New Toy

I LOVE having a shop in my front room!! The other day I was visiting a local patchwork shop and spied an awesome hexagon quilt. It looked like it was very tricky to piece, but I was told it wasn't, if you used a 60 degree triangle ruler. So home to my catalogue's, to order some stock for the shop (well 5 for the shop, one for me!!) I got it in 2 sizes, 12" & 8". I am keeping a 12" for myself and I have listed the others. So now I have to RESIST starting something new. I have such a busy busy week, I cant see when I will get to the machine to work on the QAYG, but that is my next goal to get it FINISHED BEFORE I start something else! Lets see how I strong I am. LOL

BFN

Whoohoo!!

Thought you might like to see the whole thing, not wrapped around a person. LOL!! I am pleased with the result and I think Alanah is too.

So what next???...............Back to Summer Breeze that I started at quilt camp. I have layed it out on the table and am trying to get my head back into it, but am struggling a bit! It is hard when you have put a project down for a while, even just 2 weeks. Here is how it looks so far!

BFN Lynda

Done!!

Well the binding is done! Just need to trim up some loose threads then add a label and it is completely finished!! Fingers are a little sore, been a while since I did so much hand sewing on one day! It hasn't taken all day by the way. By the time we shopped at Knox till 1pm, then I listed some ebay items I didn't get to it till about 4pm. Then there was the cooking and eating of tea etc. I actually finished almost an hour ago but DH had to finish a war before I could access the PC to get the pic off the camera. So there she is, all snuggled up underneath!! Yippee, night night!!

Almost there.

Have turned the last corner and am on the home stretch. I am still in with a chance!!!

It is DONE!

I finished the other 1/2 this morning! Mainly as I rang to confirm my eye appointment to be told I had the date wrong and it is next Friday!!! (I think I was told the wrong date, but you cant argue with them after the fact, there is many reasons why I would not have made an appointment for the 18th!!!!!!) I have now also removed all the pins and am ready to trim it up and bind it, but that will have to wait till DD1 is out or sleeping in as teenagers do. Stay tuned for the next installment. BFN Lynda

PS todays pic is of some wall hangings I made for a good friends daughter for her 18th a few years back. I was really pleased with the way they came out!

Just a quickie!!

I had planned on quilting all day today but stuff got in the way. I felt obligated to do some housework & business stuff first, so subsequently I didn't sit down at the machine until 3pm. I still managed to get 1/2 the required quilting down, which has made me very happy. Will get some done first thing tomorrow, but then I have an eye test at 11am and the drops I need to have will prevent me from doing anything that requires vision for a couple of hours after. BFN Lynda

Progress

I am totally exhausted!! First day back at school for the kids so I Dropped DD2, and headed straight up to the church to borrow some space and some tables. It took about 4 hours getting it all basted. I finished just in time to head over to the lounge for bible study. Then back to the hall to pack up, sweep the floor etc. By the time I got home it was about 5pm. I wrapped one urgent ebay parcel so DH could bolt up the the post office with it and collect a box of stock that had arrived also. Then dinner. Then packing 16 MORE parcels 
for posting tomorrow!! Then putting the shopping away that DH had done at some point during the evening, then dishes, NOW BED!!! Oh and did I tell you I have a cold. Not fun! But it has been a productive day, and I am pleased with that. The quilt being all ready for quilting is BRILLIANT. I think I will be able to get to it on Thursday. I am a week ahead of schedule and cant quite believe it! I think I will need May to recover from April, it is shaping up to be a doozy!!  BFN Lynda

Look what came today!!

I have a little story to tell you, and I hope it wont BORE you to tears! LOL My eldest child is turning 18 in 27 days and for weeks I have been pondering over what to give her. Last Friday my sister and her kids were here, and she asked when I might be able to make quilts for her boys. ( I made them for her girls the christmas before last) That prompted a discussion about which of my children still needed quilts, and I had to confess that only 1 of the 4 had one. ( And she only got it this christmas just gone.!!!) Dont you just love light bulb moments, mine went like this. "Oh my goodness, I can make a quilt for Alanah for her birthday!!!" This is the thought I have with 33 days to go!!! Geeze, talk about dense!! Why had this not occured to me MONTHS ago I dont know! So.......I said to Alanah "Would you like a quilt for your birthday??" The answer was, and should I have doubted that it would be a firm YES! So now for a pattern. We looked at the Wave quilt pattern I bought the week before last. Lots of applique, but very simple applique that I would do by machine. OR she says there is this one in a magazine, she even still had the page marked. LUCKY!!!! It was an add for a shop, and the quilt is available in a KIT! Whoo Hoo, and even better it is Super Duper simple in construction and quilting. So I tracked down the phone number and on Saturday, rang the lovely Carolyn at Veronica Violet Stitcheries in Wangaratta. I ordered the kit and matching fabric for backing and explained my pressing situation. She promised to send it first thing Monday, which she obviously did as the kit arrive today! Now April was shaping up to be very busy for me anyways, and it just got a whole lot fuller! I plan to cut tomorrow and stitch on Thursday when the birthday girl is out of the house for the day. Even though she knows all about it, the plan is to see if I can hide it from her until her birthday. I will post pics as I am able, but for now, here is the fabric! The pattern is called "My Old-World Eiderdown", if you visit Carolyn's store you will find a picture there. BFN Lynda

Sigh, I didn't win!!!

