Sarah's quilt top finished

This week I finished the top of Sarah's quilt sewing on the last border and the binding.

It looks great - I love the color and the chenille fabric.

I have not used chenille before but it was easy to sew by hand. My lounge chair and floor were covered in bits of chenille as it came off the cut edges. Even Charlie had bits of chenille fluff over him!

I am not sure how I will quilt the top yet At this stage I'm thinking of sewing around each block but this may change when I start the quilting.

Spring is here

I can't believe how fast this year has gone. Just in time to welcome in Spring my Weeping Peach and Weeping Cherry trees came out in bloom on the 1st September.

I've had the last four days at home sick with a sinus infection. With all the time at home I've been doing a lot of sewing. I've cut the template for quilting circles on Jake's quilt and started stitching around the first circle. I have finished all the blocks on Hannah's quilt but had to order a bit more material for the boarder and binding. Hopefully that will arrive this week and I will be able to finish the top ready to quilt.

As the tops of the quilts are finished I have now started working on Sarah's. I like to have a quilt that I can take with me when I go out to appointments or to Brink, my craft group. I've cut all the cardboard templates and material so am ready to tack the material onto the templates. I haven't worked with chenille before so am finding little bits of fluff all over me and the couch!

In quarantine for a week.

I am in quarantine for seven days!

I can't believe that on top of everything else I am now being treated for a suspected case of the swine flu. When I get sick Sue, my sister always says I must have killed a china man. I'm not sure where that saying came from but I think I must have killed a whole village of china men!

One good thing is that I have plenty of time to work on my quilts. I only have two more blocks to do on Jacob's quilt and then the hard work of laying it out and hand quilting it begins. I have a lot more to do on Hannah's quilt as the blocks are smaller. I have been sewing the material onto the cards so that I can sew some more blocks together.


Rhonda, (my other sister) has chosen a design for her quilt. I am going to make it an 'Asian' theme in black and white cotton prints and black and red silk. I have been buying pieces of material off EBay and found a beautiful piece of silk like material in black with a red 'Asian' design over it.

The quilt will be a fairly simple design with a larger centre block of black and white geisha women surrounded by a border of red satin. This will then be surrounded by smaller squares of black and white fabrics then a larger border of the black with red print satin. It will be a challenge sewing the satin material by hand but one I'm keen to try.

I've decided to make a different quilt for Sarah. I saw a pattern in a quilting magazine that I loved more than the quilt I had first chosen to make. Like with Hannah's quilt I had to have the material sent to me, this time from Adelaide. Quite by accident the material for both Sarah and Hannah quilt's is from the 'Max New' range of fabrics. I hope that Sarah (and Ruth) like this pattern and the material. I guess if they don't I'll just have to keep it for myself.