Modern Quilt Guild challenge piece - finished

Finally done and posted on both the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild Inc. Flickr page and on the Modern Quilt Guild community page a day before the deadline.  I finished hand stitching the binding down last night while re-commencing a 'Mad Men' marathon.  I do love the cosiness of having a quilt on my lap on a winter's night and rhythmically stitching - it's very Little House on the Prairie (except the Ingalls didn't have television, but let's not spoil the image.

What was concerning me was getting a decent photo to post given that the weather has been gloomy but low and behold, the sun came out this afternoon, so the dogs and I raced out to snap away - well, I took pictures and they curled up in the garden.  I convinced Penny to take part in the photo shoot, but she didn't want to sit still.

The front of the quilt is inspired by the half log cabin quilts by the Gee's Bend Quilters and the back is a few wonky stars.  They were going to be crazy, foundation- pieced stars but it was going to take too long, so I'll save that idea for another project.  After seeing the amazing creations on both sites, I'm know I'm not going to win a prize but I met the deadline and have made a quilt that will look really good on my couch.

Time out

Today is the culmination of two great Aussie passions - sport and a day off.  Our horse race is known as the one that stops the nation; well, Melbourne at least.  I have always loved this public holiday - when I was studying, it was an opportunity to take a long weekend and cram for exams, and now it is a sign of the end of the busiest part of the year for the day job.  So unless we have an invitation to a barbecue, it's a great day to sleep in and chill out.  Today I gave the gym a miss but took the girls out for a long walk, visited the smallest nephew and his very chilled out cat.  It was great!

After watching the race and catching up with R & C, we have a quiet night in planned with fish and chips for dinner.  My other job for the day was to put together some of my blocks for the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild "Bee Bold, Bee Brave, Bee Helpful" Quilting Bee.  It's my turn in November and I have chosen Elizabeth Hartman's Roller Rink quilt as my project.  However, never one to follow a pattern completely, I've gone the scrappy route:

Once made up, the quilt will look much better on the Hans Wenger couch that the rug Stos put there.

I hope you had a winning day as well.

Sunday Snippets

There has been lots going on around here, with zero time to collect thoughts and take a breath.  It's great to be busy but a bit of peace and quiet would be a welcome change.  So this 10 minutes is my time!

What I need to remember to give myself the space to do;

A special boy had his first birthday;

A splash of colour spotted in the city;

A lesson - children and red frosting make for messy outcomes;

Making something for a baby girl in the extended family - it's been nice switching from cowboys to fairies;

Have a look at the week that was for other folk, courtesy of Tinnie Girl.

Our Creative Space

One project finished; one more started.  Another birthday gift that will be late, but hopefully not as late as the last quilt.  This is the beginning of a 'Hot Spot' quilt from Alissa Haight-Carlton's lovely book 'Modern Minimal' and this will be another reversible throw (going from a cream centre to chocolate outer on the other side) for my youngest sister, R.















Browns aren't really my colour palette but I am loving the combination of chocolate, caramel, cream and other warm and toasty hues that will make up the finished product.

For more Creative Spaces, see who is lined up at Kirsty's place.

Life at the Outpost quilt - finished

Finally the quilt for the January 19 arrival is finished. This is the first time I have quilted anything on the sewing machine and it was relatively painless and so much quicker than hand quilting. I took Alissa's advice and used basting spray for this instead of pins which was a great time saver both in terms of putting the pins in and moving them for the quilting. Now back to the Wonky Stars.

Life at the Outpost

The top of the Cowboy Quilt is now finished, and I don't think I will have to piece the back, which I am very happy about.  With the selvedges removed, the width of the fabric is 41.5 inches and the top is 40 inches square (half an inch bigger than it should be!) and I have two metres of this so I am going to try cutting a 41.5 piece for the back.  The margin for the quilting will be very skinny though.  The other question is how to quilt it - I am definitely not hand quilting this one as the baby in question is due to arrive at any minute and I would like to give this gift to his parents before he turns 21!  Any suggestions would be welcome.

As usual, I've learned a few new things putting this quilt together:
- All quarter inch sewing machine feet are not equal.  Using the Pfaff foot comes out with a skinnier seam than the Janome foot and the result with Pfaff foot with a fabric guide is an even narrower seam.
- I am a compulsive pinner who forget to take the pins out as she goes which sometimes results  in seam/pin/needle disasters.  For this project I used flat head pins and they make life so much easier!

