Vicki's Blog - Living life a day at a time

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Another Quilt finished

On Sunday night I finally finished Mani's quilt. I'm really pleased with how this knee quilt has turned out and hope that Mani will enjoy it. Charlie thought it was pretty comfy!

Mani's belated 50th birthday quilt

Charlie testing out Mani's quilt

So comfy..

Sunday, February 5, 2012

I've been working on a quilt for a friends 50th birthday... yesterday I finally finished the top, laid it out for the backing and batting and machine quilted it as well!!!
A mammoth effort for me. Admittedly the quilt is not as big as most that I have made being only 46 inches square so it was not as hard to lay out and quilt.

Ready for quilting

Quilted and ready for the borders

Hopefully today I'll cut the borders and have the quilt finished during the week.

My Sampler quilt is finished!

Yesterday I finished my sampler quilt. This quilt was lots of fun and I learnt so much about quilting while making it.

The quilt is a mixture of techniques and my first attempt at machine quilting. I am pleased with how it looks even though there are a few little mistakes in it.

Block 1. Pinwheel Block.

Block 2. Double Monkey Wrench

Block 3. Attic Windows

Block 4. Log Cabin Block

Block 5. Honey Bee

Block 6. Dresden Plate

Block 7. Drunkard's path

Block 8 - Jacobs Ladder

Block 9 - Block of your own choice

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Quilting quilts

The last few weeks I have been working on finishing off a few quilts. It's exciting to see my quilts nearly finished after working on them for so long.

Postcards from Paris quilt
I'm taking my 'Postcards from Paris' quilt to the quilting man tonight along with my friends quilt. We went and brought the batting together yesterday so we are both all set to go!

Postcards from Paris quilt - ready for the quilter

Olivia's pink quilt
In a determined effort to get some quilts finished this year I've been spending most evenings working Olivia's quilt and now only have one more row to quilt. As it's summer at the moment and we have had some really hots days with temperatures in the high 30's its been a challenge quilting and keeping cool. Thankfully I have air-conditioning so I'm able to sit under a vent!

I'm loving quilting Olivia's quilt. I've just using 'stitch in the ditch' over the top. Having a check pattern on the back is both good and bad - good that it gives me lines to follow ensure my stitching is straight but bad as it shows up any crooked stitching lines! Tonight I'll finish the last row of quilting and then be able to trim the batting and sew the binding on later in the week.

Olivia's quilt

Sampler Quilt
My first efforts of machine quilting!! I decided that my sampler quilt would be a good way to learn and practice machine quilting. I am really pleased with my efforts. there a few places where the fabric has caught at the back and a few wobbly lines but overall I am really pleased with how the quilting looks. A project for today is to trim the excess batting ready to sew the binding on over the next few evenings.

Ready for the borders

Charlie gives his stamp of approval!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

A quilt Lucas

Lucas's Spinning Wheels Quilt

I've started my next hand pieced quilting project a few nights ago. I have chosen a block from my Quilters Album by Jinny Beyer called 'Spinning Wheels' for Lucas, another one of my great nephews.

I'm using some of the same fabrics used in Jake's Sinning Castles and Lachlan's Spinning Stars quilts. I'm not sure why but the quilts for my great nephews are much more complicated that the quilts for my great nieces. Maybe it's because I haven't had to make as many.

With the pattern and fabrics chosen I have graphed out the block design from the book, created the cardboard templates and have sewn together the first block. I am yet to decide whether I will make the quilt just from these blocks using the different coloured fabrics in each block or whether I will add a sashing in between the blocks. I will sew some more blocks before deciding.

Spinning Wheel block being used for Lucas's quilt

Blue toned fabrics

The cream fabrics

Graphing the design ready for the templates

Cardboard templates

The first of many Spinning Wheel blocks for Lucas's quilt

New fabrics for quilts

Fabric for some more Quilts

I have enjoyed machine sewing Jessica's quilt so much that I have brought some fabrics on sale to make two or three new quilts. I am not sure what pattern I will use but am thinking of simple squares and rectangles. Hopefully if the quilts are sewn neatly enough I may be able to sell some to friends... one day....

Hopefully enough fabric for two new quilts

I really need to finish off Jessica's and Mani's quilts before I start anything new but I have a feeling my impatience will win out in the end.

New fabric for a bright quilt

Hand quilting Olivia's quilt

Olivia's quilt

Most of my evenings are spent hand quilting Olivia's pink quilt. I decided to do a simple 'in the ditch' stitch around the squares. I had planned to have Sarah, Hannah and Olivia quilts finished last year but that plan got delayed since meeting Andrew. Thankfully he is patient and best of all likes seeing me sit and sew. If I'm not sewing he'll ask me why I'm not sewing - a hint to pick up the needle.

Normally I just baste the quilts with basting spray but recently I started using the curved safety pins as well.

Olivia's quilt

Safety pins cover the back of the quilt

a section of quilting (needs pressing)

Mani's 'Shabby Chic' quilt

Mani's Shabby Chic quilt

I started another quilt towards the end of last year for a girlfriends 50th Birthday. I have finally sewn the quilt together ready for the batting and backing.

I had trouble sewing the quilt on my old machine. The machine didn't like the changes in fabric thickness between the cotton and chenille.

I have now resewn parts of the quilt ready to be finished off. I am planning to machine quilt this quilt using a shadow stitch line around the blocks.

Lachlan's Spinning Stars Quilt

I've been working on Lachlan's hand pieced 'Spinning Stars' quilt all of 2011 having started cutting the templates and fabrics in 2010.

Over the last two week I finished the borders and am now ready to put the batting and backing on before hand quilting it.

I have been keeping a blog of making Lachlan's quilt so if you'd like to read it you can find it at: http://spinningstarsquilt.blogspot.com.au/

I made my other great nephew a quilt called 'Spinning Castles' and have now started on a third quilt for my other great nephew Lucas. Lucas's quilt design is called 'Spinning Wheels'. I have been able to use the same fabrics in all three quilts just adding a few extra as I go along.

Jake's Spinning Castles quilt

Lachlan's Spinning Stars quilt

The first block of Lucas's Spinning Wheels quilt

Jessica's Matryoshka quilt

Jessica's Quilt

Jessica's is the first quilt I have sewn totally by machine. It has been so much fun seeing it come together so fast. Thee have been times that I feel like I am 'cheating' but I felt the pattern was really more suited to sewing on a cine rather than my usual method of English piecing. I just hope that Jessica doesn't feel that I took the easy way out to sew her quilt.

For Jessica I am making a Rosalie Quinlan design called 'Matryoshka quilt'. I chose the fabrics with Ruth when I was in Canberra before Jessica was even born.

Cutting out the fabrics

It took me two days to cut out all the fabric for this quilt. Cutting the strips took the longest time!

I had a lot of fun sewing the blocks and loved the way they came together so fast. I was on holidays after Christmas so had lots of free time to sit and sew.

First blocks sewn together

Blocks pressed ready to be laid out before sewing together

Pressing the blocks took almost as much time as sewing them!

With 49 blocks sewn it was time to lay the quilt out and place the blocks. It was harder than I thought to make sure that I didn't use the same block colours next to each other.