A great Easter Long Weekend

I had a great Easter long weekend. Time with Andrew, church on Sunday, lots of quilting, and lots of queuing up at sales buying more quilting fabric and batting. A 40% sale is not something to miss!

Andrew and I went for a drive on Saturday to Warrandyte and had lunch at Warren Glen Nursery then drove up through St Andrew's to Kinglake and back through Yarra Glen were we stopped for a yummy afternoon tea. It was amazing driving through the Kinglake National park and seeing the regrowth from the bush fires 2009. Kinglake was so quiet and there are still mobile homes being used. We don't hear much about the fire affected areas these days but for those people living at Marysville, Kinglake and the town affected there are still reminders every day.

Andrew gave me a hug Easter egg and a Spotlight gift voucher which was really sweet.

Andrew with his Chook door stopper - the pickets were filled with little Easter eggs.

There were some great sales on over the weekend. My favourite shop Spotlight had 40% quilting fabric and batting so I queued for nearly an hour with my bargains and put them on layby. I went back Sunday and was amazed to be served within 10 minutes but yesterday .. well that was a different story - an hour and a half!! I did get a couple of pieces of lovely bright fabric and some pinks to make a baby's quilt. I had gone to buy the border for Kelly's quilt, quilting needles and globe!

I had a good weekend sewing - finished the top of Kelly's quilt ready to add the borders and binding, sewed more of Jessica's binding down - only 77cm to go!. I cut out and sewed an 'Owl' quilt but I'm not happy with the green I've used. It was meant to be lime green but somehow I picked up the wrong green, a color I had set aside for another quilt and didn't realise until I was putting it together!  Back to Spotlight today to pick up some lime green and lots of unpicking tonight!

the border is actually pink but looks orange here

Only 77cm left to sew

I'm going to change the green to a lime green

some pinks for a baby's quilt

Some fantastic bright colors

Kelly's quilt for Imogen

For a while now people have been asking if I sell my quilts. Having always sewn my quilts by hand my answer has always been 'no'. Too much work and no-one would be prepared to pay the thousand or more dollars that I'd have to charge for them.

Material for a quilt

Sewing Jessica's quilt by machine made me think more about sewing quilts by machine for other people so at the Christmas and new year sales I brought some bundles of fabric to sew.

One of the bundles was this pile of bright colored almost 70's design fabrics. I loved them and hoped that someone else might like them as well. I put a photo on Facebook and had lots of comments from people saying that they loved the colors.

A few weeks later a friend asked me if I would make a single bed quilt for her daughter - she loved the fabrics I had brought and didn't mind what design I made them in to.

I decided that the colors need some plain colors to help break them up so I've designed a basket weave pattern of strips. Each block has three strips - an plain color in the centre with two different bright colored fabrics on either side.

Designing my quilt pattern

Basket weave block design

With the pattern decided I cut the strips, then sorted them into colors and then into stacks of three strips ready to sew.

fabric cut into strips

Sorting fabric ready to sew into blocks

Sewing the blocks.. had a great system going here

A basket of blocks ready to iron

Ironed and ready to sew together

I got a great system going with sewing a pile of strips into two and then going back and sewing on the third color. It's been exciting seeing the quilt come together so fast.  I've sewn most of the rows together - hopefully I'll finish this afternoon. My next big decision is to decide whether the quilt needs a border and if so what color!

Doggy bean bags for Oscar and Rex

My niece asked me to make two doggy bean bags for her two dogs - Oscar and Rex.

fabrics for the covers

stuffing the bags with beans

Charlie thought the bags were just right for him!

Charlie... King pin

an update on Olivia's quilt

basting the quilt again..

I finished the top of Olivia's quilt some time again and had it ready to had quilt. I decided to do a simple 'stitch in the ditch' around all if the squares.

As I was quilting I wasn't happy with how the back was looking - it seemed to be bunching up quiet a bit particularly where I had the minke fabric on top. I kept going thinking that once it was finished and pressed it might sit better. Finishing it I got the iron out and pressed the back and top but it was still fairly creased in parts so I decided to pull it out and start again.

Not being sure what to do I contacted a lady in America who hand quilts to see if she had any suggestions for hand quilting quilts that have minke fabric throughout them. Her response was "we tried it once and it was a disaster! I suggest you just knot it"  Well that really built my confidence no end!

Before giving up I went back to the shop where I brought the kit for this quilt - they said to machine quilt it that hand quilting doesn't work. Not wanting to give up on hand quilting I went to Spotlight and asked one of the quilting experts .. their response was to either knot or machine quilt.

quilting hearts on each block

While I was at Spotlight I saw a template for 4 little hearts. I decided to try and quilt the four little hearts on each block.

