Work in Progress

Today I have been stitching blocks together making a floor quilt for my daughter's friend expected baby.  The baby is due sometime in May so not long to go.  The blocks are made from Hungry Carterpillar fabric with the addition of three other fabrics my daughter likedthey all look good together.
Have to piece the front together then check if I need to stitch another border on this piece.

Quilting Again

I can't believe I have not posted to my blog since Dec 5th.  The Christmas period was busy, Allan went to Tasmania to see his youngest daughter graduate with First Class Honours in Sociology. Then we had a 2 week break at the beach in our caravan.
I couldn't settle to quilting until mid February since then I have finshed a 1600 quilt, completed a Gail Pan UFO and tried the Long Quilting stitches on my Janome, made a Japanese quilt for Bay Quilters Challenge, the binding is not finished on that yet.
The Gail Pan Design is one I bought in Nowra in 2007 while we were caravaning around Australia.
It is called In My Garden.   It was fortitious that I finished this wall hanging on Monday as Gail was the guest speaker today (wednesday) at Carrum Downs Scquilters.   Lots of lovely show and tell from Gail and the other ladies at the gathering.

 When I showed this at Carrum Downs someone commented it's not Purple.  I have been challenged to make 3 quilts without any Purple fabric.










If you notice some of the flowers in this block have mauve/purple flowers.

This is the 1600 quilt made from 2 1/2" strips.  I didn't use a Jelly Roll I bought 25cm (10") pieces of fabric and cut 4 strips from each of the 11 fabrics.  It was machine quilted by Laurene Horsnell at Moorabin.  I will be giving this one away.

Batting Comparisons

Linda Steele a well known quilter and machine quilting tutor has taken the time to make samples of quilting using different battings and write about the results.
If you want to save some heartache with your battings bearding read her comments before you quilt that next quilt.

http://www.lindasteelequilts.blogspot.com/   look for the article dated Thursday December 1st 2011

New Grandson's quilt

Two weeks ago we became the proud grandparents of our 10th grandchild Lenny.  He weighed 6lb 15ozs with a shock of dark hair.  We are both enamoured of the gorgeous little man.  Tomorrow we are going to visit and deliver the quilt I have made from him.  It is an I Spy on one side with half square triangles swaures and sashing on the other.  The pattern was from a sheet I got from Spotlight 'Floral Impressions'
.

Donations to Vic Dog Rescue

Today I finished the binding on the 3rd of 3 quilts I have made and donated to Victorian Dog Rescue.  The VICDRG are having a black tie fund raising dinner at Fenix Restaurant Richmond on September 10th.  I made 1 medium sized wall hanging, one mall hanging and a babies quilt.  Not going to the dinner not our thing anymore.

German Shepherd

Large wall hanging

 

Cocker Spaniel.

 Beagle.

Small hanging Hound Puppy

Mother Goose babies quilt.

These pieces should raise a few dollars for the Dog Rescue and help save abandoned animals.  

Leesa Seigele Workshop

I have finished the cushion I started in Leesa Seigele's workshop.  I love dong the paper piecing Leesa's way so neat and tidy, point all match and it's easy.

I am collecting Batiks to make a very colourful version of this pattern with different points.  In the cushion I have used the 5 and 7 points Leesa also uses a 9 point plus smaller versions.  This next project will be my machine project as I am hoping to start a Baltimore for take along hand stitching.

Workshop

Yesterday (Sunday) I did a workshop with Lessa Siegele OAM from South Australia.  Bay Quilters had invited Lessa to give a talk at our Saturday monthly meeting and teach a paper piecing workshop on the Sunday.  Paper piecing has always been a technique I avoided but after yesterday it is now a technique I will use more in my quilts.

Here are a couple of photos of the work I did yesterday.

Stitching the pieces on the paper

adding the curved pieces

The finished blocks.  Don't know what happened to this photo as it turned while uploading.

As you can see I have not used my usual colour purple.  I will use these blocks and more to make cushions for our caravan.   Julie one the other ladies at the workshop who always uses blue had chosen purple for her fabric.