Good Starter

I pulled out all of my solids at the start of the month and decided to join in with the Moda Modern Building Blocks sewalong over on Kristin's blog at Gooba Designs A sewalong is likely to be the only way I manage to finish a quilt top of this size, it is 84" x 96" finished. I'm also a bit worried about how I'll manage to quilt it on my own sewing machine. I'm considering quilt as you go but I haven't decided yet. I could send it out to a long arm quilter but I've never done that before either! Cutting the fabric for the 6" blocks is a little daunting, take a look at the size of some of the pieces: Yes it does say to cut a 1 7/8" square in half! Here are the blocks in section A: Block 8 (18" finished) Block 10 (12" finished) Block 12 (12"finished) Block 17 (12" finished) Blocks 20, 21, 42, & 44 (6" finished) Blocks 19 & 38 (6" finished) Block 10 is my favourite ...

Yesterday I shared the mini quilt I made for the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. I had so much fun making it that most of the time I forgot I also had an unknown partner who was also making a mini quilt just for me. I was delighted when I did receive my surprise mini as it was this gorgeous envelope quilt. I'm in Australia and my partner, Kristin of gooba designs , is in America so it seemed very fitting to have a text print that has 'beyond the seas' featured. I had mentioned my favourite fabric line is Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics in the sign up form for the swap. I didn't dare hope I would be lucky enough to be matched with a partner who would use it so well. The quilting is so lovely I had to get close. And in black and white you can really see how it finishes off this mini perfectly. One of the extras I received was this little purse. I am saving it to use for best so it has only been out with me a few times so far. Each time ...

I recently took part in the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. Now that I have both sent and received I can share them here. Today I'll show my mini and tomorrow the wonderful mini that arrived to me. I made a Modern Hexies mini wall quilt using the Modern Handcraft tutorial. I will definitely be making another one of these for myself. My partner requested her favourite colours teal, orange and purple. I shared a photo of these colours in hexie form while they were sat on my grey couch and I had that many positive comments on the grey background that I switched from the white I had planned to a fat quarter of cotton couture in dark grey. Quilting this mini was so much fun, though I did get a bit creative with the straight lines towards the end to ensure I was still creating triangles.   I went with a scrappy binding (partly due to not having enough dark grey and my local quilt store being out of stock) and I'm really happy I did in the end, I think it added something to the ...

I took part in round 4 of the Modern She Made swap over on Flickr and my partner had very different taste to me. Have you ever experienced this? I found it difficult to make something in someone's else's style and to keep to the rules of the swap. In the end I found a fabric I was pretty sure my partner would adore but then I couldn't make it work with my idea for placemats. After much procrastination and thought I finally went with my own design and made the placemats double sided. Side one is a hexagon (this rounds swap theme) on linen. I had never used linen before but I didn't find any real problems once I had accounted for the loose weave. Side one The second side consisted of the bird panels I picked up for my partner (a Darn Cheap Fabric in Heidelberg find). On this side I only featured the hexagons on the matching coasters. Watch the birdie I did make four coasters but one seems to have flown away when the photos were taken. I promise it was included when ...

First ever paper pieced block I am currently working on a mug rug for the first swap of 2014 of the Mug Rug Revival over on Flickr. I am stuck at the point of binding it so I have decided to wait until inspiration strikes rather than jumping in and being disappointed with the result. Which binding? It is also over 40 degrees most of this week (43 Celsius / 108 Fahrenheit today) so that might have something to do with the decision to put off going into the front room with the sewing machine - which appears to be the only room where the air con isn't working. I might get some of my hand sewing done at least. So far I have been blogging (oh get me I'm a blogger after 4 whole posts!) from my iPad using Safari to write posts at Blogger.com but I find that I spend more time struggling to write a post while the screen is cropping what I am writing, getting stuck at the top of photos and having to be creative with the return button to get back to the bottom of the page...

Here are my quilting projects to be finished: 1. Lap Quilt A lap quilt that I have pieced the top, layered and basted. I still need to quilt and bind and post to the UK as this is a very late Christmas present. 2. Baby Quilt A jelly roll quilt for my daughter (started off as a birthday present then was for Christmas, now just needs to be done and given) that has a pieced top and back completed. Still need to layer, baste, quilt, decide on the right colour for the binding, and bind. 3. Rainbow Quilt An entire quilt of this scrapbuster block, which I made using this tutorial for the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee . I have a couple of 1.5 inch jelly rolls in Kona Solids so it will be planned scrappy unlike the blocks for the bee but I am looking forward to starting this quilt. 4. Vice Versa BOM Quilt I have picked out my colours (still need background colour) for the Vice Versa block of the month   starting soon over at G en X Quilters . I used this inspiratio...