Bits and Pieces; Show and Tell

Wow a busy couple of weeks. I am tired out from school but still trying to get a little sewing done each night.

I finally finished off my placemats, the string quilt and the pin cushions to go into the gallery.

Here are my hand dyed pure wool felt pin cushions, They feature hand embroidered flowers and paisley designs I created myself.

Here is the string quilt. I finished with stippling and the quilt is reversible with bright strawberry fabric on the back.

Placemat sets with oven mitts and trivets all ready to go.

And, here are the Precious Hearts quilts finished and ready to post.

So, a good weeks work all in all.

I still have my Moda Verna quilt to finish. It is still at the block stage but will be this week's project.
I also want to get started on the summer dresses for all my granddaughter's for Xmas soon. I am looking out for some pretty fabrics.

I also want to make a journal cover and a not board. Things to do for the week.

Seeya

Back with a vengeance

The exhausting first two weeks of term are over and I can get back to recording my sewing odds and ends.

I have been working on the ten minute block quilts and have managed to finish three in two weeks. Amazing what you can get done if you are willing to fore go sleep.

Detail of quilting; I am still learning how to do machine quilting so not too good yet but they say practice makes perfect!

This is 'Sue's' quilt. Sue is the wife of a colleague who has just found out she has breast cancer. I wanted to make her something to know we are all thinking positive thoughts for her as she enters her first operations and treatment.  I made nine blocks for a lap quilt using a 3 Sisters by Moda layer cake. I chose a deep pink self patterned fabric for the centers. This size is excellent for cuddling on the lunge or watching tv. I hope Sue likes it.

This quilt is gorgeous. Steph's Patchwork had this lovely Paris label fabric which I have placed in the center of the blocks.

I have used the Gothic temple quilting design and kept it pretty simple to allow the quilt to be puffy and luxurious.

This is the scrap quilt I put up in block form before it was quilted. I have quilted temple shape arcs and then filled those in with meandering to add texture. The quilt is super warm and very very bright!

So three good sized quilts finished in two weeks. Watch for my new  posts that have my finished Precious Hearts quilts and bits and pieces for Lizette's gallery.

I  am thrilled to see these finished.

Precious Hearts Day

Today I want to finish off my last two Precious Hearts quilts and post them off.

Finished one last night.

Front

back

Today's qui;ts have similar tops ( all cut from the same stash box) but will have different backs - hearts for Precious Hearts on one nad some spring flowers on the other.

If the day goes well then I might try and get my new Moda Verna layer cake sewn together in the square in a square block I have been playing with.

The layer cake had a bonus thee squares which was cool - thank you Moda ( and Steph's patchwork at Moruya where I purchased it.

I need five squares per block so can get 8 blocks from the pack. I have, however, bought a matching fabric to put in as my focsu squares so am hoping to stretch to nine blocks for a really sweet lap quilt. Not sure who for at this point but someone will need a quilt soon and I will have one ready to go.


So let us see what I can get done on this last day of my holidays.

A challenge for the day....

...and a challenge it was.

Today I began with a list:

finish of the last set of placemats, oven mitt and trivet

buy wadding and backing for the strong quilt and Precious Hearts quilts

piece the 6 inch squares for the Precious Heart quilts

make two European quilted pillowcases to match the quilt on my bed

finish and bind the strong quilt

So..................


what did I get done?

Firstly, I had to research how to machine quilt.................there are sooooooo many tutorials out there!

I found out that:

you need to relax while you machine quilt ......really? Has this woman actually done this backbreaking task? Her suggestion? Drink a glass of wine before you start. Hasn't this woman read or heard about not drinking whilst operating heavy machinery?

So, I managed to fit the new free motion quilting foot thingo to my new Janome. Found the 'feed dogs' thingamijig and 'dropped' them.

Put on my 'quilting gloves' ( checked these out in the patchwork shop - too much money for maybe one failure) saw they had sticky things on the finger tips and had a pair of gardening gloves that looked pretty similar at home- so they are now my quilting gloves- considering gardening has never managed to be on my agenda and I don't even have a 'live' plant pot to care for ( do have a dead one that needless to say was not looked after and never met the gardening/quilting gloves).

I finished the plcemats pretty quickly. Thry look lovely.

I went down the street early to get my wadding.....managed to fond some at Patchwork on the Bay. David Bates, the owner is always interested in what I am sewing so I told him I was piecing and quilting the Precious Hearts pram/bassinette quilts today. He gave me two metres of backing fabric that a rep had given him today to use for the backs.  Thank you David from all the beautiful babies with heart disease. There is enough for three quilt backs and the bindings so I came home and pieced an extra top.

I finished piecing the 6 inch blocks I cut when I was cleaning out the sewing room. Most of them are pretties left over from making dresses and quilts for my grandbabies.

I did learn today that a good way to baste small quilts and blocks was to use spray adhesive-- very cool and worked. Thank you  for that wonderful tip.

I decided it was time to get into the machine quilting. I decided to try a sample first. best tip amongst all the blogs was to pull the bobbin thread through before starting. After clogging the thread twice decided this must be a good tip and worked perfectly after that.

I used a big swirly design to quilt each block. Not sure if I imporeved.

One of the problems with all the tutorials I read was the RULES!!!!!

RULES

Now, once there are rules then there must follow guilt for breaking them - just another thing in my life to go along with being a pathetic cook, lousy plant pot looker afterer and a host of other things.

One of the rules is that you should never cross a line you have already sewn - really????????????? crossing the line?   well I didn't manage to avoid that a couple of times but just sew (sic) you know, I tried.

Came to putting the blocks together I had to go back to the tutorials to check out how to quilt as you go - again, many many videos and tutorials - clearly I need hands on teaching here. Could not seem to make it happen. Eventually got there but  trying to get the points together with all those layers was a nightmare- had to go back to old fashioned tacking. I did try to 'debulk' my seams. I am an English teacher so metalanguage is important to me. 'Debulk'? I think they apply that word on medical shows to tumour removal.

I did try 'debulking' and all the other hints but the whole task was onerous.

Finally got the quilt together so now just have bindings to sew on. Should have it finished tomorrow and will post a pic.

Now I am the master of machine quilting ( hiccup loudly here as one should imagine I was relaxed from drinking while I did it- except  I don;t think Chai tea counts) .

I decided to put a little owl applique on the back of the pram quilts.


Here is one finished. I will finish the other two tomorrow and send them off to Precious Hearts.

So, didn't get everything on the list done but covered a fair bit so am pretty happy with my day. I will be sad to see the end of school holidays and sewing.

Tomorrow is officially my last sewing day of the hols.  So sad.

More pics tomorrow.