Quilt show

Last week was the Craft and Quilt show in Brisbane, wow  what an amazing array of beautiful quilts. I feel quite inspired as I head off to a craft retreat this weekend. Here are some quilts to share,

 

I have to admire the 1800 leaves, I have no patience with needle turn applique, and my efforts are not very neat, this quilt was just stunning and possibly my favourite.

I also made quilt which I started in the Bundy floods last Christmas, strangely it was also a half square triangle quilt.

 

Above is a collage of some of my favourites, the beautiful log cabin won best in show. 

Finally this Baltimore quilt was exquisite, the piecing, quilting and border were amazing. I've done a border like this (badly) in clay on the edge of a bowl and never thought about something so detailed on a quilt.

Hope you enjoyed a few pics

Christmas quilt update

Progress is being made on my block of the month project that I started too long ago now, I think it's been on the go for about 18 months with the original plan to have it completed for last christmas. Well that didn't happen, though I did take it with me to Bundaberg last year and worked on it whilst I was stranded by the flooding, couldn't get any further as i'd left the borders in Brissie. Finally picked it up again a couple of weekends ago when I had a lovely sewing weekend trip to visit Crafty Mummy and family. It was a rainy yucky day, and I even missed the turning to the highway and ended up on the wrong road. Ooops! I arrived a little late, and after lunch we got some serious sewing done. CM posted on her blog ages ago, I'm not so organised...........

I pieced the Hopscotch quilt first and then finished the borders on my xmas quilt. It is incredibly busy close up but this does not show up in the photographs. The pattern called for adding 5 borders to the quilt. I couldn't stand the idea of going round and round adding borders so opted to strip piece the borders together and then join them to the quilt with mitred corners. They are really quite easy to do, and this tut shows the method I use, as was taught my my first teacher Lyn. 

By ironing the seams out for one side and in for the neighbour they nested really neatly together when mitre'ing (?) and gave a lovely crisp result.

Now for some serious quilting.

I'll share my other sewing soon- a roman blind and some curtains.

Return to the sewing machine

Hello

It's been a long time between posts, but I am back behind the sewing machine again. I really felt like doing a quick project, so picked up a kit that I bought a while back.

It's a pretty pretty girls quilt from Michelle Crawford at Flowerbox Quilts from Spokane in Washington, USA. I'd seen it in the Quilter magazine. I'd made one of Michelle's quilts before and the patterns are well written, easy to follow and produce a beautiful quilt. I love the way that the white tone on tone makes the very pretty fabric just pop.

There were only 9 blocks and they took no time to cut out and piece. There were quite a number of bias cut edges but they did not stretch too much when piecing. I've pieced a backing with some pale yellow fabric on one side and a white fabric with small pink and green dots on the other, between these fabrics is a row of rectangles of fabric from the front of the quilt to carry the theme through. I'll show some pics once the quilt is finished. The quilt is now pinned and awaiting some quilting. I think that that will be some loopy free motion quilting and I have some pale pink and green variegated thread to use.

Hope you like the pictures.

Happy sewing

Bed runner

Finally I post some pictures of the bed runner I made for mum for her birthday. It's a simple construction using a jelly roll from a batik range. I used linen to set the blocks- a fair bit stretchier than cotton and bordered it in my favourite dragonfly japanese fabric. It was my first go at a runner, so it worked in that regard. Pretty pretty would not work for my family so a simple colour scheme works for them. Hope you like.

Cushions

I've done a little quilting lately - but I can't share until Mum's birthday (or a little later depending upon post delivery over these holiday weekends...). So here is my latest sewing. I have a new window seat to furnish in a few weeks (eekkk :-) )and made it to Spotlight yesterday for a spot of fabric shopping.

Here are some pics, 5 cushions for the price of 2-3 in the shops. Gotta love that. The liberty buttons on the grey cheneille cushion were a xmas pressie from my friend M. I know they don't quite 'go' but love them anyway, and this way i get to see them everyday I open the curtains.

Hope you had a good easter,

Fabric giveaway

There is a lovely fabric giveaway at Raggedy Station, mmmm black and white.....never done a black and white quilt. I'm sure it would look lovely. May be with some bright red or turquiose.

Here is a picture:

And here is the link:Fabric giveaway

Fingers crossed,




xx

New baby quilt

As promised here are the pics of the new baby quilts.

The boy one is based on Crafty Mummy's very quick quilt here. I can confirm a quilt in 2 evenings (or so). Looks super cute.

The second is another Lintott quilt from Two from One Jelly Roll Quilts
I think that the white makes the pink fabric just pop. Now all I have to do is quilt it, I need to pluck up the courage to free motion quilt the whole thing......

Baby quilt from last year

 Looking through my photos and blog I realised that I did not post final pictures of the baby quilt I made for my good friend M and her little one baby cutie. He's 9 months now and got the quilt when he was 3 weeks old. So I've been very slow about posting this.