I am really pleased with how the quilted hearts are turning out. It doesn't take long to sew each one and the back is not creasing near as much.

I was hoping to have both Jessica's and Olivia's quilts finished by the end of April but with having to re-do Olivia's I'm not sure I will make my deadline.

Jessica's quilt

Machine quilting 1/4 inch from the seems

Jessica's quilt is nearly finished. I only have two sides of the binding to sew down.

The machine quilting was a challenge fitting the quilt in the small arm of the machine. Quilting Jessica's quilt by machine gave me an idea to look around at quilting frames. I have come up with one that I have been able to make myself using a design from a guy in America. I will post more on that when I get it set up on my machine!

checking out the quilt on nana's spare bed.

Choosing the binding was the hardest part of making this quilt... what color - pink, red, blue, green, pink with spots argh!!! 

should I choose blue or white & red?

maybe this white background with greens and reds ....

or the green or the red and white..

..or the pink & red spot or the red & pink spot..

After lots of looking at fabrics and asking people I ended up spending two hours at two of my favourite quilting shops coming home with two options. After hours... no days it came down to either this pink with red spots  or.

.. either this pink with red spots  or...

The winner!! 

 The binding I went for in the end was one that I would not have normally chosen but it's the best fit bringing out the pink and reds with a little white throughout.

finally time to sew on the binding  ..

An 'Owl' quilt for Edna

What better than a quilt of owls for a special lady who loves owls to help her on her with her recovery after an illness!

Edna is a special lady at church who is now 83 years old. She has an obsession with owls so when I decided to make her a little knee rug recently, a quilt covered with Owls seemed the only way to go.

I spent nearly an hour choosing all my 'owl' fabrics at Spotlight, picked up one of their patterns to use, got my number and then waited for my number to be called. Anyone who shops at Spotlight knows you can wait up to an hour to be served when they are busy!! This day was no exception.  Just as my number was called I noticed two 'owl' quilts hanging from the ceiling - the first was the same as the one I had picked the fabric for but the second was a little different. It had some larger panels with owls on it - patterns I hadn't seen in my hour selecting the fabrics.

It turned out that the second quilt was a panel that only needed the binding sewn on to it. For the first time ever I decided to buy the panel!  I would only have to cut and sew the binding on to the panel. Having decided to buy the panel it was with mixed feelings I took my trolley full of owl fabrics and put them all back on the shelf. What had taken an hour to choose only took a few minutes to put back!!

I went home, washed the fabric for the binding, dried it on the line (it was a really hot day so was dry in 40 minutes) and ironed it ready to cut into strips. It wasn't long before the strips were cut and machine sewn onto the edge of the quilt. The same evening I hand stitched the bind down.

I sat looking at the finished quilt amazed that I had 'made' a quilt in one afternoon!!

With the quilt finished it looked great and I knew Edna would love it but somehow I felt like I'd cheated! There was no cutting the fabric, sewing the blocks together or putting the batting and backing on.  I didn't even have to quilt the panel as it was already machine quilted!

I am not sure I will make a quilt this way again but it was fun and it was lovely to be able to give the quilt to Edna so she could snuggle up under it while she rested.

An Owl panel quilt for Edna

A few days after making the owl quilt for Edna a friend asked if I would make them a quilt for their daughter. This started me thinking more about making quilts to sell so I decided that it would be good to make a couple of machine stitched quilts. So with this in mind I headed back to Spotlight, straight to the owl print fabrics, filled my trolley, took my number and again waiting for my number to be called! Thankfully it didn't take me an hour to pick out the fabrics and I only had to wait 20 minutes to be served!!

Some of my 'owl' print fabrics ready to be sewn into a quilt.

My 'Clucky Chook' door stopper

I may be a little behind in updating my blog but  I've been busy sewing over the last month.

Not long after I meet Andrew we saw a door stopper in the shape chicken in a store. Andrew really liked it and was going to buy it until we saw the hefty price tag of $80!  It was made of fabric and stuffed - certainly not $80 worth of chook! Shocked at the price I said I'd make him one if wanted. Nothing more has been said but I've been looking around for a pattern of a door stopper in the shape of a chook. Easy to find a pattern - no! Lots of triangle and bean bag chooks but none in the shape of a chook with the comb and tail.

After months of looking I finally found a pattern by Melly & Me called 'Clucky Chook' - a pattern for a babies toy measuring approximately 7" x 9" with 4 little chicks. Exactly what I was after only a bit too small so I enlarged the pattern to 145% of its original size. I now have a chook door stopper with 4 little chicks on the wings.

I am really pleased with how my chook has turned out and can't wait to give it to Andrew for Easter. I am going to place some little 'chicken' Easter eggs in the wings.

Andrew with his Chook door stopper (filled with little eggs for Easter)

door stopper in use already