Honey Bunch Quilting

Sew the Scraps

2011-12-15T20:08:00.001+13:00

A long while ago I was given some scrap fabric. Included in it were lots of pre-cut squares of various sizes. It took me ages to sort through all the scraps and I collected together all the squares of the same size. I started with the 1 1/2" cut squares and made this scrappy star quilt. The top sat around for ages and I finally got it quilted. No, it didn't use up all the squares and yes, I still have all the 2", the 2 1/2", the 3" the 3 1/2", the 4" and the 4 1/2" squares to go. I could be sewing for a while :-)

This quilt will be a donation quilt the next time our club does community quilts.

We went Retreating

2011-12-07T19:21:00.001+13:00

I didn't get around to posting about our annual retreat at Parklee earlier this year. We go for the last weekend in September and this year it was during the rugby world cup. On Saturday evening the sewing room was mostly deserted for the duration of the game. Let it be known that I am not a rugby fan and I was not going to waste valuable sewing time for sitting in front of the TV. Carey, Donna, Frances and I stayed true to the quilting calling and listened to the radio commentary while we stitched.Well it proved to be a very entertaining experience after a fab roast dinner washed down with a glass of wine or two, especially when the commentators were talking about heads being stuck between other players thighs!

Score!

2011-12-04T10:23:00.001+13:00

Yesterday we had our last club meeting for the year. It was a great day with everyone chatting away, and having a great time. There was lots of show and tell and we finished the afternoon with a very yummy afternoon tea, strawberries, meringues and whipped cream and lots of other goodies that everyone brought to share.

Joy presented me with a bag of threads and asked if I could use them. She was having a clear out. They are mostly rayons and mostly are multi-coloured. That suit me just fine as I will use them on my crumb quilts. I love how they are reflected in the table top. Could be a quilt idea there :-)

A Trio of Baby Quilts

2011-11-20T10:44:00.001+13:00

At the beginning of this year my very good friend Claire and her husband Terry volunteered to paint the cladding on my house - wow, a fantastic offer which, of course, I accepted with alacrity. They refused to take any recompense for their efforts so when Claire told me they were expecting their very first grandchild I offered to make them a baby quilt. Claire's late Mum was a quilter and had made a quilt for each of her existing grandchildren so I knew the offer would be appreciated.

Claire told me they expectant parents were hoping for a boy so I started making a quilt using some of the patterns from the book "A Boy's Story" by Anni Downs. While that quilt was in progress Claire announced that another grandchild was in production (not twins, one daughter and one daughter in law). So I started on a girl's quilt using some printed fabric I have had for ages, on the assumption that it is more likely one might be a boy and the other a girl. Then Claire announce she thought they were both having girls - no scans mind you, just the gut feeling of the parents involved. Thus a third quilt was started, another for a girl adapted from a pattern publish in American Patchwork and Quilting's magazine Quilts and More.

I had plenty of time to make these quilts as the babies were not due until December and January and I finished both the girl's quilts. Then Claire told me the first grandchild had been born early and was a boy! Back to finishing the boy's quilt, which is why I have made a trio of baby quilts.Let's hope the January baby is a girl. Claire says she is fairly sure it is. I will let her choose which of the girl's quilts she wants. The first is called "A Bit of a Boy's Story", the second is "Little People" and the third is "Woven Marshmallow"

Thanks, Leah

2011-10-11T08:59:00.003+13:00

The following post was supposed to appear last week, but blogger had a hissy fit and wouldn't let me load the picture. So here it is, finally!

I had a busy weekend and didn't get round to clearing my emaill until today. The following was in my inbox:

Congratulations! I'm so excited to announce that you are a winner of the 9 by 12
Transformation Challenge!

Make sure to check out the Free Motion Quilting Project tomorrow (Sept 30th) to see your
quilt and description posted online, as well as news about a special package you can expect
in the mail in the next 2-3 weeks.

I hope you've enjoyed participating in this contest and I'm so happy to now include your quilt
in the Transformation Show Quilt that I will construct this fall and winter. You really have
helped to make this contest a wonderful success and I sincerely thank you for entering and
participating!

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day

Wow! Thanks, Leah :-)

Crumbs, It's a Quilt!

2011-09-22T21:29:00.002+12:00

I've been thinking about how to reduce my vast collection of scrap fabrics so I have been working on some scrap quilts. This is the first I have finished. It is made from crumb blocks and I have made so many of these I have another top pieced in exactly the same way ready to add borders to, and enough blocks for a third top. As you may guess, the stack of scraps doesn't look any smaller.

I had a terrible time quilting this. I used some cheaper thread on my Pffaf and it didn't like it at all. I got very cross at all the shredding that was going on. I stopped and re-threaded so many times I lost count. I tried everything, new needle, re-threading, change tension, clean the machine. It just didn't like it. The same thread worked fine on my Elna, which is okay but the Elna has a small throat space and that's why I bought the Pffaf. The good news is that the cause is probably a burr in the hook. The bad news is the cost of freight to get it fixed. The good news is that I quilted another quilt after this one with some Madeira Polyneon thread using the Pffaf and I didn't have one breakage. So I guess it is quality thread for the quality machine!

The quilt is actually a bit darker than the photo suggests. The flash has washed it out a bit. I'm calling it "Broken Glass" I guess the others will be called Broken Glass II and III. Do you think this what they mean by 'working in a series'?

The Ribbon

2011-09-12T20:42:00.000+12:00

After hearing of my prize win I decided I needed to travel to Hamilton to collect it in person and, of course, view the other quilts on show. They were of a very high standard and I am pleased to be in good company. Congratulations to all the other prize winners and to all those who had quilts selected. Heart-felt thanks also go to the AQNANZ (Aotearoa Quilters National Association of New Zealand) committee who all worked very hard to mount a great looking exhibition despite noen of them being resident in Hamilton.Thank you also to Anne Scott of New Zealand Quilter for the very generous prize book voucher to use in the Minerva bookshop. I am planning a trip to Wellington soon! My quilt looks great on a black background, don't you think?

Quilts Aotearoa was part of the Hamilton Craft and Quilt Show run by Expertise Events. We arrived about 15 minutes after the opening time on Saturday morning and there was only a small, fast moving, queue for tickets. I headed straight for the quilts (of course!) and there was hardly anybody looking at them at that time. It made it easy to really study the quilts and get photos. The crowds did grow later in the day but I am sure the $14 entry fee was a bit of a discouragement for some people.