But it was going to be a big ask. In the end Dana had over 1000 comments!! It was so exciting to be a part of such a huge event in blog land! I would still highly recommend popping over to the OLD RED BARN CO Blog & Store!! She has a fantastic range of hand made soaps and body care product.

Quilt Camp - Dont think I have told you about Quilt Camp. In April I am going to Autumn Quilt Camp. I am going with 2 of my besties, Nic and Nic. LOL ( I know, how funny is it!) T-bird was supposed to come too but she couldn't get the time off work! (BOO!!) Mrs Martin of Mrs Martins Quilt Shop is hosting us. (There is still room last I heard, give her a call and come along!) This is her 2nd quilt camp and there is another one this year in spring which I think is ALREADY booked out. So of course I need a project and here is what I am gathering!! These are the fabrics; I think all but two are from the Chelsea Boutique Range from Blackbird Designs.

These are not all of them yet, I have seven fat quarters coming from Karen at The Quilters & Embroiders Store in sunny Brisbane and a bundle of eight 1 yard pieces coming from the States. (Bought them on ebay, had to wake up at 6.30am to bid on the auction!!!) I got such a good bargain; It is costing me around $70 Aussie dollars (that includes shipping) to get approx. 7 metres of fabric, so about 1/2 price. The backing I picked up at Patchwork with Gail B. She has a sale on at the moment. Lots of bolt ends, I got mine with 5.5m on it for $38.40. So what am I making!! I am having a go at a QAYG!! (Which I have discovered means Quilt As You GO!!) I HOPE then to leave camp with a finished quilt!! Basting and Quilting is the thing I like doing the least, well the basting any ways. I might enjoy the quilting if my quilts were basted properly, but I ALWAYS get bored and rush it and then the quilting is not as I would hope!! So I send them off to the lovely katrina, but as she is about to give birth to her 3rd child I am on my own for a while. So QAYG it is......

The pattern is called Summer Breeze and I picked it up 

when I visited Mrs Martins with Nic on Wednesday. I am a little excited, and even though Camp is still a month away I have almost finished the prep work, it really has me itching to stitch it up. The photo really doesn't do the quilt justice, the sample is just lovely!! So that is where I am at, I will keep you posted as I count down the next 27 days to camp!!

BFN

Lynda

Someone IS reading!!!

I don't quite believe it! Gail thank you for bothering to stop by and for your comment!  It is such a detached process, I write and then wonder if someone will read, and even then having read once, will they come back. LOL

My fire sale fabric (FSF) is sitting there calling me but I must clean the fridge first ( part of my new years resolution, to do one yucky job around the house each day). Then I must also finish the bag in the picture. I am finding it very hard to stay focused with my FSF fabric just sitting there. I have promised myself I am not going back to Lily Patches until there is NO FSF fabric left. We will see how that goes. 

June is so amazing and so are her friends/customers. What she has given us over the years is coming back to her 100 fold. She is surrounded up there by sooo many people willing to share the practical burden of restoring her shop, and that has to make the emotional burden lighter too. Lily Patches will be back, bigger and better!!

Can you tell I am stalling..........dont want to clean the fridge. But all this stalling is doing is keeping me from my machine. SO better get too it!!

BFN

Lynda

Home is Where the Heart is

So we have seen the seen the first attempt. Jump forward to 1999, and I was looking for a different gift for a friend for her 30th birthday. A very quilty friend, Elizabeth, showed me a stack of craft magazines and said find something in there! I found a small wall hanging with a lovely stitched saying about friendship and some applique. I went to spotlight, to buy fabric, I mean where else do you buy fabric from?? With Elizabeth's guidance I machine pieced, then hand buttonhole stitched the applique, then hand quilted and then actually bound my first proper quilty type project. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of it and the girl I gave it to is not part of my circle anymore. I wonder if she still has it on her wall??


But I do have pic of my very next project, another wall hanging. This project was done with a craft group at a local church that Elizabeth helped run with a SCQuilter named Sally (who has now moved to Q'land somewhere) I owe these 2 ladies a lot in repect to really understanding patchwork and quilting. Before them I had never heard of 1/4" seam, or log cabins and they were responsible for taking me to my first patchwork shop.(The one that used to be in Tecoma, not the one that is currently there, don't remember what it was called.) This particular project was a great learning experience as it had a little bit of everything in it. It still hangs on the wall in the Rumpus Room. It is also the project that really "switched" the light on so to speak and turned me into a patchworker.

1st Quilt

So rising to the challenge of showing off my first quilt took a little longer than I thought it would. I went straight to the computer to look for pics, but of course this project is from the time of camera's WITH FILM!!! Man, that meant searching through piles of photos, which I had thankfully sorted about a year ago. (with the intention of starting to scapbook one day soon!) Not only did I find what I was looking for but a literal treasure trove of other projects. So this morning has been spent scanning and cropping and saving. And now I am ready to share.

As you can see it is a panel, purchased from spotlight I think. I pinned the very thick poly batting to the back of the panel and quilted around some of the larger shapes. Then I put the backing and the panel right sides together, stitched around leaving a hole, turned it through and slip stitched the opening closed. I really had no idea, but the job got done!! I made it in 1990 for my first child, and it was used in the cot for the following 3 also. Now there is very serious questions over it's ownership, LOL. They all sort of see it as theirs, which is nice I suppose. It wasnt a bad first effort, but it was almost another 10 years before I had another go.