My self imposed deadline for finishing this quilt is two weeks - with house guests and other commitments, a week is out of the question. And this is also dependent on how long I faff around trying to decide how to quilt it. Let's see how we go.

My Creative Space

The Creative Space at Kootooyoo is on holidays but to keep up the habit, I thought I'd post on things that I have been working on anyway.  I have two projects on the go; the Wonky Star Quilt, which is taking ever so long to hand quilt, and a cowboy quilt for a baby boy due to make his entrance later this month.  Starting on the second before I had finished the first is not a good habit to get into but is the result of what I have learned over the last few weeks, which is that hand quilting is definitely a winter craft.  It is no fun hand sewing a quilt when the weather is hot and in fact it is pointless as your hands slip when trying to get the needle through the three layers of the quilt, resulting in even more wonky stitches than normal and frayed nerves.  I definitely do not need to spend more time correcting mistakes, so I gave it away when the mercury was in the high 30s at the beginning of last week.  At that stage I started work on cutting and machine piecing the cowboy quilt.  It has come together nicely so far, despite a cutting error which necessitated inclusion of a red inner border that is definitely not in the pattern!  I'm really happy with my progress since Monday night;  just the bottom border to join before sewing the top together.  The fabric was quite tricky to put into the design - even though I liked the range, the large scale of most of the prints meant that a lot of thought had to go into the composition.  I reluctantly decided that  my favourite of the lot couldn't be used for the top, but will make a great backing.

The next decision is what to use for the binding.   A darkish blue print from the same range (Wrangler's Ranch from South Sea Imports) is looking like the front runner, but I'll finish the top before making a decision.

Our Creative Space

The Wonky Star throw is finally coming together.  Despite the fact that hand quilting is a very slow process for me (probably because I am not using the right technique), I am really happy with the effect on the reverse side:

It's quite tricky getting the stitches even and I do spend a lot of time pulling stitches out and looking at the reverse side as that is where the real effect of the hand quilting is supposed to be seen.  Maybe if I used the "rocking" technique it would make my life easier.  Perhaps there is something to be said for machine quilting.

For more creative stuff, head over here.

Twinkle, twinkle

As pleased as I am with my revsible Wonky Stars throw, it turned out to be a beast to baste.  I knew it would be challenging to line up an identically sized top and back but I did not think it would be that hard.  I spent a good three hours trying to get it right at the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild Sit and Sew Evening (in my case Stand and Baste) but all I did was pin it together and undo it four times. On the Sunday I decided I  needed to anchor four seam joins and go from there rather than try to line up the edges (yes Rachel, I should have taken your advice the first time around!).  So it is done now and the red outline  quilting is under way, but it's a slow process and there is no way it will be finished for the birthday next weekend.  But then again, it's no fun getting all your presents at once, is it?

Our Creative Space

After lots of hard work, the top and back of my reversable Wonky Star throw are done!  I finished the black side last night but haven't taken a picture of this yet.  Doing my first real pieced quilt has been an experience and I have come to a few conclusions:
- No one could ever make a living out of making quilts - well, your average sewer at least.  Not only are supplies relatively expensive but the charge for the labour component would be astromonical. It's not just the sewing but the cutting of fabric, trimming and pressing the blocks (and, in my case, the unpicking and rework) takes an awfully long time.  And there's the basting, quilting and binding to go.
- Cutting fabric perfectly straight, let alone sewing the perfect quarter inch seam is really hard.  In fact, impossible!
- Despite the above this has been a lot of fun and theraputic.

I hope to baste and start quilting on Friday night.  There is going to have to be a lot of quilting done between now and 10 December to meet the deadline.  Sounds like a good excuse to get out the "Downtown Abbey" DVDs.

For more creative spaces, head over here.

My Creative Space

Most of the creativity at STLT HQ has been more thinking than doing:

- Thinking about finishing Rachel's Wonky Stars for the MMQG "Oh Beehave" block swap
- Thinking about starting Marg's Flying Geese for above swap for April
- Thinking about what to do with this gorgeous piece of fabric that I got from Retro Age Vintage Fabrics.    

Actually, I've know for a few weeks what I am going to do with this; make a quilt for my baby sister who is having her first baby.  However I was going to cut it into fussy cut squares and use coordinating solids to highlight but have now decided that that will result in too much waste, so will use the whole piece and edge and/or back with a black and ivory spot.  I hope the finished product looks as good as my vision.