Along with the quilt exhibition there was a fantastic Creative Fibre exhibition. This shawl made me want to get out my long unused knitting sticks. It was made by Pamela Strode of Te Awamutu and she spun the wool and knitted the shawl. It won Most Outstanding entry using more than 70 % merino. If it hadn't already sold I would have been very tempted to buy it myself. I guess I'll have to hunt out those sticks :-)

Exciting News

2011-09-08T09:32:00.000+12:00

I've just had a call to tell me my quilt "Urban Stripe" has won Best Use of Colour at Quilts Aotearoa in Hamilton. Yippee!. This quilt was made for my son, Jacob, who has generously allowed me to 'keep' it for a while. It was exhibited at Symposium in Queenstown and was recently published as a pattern in the NZ Quilter magazine. I have a big smile on my face :-)

Well, this is a nice surprise :-)

2011-08-22T19:40:00.004+12:00

Earlier in the year, spurred on by my friend Jo, I made this little quilt to enter The 9 by 12 Transformation Challenge on Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project blog. I was thrilled today to find I am one of the finalists of the competition and my little quilt (more pictures of the construction here) will be winging its way all the way to NC in USA.

I noticed that there are at least 2 other finalists from New Zealand (unfortunately, not all the links on The Transformation page are working) Congratulations to Rona Keith (from Auckland, I think) and Erilyn from the Manawatu and to all the other finalists, where ever you are.

Update: Congratulations also go to Catherine Parkinson from Auckland. Wow, Catherine has an awesome blog.

Treasures From Afar

2011-08-11T23:04:00.001+12:00

I have a new homestay student, recently arrived from Germany. His mother sent me a wonderful gift parcel and look what is in it:

10 sweet pieces of fabric sourced in Germany, a retractable measuring tape key ring, a very dinky pincushion with attached scissors (I love it - the point of the scissors slides into the flap on the pincushion) and a card with a photo of some beautiful windows - great quilt inspiration. I also got a lovely book with photos of Hamburg. The fabrics are tied with the cutest ribbons. Thank you, Amke.

That Was Quick!

2011-06-08T21:40:00.000+12:00

The Sunday before last I had a baby shower to attend. As usual I left it very late to start a quilt but on the Thursday evening I started this quilt and I finished sewing the binding on in the early hours of Sunday morning. I think that is a record for me (well it was a fairly simple construction, inspired by this quilt). The parents to be were thrilled to bits. I used some lovely flannel fabrics I had stashed away.

The 9 by 12 Transformation Challenge

2011-04-16T23:49:00.006+12:00

My friend Jo encouraged me to join in on this on-line challenge being run by Leah Day of 365 Days of Free-motion Quilting blog. I think the blog has now been re-named as The Free Motion Quilting Project. The challenge is to make a small quilt (9" by 12") using a minimum of 5 of Leah's designs from the project, using the theme "Transformation".

I chose to use Radio Static, Chain of Pearls, Matrix Flow, Bed of Roses and Bubble Wand. Let me tell you I found it quite a challenge to get that many different designs into such a small space and still have them look recognizable.

I decided to combine the quilting I wanted to use with the Darned Quilts technique I learned in Dena Crain's class at Wellington Symposium.
These are the fabrics I chose:

I curvy strip pieced them:

Then I quilted the whole piece:

This is what the back looks like so you can see clearly the quilting designs I used:

Closeups of the back:
In the first from the bottom up I have used Bubble Wand, a square meander, Matrix Flow, a mini Greek key and Radio Static

This next one shows, from bottom up, Bed of Roses, Chain of Pearls and some straight lines:

Continuing from the bottom up I then used a flower motif that was printed on the fabric, a leaf design I made up myself and I finished with Matrix at the top:

Here are some closeups of the front:
This section has Chain of Pearls, Bed of Roses and Radio Static

This has Matrix and the leaf I designed myself

These ones are not Leah's designs. The flowers were just outlining the print of the fabric and on the stripe fabric I chose to do straight lines in the opposite direction

And what does the finished quilt look like?

It is called "Changes"

Our Local Exhibition

2011-03-23T21:54:00.002+13:00

We had our local exhibition last weekend. I am feeling a bit 'pooped' and would love a sleep in. Roll on Saturday! For me it was a very successful weekend. I sold 3 quilts, two of them bed-sized:

The first one is called "A Mellow Tone". I won 12 fat quarters in the club raffle last year and, although they weren't really my colours, decided to make a quilt with them. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the finished quilt. Here is is layered ready for quilting:

The second bed quilt I sold is called 'Whizzbang 2'. This was adapted from a pattern by Deanna Harris. I made it using my own hand dyed fabrics, the only fabric dying I have ever done. I quilted it all over with a greek key pattern which varied greatly in size as I progressed!

The third quilt I sold was the wall hanging I started in my last Symposium class with Dena Crain. I called it 'A Passionate Space'. This is the second quilt I have sold that was made using Dena's "darned quilts' technique.

The nicest thing that happened was winning Judge's Choice for 'Poetry in Motion'. I made this quilt for Wellington Symposium. It didn't win any ribbons there but was hung beautifully. It was also accepted for the NANZQ show at the Hamilton Craft Fair in 2009. Here it is hanging in our club exhibition with its ribbon

Acceptances

2011-02-28T22:21:00.000+13:00

I got home from work today to find 3 envelopes from the Queenstown Symposium committee. All 3 were acceptances for the quilts I entered for exhibition. Yippee! These are the 3 quilts I have entered. I have posted about the first before, but the other 2 have been hiding!

Leftover Tabasco Sauce

Urban Stripe

A Remarkable Impression

Remember this?

2011-01-24T10:38:00.000+13:00

This quilt top had been hanging around for a long time. I had tried quilting it 3 times only to end up with puckering. We had a Chris Kenna workshop at our club last year and I was talking with her about the problem I was having. She suggested grid-basting it with soluble thread. So I did and it worked a treat. I was able to free-motion the whole thing with no puckering at all. It is weird, though how it looks so rippled when only parts of it are quilted. It is not until the quilting is finished that it lies flat. It is now called Left Over Tabasco Sauce

Here is a a close-up of the quilting:

I haven't been totally Idle . . .

2011-01-21T18:07:00.000+13:00

I haven't really been totally idle over the 6 months since I last blogged. Really!

I had a lovely quilting time at my friend, Lorraine's place last weekend. I sewed a few crumb blocks together into this top and spent the rest of the time making more!

I love to sew crumb blocks when my brain won't cope with anything more demanding. I don't worry about matching or exact 1/4" seams or which way seams get pressed. I just sew. I find it really soothing and it usually warms me up to go onto something more demanding. This top, when it has had an accent border and a final border on it, is destined to become a community quilt. Pretty busy quilt top, eh?