Anyhow, here goes. It was my first quilt with a pieced back, a bit difficult to line up when pinning and it was pinned twice. I'll get better with practice. The back is from a Lintott book (here's fishpond's link)  and the front centre section from Heather Peterson's book Let the good times roll (here's her blog). The fabric is Love U by Deb Strain for Moda. So so cute. I just had to use the alphabet blocks somehow. It's a bit big for a baby quilt but will keep a toddler cosy! And it's educational too, which Aunty Di always approves of....

The jelly roll came with some pink and girlie fabrics that baby cutie's dad would not approve of, which I have turned into a baby quilt for friends who are due in May. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Great bag link

Here's a link to a rather good little messenger bag for kids (or yourself), I'll add it to the list of projects to do.....Connors Message Bag

18th B'day quilt

I finally finished my lovely 'Southern Comfort' quilt last week. Just in time. I'd promised a quilt to a friend's daughter for her 18th birthday. Here it is:

It was the first fabric that I bought on line- it was in The Quilter- an american magazine with lots of simple patterns that can be adapted to your own designs. There is usually at least one project that I really want to make. The fabric deals are usually pretty good too.

This kit was from Michelle Crawford of Flowerbox Quilts from Spokane in Washington, USA. I loved making it and hope that it will bring much joy to the recipient.

 

Fantastic Baby Quilt

Crafty Mummy has just posted a great simple and fantastic beginners quilt tut on her own blog- Mummy Crafts. The link is here.

I saw this quilt in progress and then when finished - it looked great and was easy to do. A perfect weekend project.

Hopefully CM will add some pics to this blog post.

Of course! I'd love to add photos! Thanks for the post, Di!

Tula Pink Quilt...

Yesterday I wrote about the sewing we did on the weekend.

My efforts were on my Tula Pink quilt.

You can read more about it and see more pictures

 over at Mummy Crafts.

Weekend quilting...

Whenever we get together to quilt we do show and tell.

I thought I'd share last weekends' projects

(especially for you, Shelle ;o) we missed you!)

Here's Maivili's first quilt - nearly finished!

Just the binding to go.

The quilting is great - such a big quilt done 

on her domestic machine.

She says the lines are crooked

but I couldn't see it.

Here's Di's raggy quilt.

Gorgeous fabric!

She quilted the centres of the blocks then joined them

and cut the raggy edges.

Very nice job!

This is what Di was working on 

and is now ready to sandwich for quilting.

She added the borders which made it quite a big quilt.

Nice to think that some of the fabrics were 

Christmas presents from Shelle and Maivili.

I realised I didn't take any photos of my own project so I'll do that tomorrow.

But let me leave you with a newest Quiltitis member...

He is gorgeous 

but you can see that this quilting thing wears you out!

Last day to bid - Owls of Comfort

Hi

Today is the last day to bid for my Owls of Comfort quilt. The auction will end at 12 midnight my australian time (QLD-AEST). If i'd thought about it i would have had a much more civilised end time of 9pm, hey ho too late now. So the winner of the auction will be the person with the highest bid before 12MN. I will use the Blogger time stamp to determine the winner- it's a work day tomorrow and I need my (anti-grumpy) sleep.

If you have been sucessful I will send you an email, and we will take it from there. Please make sure that I have a way of contacting you! Email address or a viewable Blogger profile. If i have not made contact with the winner and received proof of payment within 7 days I will contact the next highest bidder.

The quilt and auction can be found HERE.

Please also look at CraftyMummy's items:

A Lovely Japanesse Bag- I saw it again at the weekend, and it really is a great bag. Click here for bag link

And a super cuddly baby quilt. Click here for Baby quilt.

The images of the floods are incredible. I drove out the Lockyer valley this weekend to visit friends (and do some sewing), the width of the Lockyer creek was huge, a usually small creek had river sides that were the size of a medium river- now with much much less water in it. Recovery will take a long time and lots of effort.  The nearmap's of Brisbane are incredible.     Nearmaps don't show the extent of flooding in Country Qeensland, and so many smaller towns have been affected for far longer than the flood in the capital city. So dig deep - your donation is tax decductable if you live in Australia (as goes directly to Premier Flood Relief appeal), and you get a gorgeous item too.
 

Auction Update..............

I am blown away by the auction that Toni, has organised. There are sooooo many different craft items up for auction, and so many people prepared to bid for them.  I think that the amount of community support that the floods have produced is simply amazing, the good nature and generosity of so many people just shines. Whether in physically clearing mud, baking food for those cleaning or being the person that sits and listens to the families tales- I am very proud to live in such a great place.

If you haven't had a look at the items up for auction - please do so- if you can't afford to bid, then many people are running a raffle for their item. It might be a good chance to win some amazing hand crafted projects.

Here are some of my favourites:

the red boot company

the red thread blog- raffle to win patterns and a Janome SEWING MACHINE

and of course craftymummy's beautiful baby quilt.........Mummycrafts

Hope you enjoy the look and maybe find something you want to bid for, or find inspiration to sew. 

The other option is to sew a block or 2 for retromummy's "Quilts for Queensland"

Lots of ways to get involved. The sewing maching is calling me..............