For more creative spaces, head over to Kootooyoo.

Day 345: My Creative Space

Lately, all my creative efforts have been aimed at keeping up with the "Oh Beehave" quilt block swap timetable.  Now that I am up to date, I'm determined not to get behind again, particularly heading into the first of the two busy periods with the Day Job.  So the most recent creation has been for Alissa.  I know that she has received it and loves it.  That makes me very happy.  Stos's only comment was "It's very bright."  It is and I can't wait to see the assembled quilt top.  I've also made progress on picking out my fabrics and design for my May blocks and have thought of a nifty way to keep wayward brooches in place, but will update next week.

To see what other creative types have been up to, have a look here.

Day 220: My Creative Space

This is a bit of a cheat's entry - it's actually last week's work but I haven't had time to put together a post.  After procrastinating and worrying about mucking up my "Oh Beehave" quilt block for Esther, I finally dusted off Grandma's jolly Janome, pulled the supplies out of various boxes and got to work.  The instructions were reasonably simple (for someone who knows what they are doing);  the block was to be 10 and 1/2 inches comprising a 6 inch centre block of geometric shapes to be made up of supplied fabric (or added fabric in the autumnal colour palette), including a scrap of plain brown fabric, no more than 1 inch wide, then a border of brown fabric, with a final border made up of supplied scraps and another small piece of brown in corporated.  Whew!  Then there is also the added challenge of working out sizes and seam allowances. Having looked at the blogs of a few people who are involved in quilt block swaps, I thought it might be a good idea to make a practice block.  It actually took me longer to work out what to use in the practice block than it did to make the real thing.  Anyway, the practice block is on the left and the real thing is on the right.  I forgot about the scrap of solid in the practice block, I sewed over a seam the wrong way and had to unpick a couple of seams but it looks OK.  The latitude to rearrange the scrappy border on the real thing got me out of jail on a cutting mistake, but it came together quite well and I hope Esther likes it.  Now for Gina's block and the Mirabel softie!  For more creative spaces, head over here.

Day 123: My creative space

My creative space contains:

• One finished granny hex and one in progress for use in the construction of the granny shrug. There really is no excuse for why this is taking so long because once you get used to the large hook, it’s quite simple
• Fabric for my very first quilt. I cut up the strips last weekend to find that the fabric quantities must have been wrong; i.e. being able to cut 11 x 2.5 inch strips out of half a yard of fabric? Anyhow, I’ve had to get more fabric, so Stos came to the rescue and picked some more up for me tonight. So now I need to wash, trim and cut it up – I am really looking forward to putting this together.

• A cheat entry, as it's actually from a few weeks ago. I’ve put up a very bad picture (unfortunately the only one) of my contribution to the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild name badge swap. I didn’t want to show it until I was sure the recipient had it in her hands; as neither she nor I could attend the last sewing session, it was mailed out. When set the challenge of making a name badge incorporating patchwork and/or quilting, measuring no more than 9cm by 9cm, I was a bit stumped, but during a Pump class, I dreamed up the idea of quilting some cute Alexander Henry fabric and using some bling for the name (note to self – must need to increase weights if one has the time to think about sewing projects while exercising). I’m not sure if the execution was that great, but I thought it was cute and original. I hope Bec did too!

On the house front, we caught up with Bob last night. He’s working towards having us back in by mid November, which is music to our ears. However, we’ll plan on the end of November – while things have gone well to date, we do need to be realistic and allow for some delays. The roof will go on the front of the house next week, the hand rails for the deck and external stairs should be installed by the end of July and the window and door frames will be under construction shortly. And the missing garage door has been cut in – a minor victory. Our jobs this week are to look at the glass samples for the external doors and windows, talk to cousin-in-law G about smart wiring, look at kits for ducted vacuum cleaners and think about the colour for the hydronic heating panels. A lot to do this weekend but I really do want to start sewing up the quilt strip sets.

We also need to meet up with someone who I hope we can stay when we have to move out of the Landlady's place next month.  We are going to have a chat with her about how this might work, but my secret weapons are going to be R & K - as she loves corgis, I am going to take them with us to put her in a good frame of mind!  Seriously, she has said that we can stay, so I hope we can make it work to everyone's satisfaction as it would be a good solution for us.  And it will only be for 3 months (knock on wood).

For more creative spaces, hop on over to Kootoyoo.