A Memory of NZ

2010-07-26T21:04:00.000+12:00

During the holidays one of my home stay boys returned home to Germany. He had been with me for six months and had been a real joy to have. Very outgoing and good company. He wanted something quilted to take home so, while he was on a 3 day holiday in Auckland before he left NZ, I made him this:

Needless to say he was visiting the sky tower on the day I made the quilt. It is from Gail Lawther's book "Glimpses of New Zealand". I bought this book when it first came out but this is the first time I have made anything from it. I started at 4 am (sleepless night in the middle of the holidays!!) drawing the pattern to full size. Then I went back to bed for a bit more shut-eye. I got up at about 8.30am, selected fabrics and started sewing it. It was finished and the binding was on, ready for hand stitching down, by 10pm that night! That is a pretty quick quilt - but I admit I had 3 days to myself so there was boiled eggs and toast soldiers for dinner that night.Altogether a perfect quilting day.

I highly recommend Gail's book. Apart from the subject matter, of which I am undoubtedly biased, the book is a sampler of many different quilting techniques in a manageable format. It would make a great series of tutorials for a group of newish quilters looking to learn non traditional techniques.

Press and Seal

2010-07-15T20:31:00.000+12:00

Hi
Long time, no blog, no real excuse except life has been really busy.

I had a lovely 'day in the country' sewing day with Janice yesterday. I took along "Tabasco Sauce", the top I made oh, was it a couple of years ago?, from the left-over blocks I made for the Cotton On Quilters Banner Janice and I made for our Club. I finally got around to basting it up and was trying to decide how to quilt it. Janice recommended using Press and Seal to cover the quilt. I could then draw all over the Press and Seal to get an idea of how I want to section the quilting:

This is a way cool idea to audition quilting designs. Janice says NOT to sew through the Press and Seal. She says to just cut it apart to reveal the section to be worked on. Here are some close-ups:

Janice also gave me a quick lesson on zentangle quilting and here is her quick plan for quilting "Tabasco Sauce":

Now I am too late!

2010-02-27T21:56:00.001+13:00

You may remember I blogged a wee while ago how I went to Stratford to see the National Association of New Zealand Quilters Illumination exhibition. This weekend was the first chance in February to get to see it. According to the literature it was on until 28 Feb. Alas the exhibition was taken down 3 days ago. Fortunately (I guess) I had telephoned the gallery to see if it was still on and they gave me the news that I had just missed it. Oh well, never mind.

I did still go through Stratford today because I had already decided to take my German international home stay student, along with 3 of his friends to New Plymouth (the idea was I would stop at the gallery on the way there - we stopped in Hawera instead for an ice cream). We were going to visit a buthers shop we had heard about that sold German sausages. Alas, that shop had closed suddenly just before Christmas.

We weren't going to let that get us down either. The weather was perfect and the place was abuzz with the theme of Americana, classic cars and the Cliff Richards concert. I visited my friend Judy along with the fabric shops and the New Plymouth library. The kids went clothes shopping and loved it, way better than Wanganui according to them. They instantly demanded I rent a house so they could live there :-) Yeah, right!

On the way back I had a good laugh as we passed a farm whose cows had very recently wandered to the milking shed which was close to the road, and another farm making sileage. The kids all pulled their tee shirts over their noses. Good rural smells I told them.

Off it goes - without the label!

2010-02-16T21:07:00.001+13:00

I did finish quilting this quilt a couple of weeks ago but since school started I have had little time to sit at the computer to make a post (well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). He, of Honey Bunch fame, moved on Sunday to his new flat for his second year at Uni.This quilt was supposed to be finished a whole year ago, ready fall the Halls of Residence. Well, only a year late. At least I got it done for the new flat:-)
It is called 'City Slicker'

The only trouble was I forgot to sew a label on it and when I remembered I ran out of time.I hope he looks after it!

The colour above isn't quite true. This close up of the quilting is better:

I must have been on holiday for too long!

2010-01-24T21:37:00.005+13:00

Yesterday I took Frances to Stratford to see the NANZQ Illumination Quilts exhibition in the Percy Thompson Gallery. You may remember I had a this quilt accepted into this touring exhibition and it has sold.
We had a nice stop in Hawera where we visited the Cinnamon Lodge quilt shop (hope I got the name right) where I found some delicious fabric that just had to come home with me. We had a lovely morning tea at the Little Grans cafe that was open. Well I had coffee of course, and so did Frances so I guess it was morning coffee, not morning tea. I spied some lovely home-made looking custard squares and was ready to put one on my plate when I glanced along the cabinet and saw they also had Eccles cakes. What does a girl choose when there are two old fashioned favourites vying for her attention?*

Why have I been on holiday for too long? Because when we got to the gallery in Stratford there were no quilts! The gallery assistant didn't know anything about any quilts. Huh? I must have got it wrong. Off I go to find a magazine shop so I can check the entry in NZ Quilter. The exhibition doesn't start until 29 January. Well doh, I know it is January but I have no idea what the actual date is, I'm on holiday!

I'm not sure why the gallery assistant didn't know the exhibition is starting in a week's time. I will have to phone the gallery to check that it is actually going to be on.

To save a bit on the disappointed feeling we found the shop in Stratford which sells quilting fabric, quite a bit of it. I didn't know Stratford had a quilt shop. It is called In Stitches. Well, they sell other sewing supplies as well but they had a good selection of fabric and I got some great bargain priced fat quarters and some lovely paisley fabric in a dark green and red with caramel combination. Maudette, the owner, was very friendly and helpful, especially considering we were there right at closing time and stayed for about half and hour or so!

*She gets both and eats half of each one so that she can take the other half of each cake for a picnic lunch at school the next day, where she is going to start preparing for the new school year. By the way, what ever happened to Battenburg cake, no one makes that old fashioned cake any more do they?

My New Best Friend

2010-01-18T09:58:00.006+13:00

Hello, My name is Helen and I am a Blogger. It has been 36 days since my last blog . . . Oh dear, I think I should rename myself as the Monthly Blogger!

During the summer holidays I have been having a nice and relaxed time. I have been spring cleaning and sewing and quilting and spring cleaning and moving furniture around and spring cleaning and sorting the stash and cleaning and tidying and cleaning and . . . you get the picture.

Anyway, I wanted to show you my new best friend (which I have had since May of last year but have only just got around to blog about) and it is my new Sew Ezi table. These little tables are just fantastic and I wish I had bought one years ago. I had seen them at the first Hamilton Quilt and Craft Fair but didn't think they looked all that sturdy and the price seemed expensive for a small table. Was I wrong? Way wrong!

