Ohio Woo hoo

So, my dad asked me to make a quilt for a friend of his who was having a baby. I didn't know if it was a boy or girl, and I was seriously crushing on Ohio stars. 

So here's a picture of him holding it.
I used Anna Maria Horner, Lizzy House, Denyse Schmidt and a few tohers from stash. I heqavily quilted it, because I'm awesome like that. Here's a pic that shows the sweet quilting.



As always, if you'd like something quilted flick me an email.

Just a little quilting

My internet has gone to the crap, I'm lucky to have an hour a day, this makes uploading photos quite difficult, so you're stuck with my instagram pics until then.

Just a little quilting

It reminds me of a lyre bird.

Stacked coins

It's was beautiful friend's birthday yesterday. A week ago I panicked and flailed around wondering what to get/make her. Now, I've made most of my knit girls a quilt, except for Ms A. Ms A is amazing, she cooks the most delicious everything, seriously I've never had a bad thing she's made, she can make salad fun, and her cheeecake, amazeballs. She knits like a demon, she knit both my girls jumpers out of five ply. FIVE PLY??? I know. I have heaps of pairs of gorgeous socks from her, she dyes the yarn as well. There is nothing, nothing this girl can not do and do well. So if anyone is deserving of a quilt it's her. As time was not on my side I decided a stacked coin quilt would be the way to go, quick, yet effective. So here's how it went...

Tuesday lunchtime: Run to every fabric store in town, buy a selection of purples and a few aquas for good measure. Realise there's SFA real purple in this town.  What are we going to sash it with? Ivory Bella Solids. Buy 3m of that.


Tuesday night: Cut strips of purple varying from 3.5 inches to 2 inches, start sewing these together.


Wednesday night: get the strips cross cut and then sewn into long stacks of coins, trim and border in the ivory. Admire how you're doing.


Thursday: Go sewing at Sally's. Put the top and bottom bits on and cut down one stack for the back. 


Friday: Buy another 3m of Ivory and piece the back. 


Saturday: Load quilt onto Gammill and quilt, thank flying spaghetti monster that you own a Gammil or you'd never get this done. Four hours later pull that bitch off the machine. 


Sunday: make binding and finish binding. Pour yourself a drink because you're a fkn genius and you can make a whole quilt in five days with a bit of help from your mother. 

The back and the binding, highlighting my shit hot nametage. Thank you mommie made it.

Linking up with TGIFF.

Rainbows and feathers.

When I heard that the Bloggers quilt festival was on again I just had to get involved this time.

So here's a rehash on the Matjana quilt I finished earlier in the year.

Over a year ago I popped into my LQS and picked up a few fabrics in a ROYGBIV range. I can't do bright orange so I opted for more subdued, apricot tones.

Here's the first quilt I made. I gave it to a dear friend Anna. It's straight out of the dryer, please forgive my wrinkles.

I had enough leftover HSTs to make another twin for this one, so I got sewing. I wanted to mix up the zig zag a bit so pieced the second differently. There were all these neat squares between the colours. I just knew they were screaming out for some intricate quilting.

So off I went, I did spiders webs and swirls and lots and lots of feathers.

We ended up auctioning the quilt to raise funds for Matjana Pre-School in Swaziland. Wonderfully, Anna ended up winning the second quilt, so now she has a pair. I promised her I'd jazz up the quilting on the first so she has two lovely quilts and doesn't have to choose which of her children gets the prettier one.

Thanks for stopping by, be sure to check out the other quilts in the Bloggers Quilt Festival. There are some shit hot ones out there.

Soon

it will be mine. Retrofitted stitch regulator too. 

Now I must make some room in my house for the 12 foot frame. I'm so excited. 

Dead of excitement.

Swooning for my mother

My mother asked me for a quilt that was reminiscent of an aged French Grandmother.

I love Three Sisters for Moda, they're not what you'd call modern, yet I love their soft colours all the same. I have almost finished a quilt top in Martinique, I have a kit in Etchings (yet to be started) and this is predominantly Luna Notte with a little bit of Papillon thrown in for good measure. It seems I'm not very good at finishing anything made from Three Sisters, but I still love their work.

Mum fell in love with the swoon block, so I made one for her. I've been refusing to work on it anymore unless she comes out to my place to be my ironing bitch. Last Sunday she was well and truly my bitch. Going to have to get her to work on her pressing technique, but it's so good to have an offsider. The piecing goes much quicker when I'm not hopping up and down to the iron all the time.

I think this is going to be a gorgeous quilt when it's all finished, very French Grandmother don't you think?

First customer quilt

I'd love to be a professional quilter. I'm saving my pennies for a long arm. In the meantime I've been quilting a few quilts for friends, but.... here is the first one I'm getting paid for. It's a lovely, sunny applique number.

I quilted styalised vines in the squares panel and did a simple filigree in the background of the appliqued panels. 

