this pattern and the printed fabric to make this doll quilt.

Recently I had the pleasure of spending a morning with Cathy of Cabbage Quilts. We visited a plant nursery and cafe and took a look around before we had coffee together.

We found some quilt inspiration....

...a wonderful pergola made from metal. There are some more photos on Cathy's blog.

I still catching up with my Barbara Brackman Civil War blocks. I finished two more this weekend.

 Block 23 Illinois Roads in the most recent block, and below is block 12 Louisiana.

I have also been cutting out triangles for the border of my Morrell Quilt.

I still have a few more background fabric triangles to cut out....then lots of stitching. :)


I hope for my next post I will have photos of some progress on my first Friends of Baltimore block.

Happy Sewing.

Catching up.

During the last couple of weeks I have been working on several projects and trying to catch up.

I have finished 2 more of  Barbara Brackman's Civil War Quilt blocks.

I have finished one more Tailfeathers Block.

I have been working steadily on hand quilting Little Grace.
 Here are some progress photos from this afternoon..

I finally finished the quilting tonight. :)  I will take a photo in the morning, when the light is better.

I started my first Friends of Baltimore block. There is lots of preparation work before any sewing starts. The first pieces I prepared were the stems. I have never made stems as small as 1/8" wide before!!
I tried a technique I read about recently where, as the fabric is passed under a pin both sides fold towards the centre. You iron the stem as you pull it through the gap under the pin. It worked well.

The pattern has lots of tiny (for me) pieces to be appliqued. I got out my copy of Applique 12 Easy Ways by Elly Sienkiewicz and prepared a small block with practice pieces. I have started with trying applique with freezer paper on top....another new to me technique.

Those leaves and stems are going to be a challenge!

I have all the freezer paper templates prepared and ironed on to my chosen fabrics. The next step will be to make some circles. Hopefully, nest week I will have something stitched on my first block.

I found a relatively new blog during the week. This blog is dedicated to a challenge to make a quilt to commemorate 200 years since the 1812 war in USA. I don't plan to take part in the challenge, but there are some wonderful old quilts shown on the blog.

I will be back soon with more photos.

Enjoy the rest of your week. Happy sewing! :)

I'm Back!!!!!

Life is almost back to normal now after the wedding, lots of traveling and visitors.

The only sewing I have done for the last couple of months is this EPP doll quilt top.

I finished the piecing last night, so now to baste and quilt it. The fabric I will be using for the backing is in the background.

I recently entered a giveaway on Lissa Alexander's blog ( http://modalissa.blogspot.com/ )
I was very pleased to win!!!

Below is the prize..

The book, which has been autographed by Jan Vaine, is full of designs and instructions for various embroidery stitches and applique inspiration. There is also a CD as well as a set of patterns.
Thank you Lissa and Jan! :)

I can't wait to use this book on my next new project...........

Friends of Baltimore by Sue Garman.

Each package includes the patterns and very detailed instructions for 2 of the blocks or a border. I really love the borders, especially that each vase in the border is different. This quilt will be a huge undertaking, but I have always wanted to make a Baltimore Album style quilt.
If anyone has made a BA quilt before I would be very pleased if you could pass on any hints! :)

In the photo above you can see the fabric I have selected for my background (Kona bone) and the red for the sashing (Moda Bella Christmas Red)
Below are my greens....

It will be a loooong project...........especially since I plan to work on Roseville Album at the same time (Call me crazy, but I love a challenge!!!)
I will be using mostly quite traditional fabrics for Friends of Baltimore, but very contemporary Kaffe Fassett style fabrics for the Roseville Album.

In between I will continue to work on Several WIPs. Currently I am sewing block 8 of Tailfeathers, so there is not much left before I can join all those blocks together.
I also plan to catch up with Barbara Brackman's civil war blocks.

(I think I am suffering from stitching withdrawal! lol, after not doing much sewing for a few weeks!)



I am leaving you with a couple of photos of fauna this post, instead of my usual flora....

I hope you like my new blog header.



Happy sewing!!

Wedding photos

 The dress!  My DD designed and made her wedding dress herself. She used over 30 meters of fabric. The train fabric is hundreds of laser cut chiffon petals with hand sewn diamantes in the centre of each flower. The train fabric came from Italy.

Photo heavy post!!

 The bridal party.

 The bodice of the dress was draped chiffon and decorated with diamante motifs.

A family photo with DS, new DSIL, DD, me and DH.

 Cutting the cake.  Also below the cake, the venue and the bride's bouquet. My sister did all the bridal party and cake flowers .

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 The week before the wedding we had a traditional Laotian Baci ceremony for the couple. The first photo shows them dressed in traditional costume. I made my DD's clothes. The skirt and scarf are from traditional wedding fabric and were sent from Laos especially. The green silk my DSIL is wearing belonged to my FIL and my DH also wore it when we had a Baci before we were married. The second photo shows them sharing food as they will now share their lives together.


Both days were a huge success. :)

It is wedding day today!!

Today my DD gets married to the love of her life!

The sun is shining and it looks like we will have perfect weather.

My DD finished her dress yesterday, so it will be a surprise for everyone.

The photos above were taken yesterday during the rehearsal at the wedding venue. Just above the roses in the top photograph you can see a glimpse of the bay.

I will post some wedding photos in a few days.

Starting a new small quilt

Little Grace.

This is the pattern I won from Jeanneke at the end of last year. I like to have a hand piecing project to work on and because this one is so small it won't take too long to finish. It is sewn together using English paper piecing and I have all the papers covered ready to start sewing.

Included with my pattern were all the pre cut squares of  printed fabric. There are lots of tiny, cute prints in the Aunt Grace fabrics.

If you visit Jeanneke's blog and scroll down to her December 6th 2010 post she has the complete instructions (with lots of photographs) to make the quilt yourself.

This is block 7 of the Tailfeathers BOM. Only 2 more embroidered blocks to go now.

These 2 blocks are my most recent finishes of the Civil War Quilt blocks.  Block 8, Cotton Boll is on the right and block 9, Birds in the Air on the left.  I have one more to make to be up to date.


My quilting is going to slow down considerably in the next few weeks. Our DD is getting married soon, so there are lots of wedding preparations to complete....including helping to make her wedding dress.  It is an exciting ..... and stressful time!