You have to understand that I have an Elna 6005 which does not come with any kind of flat bed, just a little box that slips over the free- arm which holds attachments for the machine. For most purposes this is okay, except not for quilting. It is definitely not a flat surface. At Wellington Symposium last year I was in Gloria Loughman's class and she was using one. To see it being used as opposed to just looking at it convinced me to get one. Using the Symposium Special I got my Sew Ezi table with a free accessory tray.

Let me tell you it has been a life-defining moment sewing with this table. Now that I have my machine flush with the table the quilting is so much easier, and no, the table does not rock. It is very sturdy, very portable and worth every penny. It has even made piecing so much easier having more room at the sewing level. I love the clear perspex insert and I have put the accessories I use most often into a little box which sits underneath the insert. Because I can see it I am not loosing the quarter inch foot, the free motion foot, the walking foot or the screw driver (most important, that bit.) The little circular indent on the front right hand side holds a glass of wine perfectly (vbg) There is plenty of room underneath for my legs and feet and I can sit directly in front of the needle. You couldn't give me a Horn cabinet now if you tried (well, hang on a minute, I might have to think that one through.) But seriously, these tables are so great I bought my friend Frances one for Christmas. She had bought me my Featherweight machine and I thought a substantial gift in return seemed appropriate at some stage.

UPDATE: I forgot to say that the price compares very favourably with any Horn cabinet I have seen advertised, about a quarter of the price There are no doors to get in the way when hefting a quilt around and the table is light and easy to move if I need to pull it out to get to the stuff that is stored in underneath.

Here is my machine nestled in its new home. Look how much flat surface I have:
You know the best thing I like about this table? See the hole which is the carry handle on the left hand side? It is the perfect distance, an arm's length away, for dropping cut-off threads into*. So I put a plastic bucket underneath to catch the threads. Now I have a lot less mess to clean up.

In the next picture I'm quilting a quilt for my son to take flatting next month. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week. You can see the yellow bucket underneath. Way to go!

* these threads are called 'orts' according the Southern Cross Quilters Yahoo group postings, a word I have never heard of. So I looked it up in my trusty old Concise Oxford Dictionary. The word ort, usually used in the plural orts, means refuse or scraps or leavings and dates back to the 15th century. You learn something new every day.

Twins!

2009-12-13T13:10:00.003+13:00

My friend Ruth turned up the other night with this little baby (on the left) which is exactly like my little baby (on the right). We think they are the exact same model since both have the light switch in the exact same position and both have the Singer 50th commemoration plaque on the front. The code number on the bottom starts with different letter though. Ruth hadn't had time to search on the net for the year of her machine. Of my Friday night group 5 of us now have these little Featherweights. We shall have to have a light-as-air sew-in!

A sight for sore (quilting) eyes

2009-11-22T20:11:00.004+13:00

I have not been on my computer in over a week to even read blogs, let alone make a post myself. School has been incredibly busy with 3 prize-givings in 2 days and junior exams (which I am still marking the tail end of - darn, still need to finish them before tomorrow!) Then I have to have my junior reports done by Wednesday and I had a bit of the 'lurgy' for a few days as well. I had to cancel my Friday night group, something I haven't done since we started it years ago. Needless to say I haven't touched the sewing machine either. To cheer myself up I am posting a photo from our Mystery Bus Trip which I am sure you will enjoy as much as I did.
This was the fence outside Griet Lombard's new home when we arrived (and I humbly apologise for incorrectly spelling her name in previous posts) and isn't that a sight to gladden the heart of any quilter?? What a fantastic welcome. I wonder what the neighbours were thinking (garage sale perhaps :-) or did Griet warn them, I wonder)?

It is interesting to see the sun was shining because about 20 minutes after we arrived the heavens opened and the rain pelted down. I was pleased to see Griet's husband Willem (I think I've got the spelling correct) had taken the quilts in before they got wet:-)

PS: Thanks to Judy for the photo and Griet for permission to post it

A bit of a brag

2009-10-28T21:59:00.004+13:00

I had a lovely surprise yesterday when I checked my emails. The quilt I had accepted for the NANZQ Illumination Challenge has sold at the gallery in Whangarei. I won't get the dosh until June of next year, but somehow that is secondary to the delight in knowing that someone values my work.
Thanks to all in NANZQ who work so hard to give us challenges to work towards.

Quilty Weekends

2009-10-25T20:24:00.007+13:00

I have had two really great quilty weekends in a row. Last weekend was our club's mystery bus trip and this time I wasn't the organiser. So I got to sit back and enjoy (well, 'sit back' probably isn't quite the most accurate description since I was driving one of the mini buses and it was a manual gear change and the ladies started counting how many bunny hops I did!) The day was fantastic and the highlight was visiting Greit Lombard. She made us feel very welcome and gave us THE best afternoon tea. Thank you Greit, your generosity was awesome!

I didn't take my camera on the bus trip so I have no piccies - darn!

Today I visited the Taranaki P&Q annual show. I loved Sharon Duthie's quilt "Inner Peace Evolving to Chaotic Existence" which won first prize in the 'Log Cabin with a Twist (wall hanging section) challenge. It was beautifully, beautifully hand quilted. Here is a detail shot:
I thought is was a well-deserved winner. And, yes, I did remember my camera this time.

Back to the more mundane things. I have finally finished this scrappy strip pieced quilt which I started a couple of years ago. I am calling it God's Eye because it reminds me of the "woven on two sticks with any scraps of wool we could find" God's Eye's we used to make as children. I think they are American Indian in origin (but don't quote me. I've been known to be wrong before, vbg!)
Only a million more scraps to use up :-)

Still Back Blogging!

2009-10-18T19:49:00.003+13:00

Here I am, blogging again - two posts in three days! Can I keep it up?
Hmmm . . .
Anyway, the club raffle quilt top is now finished (yeah!) and is ready to be sent away to the quilter. I am so glad I don't have to do that job :-)
I think this quilt will look great on someone's bed. I hope everyone we ask to buy a ticket does too.

It was our Mystery Bus Trip yesterday and we had a fantastic time. I'll post about it next time. Unfortunately yours truly forgot her camera so I am going to have to beg some photos from someone else, otherwise there will not be much eye candy.

Cheers!

Back to Blogging !!

2009-10-15T19:52:00.003+13:00

Well, I have been a really hopeless blogger this year. My visitor stats have gone way down, as can only be expected when I don't blog for 6 weeks! I have actually been quilting and have a few things to show you but I will drip feed them otherwise it will be another 6 weeks before the next post.