I've been densely quilting the pinwheels on the side. 

Until - see that horrid crease running from the top left corner to the bottom right. 

That bastard turned in to a pleat, so I have been unpicking a bazillion stitches.

I'm not far off finishing, a bit more quilting, then burying the threads. One step closer to realising the dream.

Fun with Courtney

Had my beautiful friend Courntey come and visit last weekend. Because I have the biggest house amongst my local knit girls I get super lucky and get the guests. I forgot to take photos until the very last day.

Here's some crappy bunting we got giggling about. It's not actually bunting, but it could be if you're having a pissweak party.

We sewed like demons to get a large portion of the piecing done on a quilt Courtney is making. Lots of giggles.

Played with the layout of uber quilt of love and joy.

Here's a crappy pic of it all put together, this thing is a monster and is going to make a wonderful tent when it's all quilted. We're planning on living in it on a tropic isle.

I miss my Courtney and wish we all lived on a commune so we could could giggle and sew everyday.

Emily's sweet little beauty

Been quilting this with a paisley design. I'll do a feathered border when I get to it.

I do all this on a domestic sewing machine. I love my machine, but I do wish there was a little more space so I had to wrangle less. How I wish I had a long arm machine.

Love this quilt. The quilting is turning out beautifully despite the black thread being so hard to see.

A grey cobblestone quilt

In between playing with fun free motion quilting for the matjana quilt and Ruby Star Shining for Courtney I've been working on this lovely quilt for my mother in law. 

It's coming along quite nicely. I hope to have it finished next weekend.

matjana quilt draws closer

I've bought the binding.

I've finished the quilting

(sorry about the iphone pic, I seem to have developed a love of my phone and a hate of my camera, this will change. I promise)

I've got two friends joining in the auction. The incredible A Guyra Girl who makes THE BEST socks. I have several pairs made by her and they're amazing. She's kindly offered to donate a pair of bespoke socks. Made to fit your feet. Isn't she amazing?

Emily the Enabler is my darling friend who is a whiz at dying all things wool related. Her fibre and yarns are to die for (see what I did there?). I'm not sure on details of this fantastic donation yet, but I'll keep you posted.

I'm so grateful to know these incredible women. They make each and everyone of my days brighter.

I'm planning on running this auction through my blog and just getting bids in the comments. Is this a good idea? What do I have to be careful of?

In the meantime while we're waiting for this auction to kick off, why not donate some funds?

WIP round up.

My LQS hosted a mystery quiltalong on Saturday. I showed up with my precut strips and sewed and sewed and sewed. Despite my gargantuan effort I still didn't get the top completed. I still have more sewing to do. 

I've also been working on a Willy Wonka costume for Big C's school play. I have 8 Oompa-Loompas to do yet.

A fabulous dress I wore on Melbourne cup day. Yes, that lining is Beverly Hills 90210 vintage sheet. Thank you Jess for your awesome score.

 

 

A quilt that is a Christmas surprise so no further details on it at this stage. Still got to finish quilting and binding.

Quilt for MIL for Christmas. She doesn't read my blog so I'm safe here. Rooftop Garden by Moda. I really like this range. I found them on a trip to Tamworth where I also got to try out the Handy Quilter Sweet Sixteen. ZOMG I am in love. I need to sell my soul, but I will own this machine one day.

A quilt that was made from bee blocks from my favourite group of women. I'm thinking about giving this one to my Dad for Christmas. He can always use the little bit of love that a quilt brings. he's just gotten a new house and a manly blanket would be most welcome I'm sure.

My Echino quilt. Emma got me a fq pack for my birthday and I love it. It reminds me of India. I'd love to hand quilt this with bright pinks. Not sure if I'm up to it yet because it's going to be HUGE. No pics sorry

Bee blocks - annamal quilts. I got purple and green. I had to add a little from my stash as i didn't make the best use of fabric. I really hope she likes them. We're in two bees together this year. New Bee on the Block and Quilting Under the rainbow.

 

 

Wow, I have lots of WIPs. Can't talk, sewing.

Also,

 another foal. We call him Banny because of the bandaid shaped mark on his forehead.

tops, tops, everywhere.

 Strata

Made using Stonehenge Jelly rolls and this tutorial. 

Warm/Cool, part of the In Color Order Warm/Cool QAL

I've got one more top almost finished, I'll be sure to post pics when it's done. There's going to  be a lot of quilting in the near future. My credit card is also sad from all the fabric I've been buying for backs. Donations kindly accepted.

Hooray for mail

Got some little lovelies in the mail yesterday.

 The blues are bookmarked as a quilt for my bigger brother.

 The rainbows are giving me all kids of grief, I'm trying to decide how best to use them.

 I've given absolutely no thought to the purple, it's just nice to know it's there.

I did order some Poseidon, but it wasn't in stock so has been put on back order.