I have just finished two weeks of school holiday and since the weather was horrible nearly the whole time it has been a perfect opportunity to quilt. I used the first week to cut pieces for Cotton On Quilters next raffle quilt. It is a design from an Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine Vol 16 #8, called Westward Ho! It was designed by Frances Leate. We emailed her to ask permission to use her design, which she willingly gave and it is a good thing she did because she alerted us to the fact that the templates for the design in the magazine had been reproduced at the wrong size. I'm not criticising the magazine at all. It is a huge task to publish patterns in a magazine and even when you think you've got it right it the gremlins can take over while you are not looking.

I organised the cut pieces into bags for people to sew into blocks and we made very good progress. The first picture is of the borders in progress:
And this is the body of the quilt:
We changed the centre block from the original design because we thought it had too much white space and it was an Ohio star, rather than a 54-40 or Fight star. We like the result. I have now put the borders on and I just need to put up my big design wall so I can take a decent photo of it. We will then send it away to be quilted. It is so good to have this done so far in advance of our next exhibition which is not until March 2011. I'm not working to such a tight deadline this time :-)

At least it wasn't a finger. . .

2009-08-31T20:48:00.004+12:00

You know how they say to be very, very careful when wielding the rotary cutter? (Don't worry - remember what the title of this post is.) Well, I was busy on Saturday night cutting strips for a quilt I am going to be making at our up-coming retreat at the end of the month (yippee, it will be the first weekend of the school holidays - what a great way to start them). I layered up the fabric to cut 2 fabrics at once. When cutting strips it is oh, so, easy to get the ruler not lined up quite correctly, like this:
It's a bit hard to see what is wrong so here is a close-up:
Now can you see? I'm 3 1/2" on one end of the ruler and 3 1/4" on the other end. Blast! I need an extra strip. So I cut one, without checking what was going on at the other end of the fabric. When I flipped back the top fabric this is what I had oh, so, cleverly done:
The perfect 'V' cut!
As my friend Frances said "at least it wasn't your finger". No, it wasn't :-)

But I did manage to take the top off the knuckle off my index finger when closing a door at school today. Ouch!

Frustration!

2009-08-29T22:02:00.006+12:00

I know different quilt show clubs/venues/organisations have a different variety of quilt stands available to use, but this is really frustrating. The first set of instructions are for attaching velcro to the back of the quilt for Symposium earlier this year.

You probably can't read the words but it says the soft side of the velcro is sewn to the hanging sleeve of the quilt and the hook side is pressed to that. That was quite easy. The soft side of velcro on the back of my quilt wasn't too hard to sew.

The next set of instructions are for Quilt Aotearoa which is being held in Hamilton in a couple of weeks time.

Notice the difference?

Yep, I had to remove the hanging sleeve from my quilt, remove the soft-sided velcro, remove the name label from the hook side of the velcro, sew the hook side onto the hanging sleeve, sew the hanging sleeve back to the quilt and sew the name label back onto the soft side of the velcro. Let me tell you, hand stitching a hanging sleeve onto the back of a 2.2 metre wide quilt with the hook side of velcro sewn onto it is no fun at all! The thread kept snagging on the hooks of the velcro and I kept cursing :-)

Still, I got it done and sent the quilt off. I just have to wait to see if it has been accepted.

It's a finish!

2009-08-15T21:53:00.003+12:00

Yes, I finished a quilt.

No, it's not the Ugly, Ugly one. (But maybe this quilt might be in the running to win the Ugly, Ugly prize??)

This is a quilt for a 7 year boy called Brian who likes sport. I don't know Brian but I hope he likes the quilt he is going to receive. Our community quilts project this year is to make quilts for children who are under the care of the Open Home Foundation. They provide respite foster care for children at risk. We were given a list of first names, ages and interests from which we could choose someone to make a quilt for. I really like this idea of making it more personal.
The name of the quilt is "Golf Plaid Here". The green fabric is a print of golfing motifs. Sporting themed fabric (indeed, any 'boys' fabric) is a bit hard to come by. I found the golf fabric in one of our local shops. I had probably been there for a while because it was very reasonably priced t under $20 per metre. There was just enough left on the bolt for this single bed sized quilt. I drew up the woven stripe pattern and it was pieced with partial seams. It took a while to figure out how to put it together with the least mucking around and the most chain piecing, but once I had it worked out I got the top done in 2 sewing sessions. I can't say I love it I don't like that particular shade of red) but I trust Brian will like it enough to cuddle up in it.

Ugly, Ugly?

2009-08-11T20:26:00.004+12:00

Do you ever find yourself making a quilt which seemed a good idea at the time, but when you get nearly all the way through you decide it is the most hideous thing you have ever seen? I was trying to come up with a relatively simple design for a beginner quilt using just half square triangles and a minimum amount of cutting. I came up with this:

Now, the maths of this really appealed to me. 8 fabrics of 1/2 metre each in a 'rainbow' effect. With an extra metre to do the extra strips at the top and bottom, making a total of 5 metres of fabric. Cutting was easy, with 8 triangles from a width-of-fabric strip. Piecing was easy, big triangles, not too many pieces. No border, just needs a binding after quilting. Comes out at single bed size - great size to make. Easy to quilt if you do zig zag lines. Simple huh? So simple I cut another one out of floral fabrics before I pieced this one together.

So why do I hate it? It is very bright, much brighter than this picture shows. It probably looks better on a bed than it does in the vertical plane. But it is just not 'doing it' for me. It has been hanging around my sewing area half quilted and I just can't get enthused to do any more. Mind you I am free motion quilting it fairly densely. I am considering it quilting practice. I'm doing different free-motion pattern in each of the colours. I will get there in the end. The floral one is still languishing in pieces, aaarrgh!

Great Tutorial

2009-08-02T20:56:00.002+12:00

No picture today, but at least it is a post! I want to recommend you visit my friend, Janice's blog. She has just posted a great tutorial explaining how to make an original quilt from a photo. The thing is, I could have been watching the tutorial for real because Janice and Frances have just completed a 3 part Techniques Training at Cotton On Quilters yesterday (and for June and July) but I chose to sew instead of watching, how dumb is that? The thing I am excited about, though, is the use that Janice makes of Press and Seal. Brilliant! Check it out You will need to read some text, but it comes with pictures :-)

Yep, It's August Already!

2009-08-01T23:30:00.003+12:00

Totally, totally slack I have been. Three months since making a post. I won't be surprised if there is no one still looking out for me, but I'm going to give it another go to stay connected to the virtual quilting world. I have just spent the last 3-4 hours updating the Cotton On Quilters blog with 3 month's worth of Show & Tell, so take a hike over there if you are in the mood for a quilt show.

I have actually been doing some quilting. My friend Rosie from school discovered at the beginning of the year she was pregnant. Remember the "I'd rather be 40 than pregnant" coffee mugs that used to be around a few years ago? Rosie is proof that the pill does not always work. Rosie and her husband have 2 children already. Daughter, aged 15, was highly disgusted when told the news and had to ask Dad if he knew about the 'birds and the bees'. I think there was also some discussion about 'the snip' :-) Never mind, the baby arrived on Wednesday. I haven't met her yet but her name is Kaylee Grace and I made this quick quilt for her:

Selected!

2009-05-07T22:19:00.006+12:00

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks but I have been busy sewing. After taking Dena Crain's Darned Quilts class at Symposium I decided to try the technique again, this time with a different shape. The motivation was a very quickly arriving closing date (2 weeks!) for the National Association of New Zealand Quilters Illumination Challenge. Well, I do work well to deadlines :-)

My inspiration for my Illumination Challenge quilt was the prologue to John's Gospel which talks about the light shining in the darkness and darkness has never put it out.

I started with this free-curve pieced background:
Then I added embellishments and decorative stitching:
I cut flame shapes and ended up with this (sorry, the colour in this photo is a little bleached):
It has been selected to tour as one of 20 quilts. I will find out after 6 June if it has won a prize. All quilts in this collection have to be for sale, so you never know, even if I don't get a ribbon someone might buy it. Wouldn't that be nice?

Symposium classes

2009-04-20T19:25:00.003+12:00

Now I have recovered from a full-on week at Symposium (well, not fully recovered - I still have some things to unpack from my bag - at least all the washing is now up to date) I thought I would show you the results of the two classes I did. The first is the 2 day Layer By Layer Landscape class with Gloria Loughman. Instead of doing one of the patterns she provided I decided to draw up my own design based on what I could see out of the window of the cricket pavilion at Wellington Girls College. With windows all along the front it was an excellent place to sew. I took the class because I thought I would be doing a more abstract landscape, like Gloria's class samples. I am no artist so it was with some surprise I found myself sketching out an 'original' design!
I didn't get as far as other students and there is still quite a bit of work to do to get it finished. There are 5 sections to this small quilt and I pinned them together so I could hang it up for the other students to see. The big blank space in front of the 3 town houses need some greenery and there is still a tree to put in and the Mt Victoria tower to add in the sky line piece. Gloria is an excellent teacher and I enjoyed the fact that there were a variety of techniques we could use to put in a 'layer'. The houses look like they are on a bit of a lean - windy Wellington :-) Actually the weather was great for the whole week, only one slightly yukky day.

The second class I did was also 2 days, with Dena Crain, called 'Darned Quilts'. The technique involved curve-piecing a graduated background, adding embellishments and then cutting shapes (circles were the easiest to start with) out and swapping them around and re-stitching them back in. Very interesting and a great way to try out all those fancy stitches on the machine that I normally never use.
I think I'll call this one 'Sunrise, Sunset'. It just needs basting up, quilting and binding. It will measure about 53 cm wide by 74 cm high (21" by 29"). I wonder if I can finish this one before the end of the holidays?

In the Exhibition

2009-04-16T20:05:00.005+12:00

My quilt, Poetry in Motion, did not win any ribbons (boo hoo), but it was very well hung at the exhibition, facing the entrance to the main part of the Academy of Fine Arts. I don't think I posted a photo of the finished quilt so here it is:
Some people liked it enough to take pictures of it :-)
And some very nice comments made by people visiting the exhibition were overheard by my 'spies'. So I shall have to be content with that, and the fact that it was accepted in the first place.

Apparently, so I am told, Quilt Wellington 2009 is the first quilt show any where in the world to require only original designs or designs that no one else has any copyright claim to. So is this where I stake my claim to the design of this quilt, the block, block sashing and border design, and the right to vary the centre design of the block in any way I see fit, since any variation in the centre of the block will not, in the opinion of the judges, create a new original design?

Best in Show was Petone Hospital Blanket by Katherine Morrison:

Back to the Stash

2009-04-01T22:08:00.003+13:00

I wasn't sure about my selection of fabrics for Dena Crain's class at Symposium so I emailed her, asking if she could take a quick look at my blog post to see if the choices I made would work. She replied promptly with some very good advice and suggestions. In fact my email prompted her to add some images of fabric graduations (gradations as they say in the USA) so I'm glad I asked. Here is part of her reply:

Your printed gradation is fine, but not for this class. Save it for future Darned Quilt projects, ok? I really want you to assemble your own gradation. It's a good exercise in color and value, as I think you will realize once you've seen my blog page and the WebFabrics page.

As for your collection of gradated fabrics, compare it with what you see that I have posted. Look, Helen, for higher contrast in the gradation. Without that contrast, the Darned Quilt won't work very well.

The way to test contrast is to place the fabrics from each end of the gradation next to each other. If the difference between them is low, as it is in your posted set, then your Darned Quilt will be less successful than it should be. Make sure your gradation covers a lot of territory from one end to the other, and you will be a happier Darned Quilter!

The internet is so wonderful for things like this. How did we manage 'before sliced bread'?

You can see what the class is about and the examples of the fabric graduations here. You can also see more graduated collections of fabric on the WebFabrics page. I've pulled more fabrics from my stash and put others away. I'm going to think on it overnight. I keep wanting to pull 20 fabrics when I am supposed to have only 6-8. This is a bit of a challenge for me. I guess I can take 20 and then make a final choice on the day. The trouble with taking classes is that I want my whole stash with me!

I also see on her blog page about this class that I need a "Good selection of cords, ribbons, laces, trims, yarns, 6-10 yards of each, and decorative threads". This part of the needs list seems to have been missed from the Symposium printout. Yikes, now I'm very glad I asked! I'd better start looking for some.

33 is a good number

2009-03-30T23:38:00.004+13:00

No, not my age (unfortunately)
No, not the number of ufo's lying around (I think the total is way more than 33)
No, not the number of days until Symposium (that number would be 10)

33 is the number of unread blog posts I have at the moment. This is a very good thing because for months it has been hovering around the two thousand mark. No, I haven't posted a comment to every one of the formerly unread posts, but I have read them (well, okay, skimmed them)

Speaking of Symposium I decided it was high time to get some fabric sorted for my 2 classes. This first lot is for Layered Landscapes with Gloria Loughman:
The second is for Darned Quilts with Dena Crain:
I don't think it is a very good idea to select fabrics for 2 quilts on the same day. My colour palettes are very similar. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. I'm not even sure I've go the fabric selection right for Dena's class. She says to have a "gradation from value to colour and from dark to light". Oh well, maybe this piece of fabric will do:

Final Arrangement - Leftover Tabasco Sauce

2009-03-28T21:31:00.004+13:00

I finally got all the blocks sewn together. Now I have to decide if it needs a border or whether a dark brown binding will do. I took down from the design wall today because Jo, Frances and I were selecting fabrics for Symposium classes. I thought it was about time I got my 'a' into 'g' and got ready for these classes which are in less than 2 weeks. Next week is really busy with parent interviews, marking, haircut, appointment for the flu jab, church AGM, a 16 inch block to be made for a round robin I am doing and quilt club next Saturday (the marking really should happen before the parent interviews.) The week after that is only 4 working days and then we're off. Yikes!

Do you like the title for this quilt?

What I'm doing

2009-03-23T21:56:00.007+13:00

Well, it feels like not a lot over the last week. I did finish quilting the green strippy community quil t and sewed the binding on. I just need to hand stitch it down. I'm saving it for club next week.

I need to get fabric and sewing supplies for my Symposium classes organised, not to mention some clothing. I'm hoping I can shop from my stash for both classes. But I can't seem to get started on pulling a few fabrics out. No doubt that deadline I am good at working to will come around soon enough.

I went to Wellington last weekend to see the Monet paintings at Te Papa, ab fab! If I could make my quilts glow like the haystack at sunset I would be a happy chickadee. This is as close as I can get:

These blocks are the left-over blocks from the Cotton On Quilters new banner we made last year. There were exactly 126 blocks (14 by 9) and I made this temporary arrangement on my design wall last year. There they have sat for months while I worked on my Symposium quilt. I have rearranged them endless times since I took this photo. I have now stitched some of them together but I can't seem to get into a rhythm to get it finished. Maybe I should get off the web and get onto the sewing machine!

A Visual Corridor?

2009-03-10T19:58:00.003+13:00

I know I am now in what is politely called 'middle age' and I know that language is a living, breathing, changing thing but what ever happened to Plain English??

I was at our town library yesterday looking for some books to read. One I wanted, by English author Mark Billingham, was apparently 'on the shelf' according to the computer catalogue. I looked and looked but couldn't find it anywhere. Finally I asked the lovely Colm who was on the desk. Colm is married to a lady who teaches at the same school as me and he works part time at school and part time at the library (the students tell me he is the only one who knows anything at the town library, but that is another story).

Colm checked the staff computer and told me the book should be in the 'visual corridor'. The what? What the heck is a visual corridor?Now, Colm has a lovely Irish brogue so it did take me a few goes to understand the words he was saying, but even when I did understand that he was saying the words 'visual' and 'corridor' I was stumped. Okay, 'visual' is something you look at and 'corridor' is something you walk down. Hmmm, the only corridor in the town library is the one that goes to the toilets, and I'm sure he doesn't mean there! After giving it a few seconds of slow thought (well, it was at the end of the working day) I translated his words into 'display shelf'. When did a display shelf become a 'visual corridor'?

It turned out the book was not in the visual corridor but out the back, waiting to be shelved. Colm very kindly went and got it for me. After I got it home I realised I had already read it - b*****!

On a quilty note, I am in the middle of quilting this thing (which is destined to be a community quilt) It has been basted up ready for quilting for nearly 12 months - other quilts (or quilt, to be specific, have intervened):
Nice and easy meandering, no pressure, and I am NOT ripping out any stitches, even if they do go wonky.

Don't Panic!

2009-03-05T22:12:00.002+13:00

After getting my quilt down to the courier's on Monday in time to be delivered I have been spending the ensuing time relaxing going through my collection of Quilters Newsletter Magazine. Issue 189 with Judy Mathieson's Nautical Stars is still a stand-out cover. When compared with other cover quilts in those years (late '80s) this quilt is still as fresh looking as the latest prizewinning quilts.

But, I digress. I had an unexpected phone call today from the exhibition convenor asking if I had sent my quilt because it had not been check off their list. Is my quilt jinxed?? I raced home at lunchtime to get the courier receipt so I could go and check with them. Yes, they said, their records said it had been delivered at 4.05pm on Monday. Back to the convenor I phone. Apparently the lady whose home the quilts had to be delivered to was away on Monday and other people were at her place to receive deliveries. It appears that they left before my quilt was delivered. The husband of the house had got the package but somehow it had got tucked behind something and was temporarily lost. Whew! That was a tad stressful!

Slack ex-President

2009-03-04T22:12:00.003+13:00

I have been so consumed with getting my quilt ready for Symposium that I have been sadly neglecting my club duties as chronicler of Show & Tell. I promised at the last meeting that now I am no longer president I would be much more diligent in keeping the club blog up to date. Now that it is 3 days before the next club meeting I have finally got February's offerings posted but, alas, I cannot remember some of the quilt's makers. If anyone from club is reading this can they please click on Cotton On Quilters blog and let me know who made what so I can give credit where it is due.

Here is a wee taster of Amy's bag:

Down to the wire !!

2009-03-02T19:46:00.003+13:00

It was a close run thing but today I did get my quilt down to the courier to be delivered to Wellington in time for the closing day of getting the quilts in, which is today. Let's hope 'Same day Service' lives up to its name.

It is just as well I inspected each block individually 'cos I found this little mistake:
My mind must have wandered off into a dream while I was stitching this poor, unfortunate deformed star. (Yes I did fix the star.) And now I look at the pink star in the corner I see the seams are not quite matched. (No I didn't fix the seam.) Alas, likely to be no prizes for me :-(
(but one lives in hope)

It is 6 weeks to Symposium. I have been so focused on getting Poetry in Motion finished that I have done nothing to get my class materials together. Oh well, 6 weeks is heaps of time. After all, I am the Queen of Deadlines!

PS
Google chat is a great thing. As I was writing this post my son sent me these links (blog post and photos) to this great garage makeover. My son knows me well.

http://atwater-village.blogspot.com/2009/02/our-submission-to-lifehackers-workspace.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atwatervillage/sets/72157606409446022/

Speaking of aforementioned son, he must have absorbed some of my (bad?) habits. He cheerfully texted me at the weekend to say he had bought some new clothes. He saved $110 because it was a 40% off sale. I couldn't help myself. I had to ask if he had managed to wash any of his old clothes or did he just throw them away :-)

Farewell Juki

2009-02-22T22:00:00.003+13:00

Sob . . . I had to take Juki home to Janice today . . . sob!

Juki, you have been a perfectly wonderful house guest. You stayed where you were put, stitched a fine line, had a wonderful flat bed and gave me plenty of room to move. Your foot control was very comfortable to use and I love the needle up/down button you have. The only thing I don't like is that you are no longer here! You are very welcome to come and have another holiday at my house anytime you like (hint, Janice, hint, hint).

Honey Bunch Leaves Home

2009-02-16T20:58:00.002+13:00

Such a strange thing to drive my son to the Halls of Residence and leave him there. I mean, I have driven him to his father's plenty of times but somehow this feels different. That's 'cos it is different. Now, I've got him all "growed up" and he is off on the next step of his life. He is technically no longer living at home. I don't know what to feel. I didn't cry, but I was very proud of him as he said hello to every one he met. I still have 2 homestay students at home so I am not totally alone. But ...

... and, darn it, I completely forgot to take the camera with me. He dyed his hair in the weekend using some 'wash out in a few weeks' dye. He is naturally blonde but now is red. Kinda suits him but he didn't like it ha, ha. Le's hope the dye is true to label, otherwise he is going to have a 'roots' problem :-)

I forgot to say he is only 1 hour away and will be home in the coming weekend so I guess that is why I don't feel tearful. He has been away for longer than a week during holidays in the past. This is nothing!!!

Over the first hurdle

2009-02-10T01:01:00.003+13:00

The selection letters arrived today. It was a bit stressful as I had entered 3 pieces and there were my 3 self-addressed envelopes. I gathered them up together from the letter box and could tell they contained CD's. Oh well, I thought, at least the pressure is off to finish the quilting since it has been more like quilting undone. I was not at all pleased with the quilting I had done and decided to do it again. This is what half a quilt's worth of ripped out threads look like:

There has been a hiatus in replacing all that stitching. The new school year has started and I needed to do some serious prep which took a week out of my quilting time. But I started back on it in the weekend. Which is just as well because only the first 2 envelopes had rejection letters along with the CDs. The third envelope had an acceptance letter and no CD's. Poetry in Motion has been selected for the judging process. I have 3 weeks to get the quilting finished and send the quilt off. Let's hope it passes the 'decision to hang' test so I can get to look at it from a decent distance.

I am not at all hopeful of any prize. The jurors' comments were 'most interesting', to say the least, and I think there will be some very disappointed quilters in New Zealand today. The emphasis was definitely on 'original design'. I have a lot I could say about it but it is way past zzzz time.

ZZZzzz z z z z z z z z . . .

This is called "cutting it fine"

2009-01-14T22:23:00.006+13:00

I know I work well to deadlines, but this is a bit ridiculous. See the last box on this timetable? It says 'Drive to Wellington and deliver" and that is what we did today.
I didn't get my quilt photos onto a cd for the entry in time to post it yesterday. (I don't know what it is with computers and me. Apparently I was doing the right thing but my computer was not playing nicely at all. My son rescued me last night and did them on his computer. He says it has something to do with the fact that I had bought cheap and cr***y cds.) I was also up until 4 in the morning the previous night sewing on the binding and washing the quilt to get out all the quilt markins so I could photograph it. Remind me to start the next Symposium quilt at least 2 years before it is needed. What? The next Symposium is in 2 years already? That means I have to start now? Sheesh, I've only just finished this one!

So my good friend Jo (she of the time table design fame) drove me so I could hand in the envelope to the mail centre and ask them kindly if they could make sure it got into the box today, since today was the final day for entries. The very kind lady at the post shop attached to the mail centre said "anything for a fellow sewer". She deserves a medal for great customer service. It was just as well Jo was driving because on the way back home I had a bit of a zzzz in the car. That would have been a bit dangerous if I had been driving :-) I have great friends (and a great son) and I appreciate every one of them - thanks, all of you, for your support and encouragement.

One cannot go to Wellington without visiting a few quilt shops on the way and, once again, I am poorer than I was. The weather today was perfect. The sea at Pukerua Bay was like glass and there were no waves at all. Magic. there was also a fantastic Italian restaurant cum Italian grocery supply place next to the mail centre and we had a very yummy brunch and coffee to fortify ourselves for further quilt shopping :-) Did I mention the very melt-in-the mouth almond croissant I had for afternoon tea at a french cafe in Cuba St, in the next block down from Minerva (the NZ Quilter magazine's bookshop.) Who said the 'd' word?

Quilting with Juki

2009-01-13T08:38:00.002+13:00

I want one of these:
This wonderful machine belongs to my very good quilting buddy, Janice. Usually it sits on a Swiftquilter frame in Janice's studio but she has very nobly allowed Juki to have a holiday at my olace - a working holiday of course! There is so much more room under the arm than my Elna. It is a great workhorse and having needle up/needle down makes it so much more useful than my old Singer which 'runs on' after taking your foot of the pedal. It is so much easier to control what I am stitching. Thank you Janice.

The basting method I used has proved to be very successful. I have NO puckers from the quilting. I have had some trouble with the basting thread catching in the needle threader as I move the quilt around, but that is probably due to a lack of willingness on my part to clip the basting threads in the area I am working on rather than a deficiency in the basting method itself :-) After I had quilted around each block centre I removed all the basting thread and that solved that problem.

I am so rusty with my quilting. I haven't done any for ages and I am not happy with some of the work I have done. I will be getting out the quick-un-pick to fix up some of the "oops" parts. I think the reason those commercial quilters are so good is that they are quilting regularly. The rest of us have to wait until we actually get a top finished before we can polish our quilting skills. That's maybe 3 or 4 times a year??

Basting with Sharon Schamber

2009-01-08T18:57:00.004+13:00

Just because I have plenty of time to get my quilt finished before the deadline (Yeah, right!) I thought I would try Sharon Schamber's method of basting a quilt sandwich using boards and the table. Sharon has a free video on her website that explains the method much better than I can, so go here to see her excellent demonstration.

The advantages I see are that:

1. I don't need to get down on the floor - this is a biggie reason if you are me :-)

2. I can check for stray threads as I roll up the quilt top and backing.

3 It doesn't add weight to the quilt, unlike safety pins.

4. I can baste a quilt on my own, on my table, without needing a large surface (although because this quilt is 2.3 metres square I did put 2 tables end to end.)

The disadvantage is that it takes a lot longer than pin basting would, although I could easily have used pins with Sharon's roll method.

Really, I guess, it is a bit like having a machine quilting frame, without the frame, if you see what I mean.

I haven't started the quilting yet so I am not sure how the thread will go but Sharon says to clip the area you are working on. I will let you know how it goes.

The opposite of sewing is . . .

2009-01-05T20:12:00.003+13:00

. . . rip it, rip it, rip it! I seem to have spent most of the day undoing sewing and re-sewing. I had the 4 corner blocks to make which, as you can see, are fairly simple. The first one behaved perfectly well and then the next three were very naughtly and didn't play together at all nicely. I had to unpick them, twice! I had also decided to change some of the fabric choices, not many - only about 4, so that some of the lighter star points were more defined. But it seemed to take me forever. All day, in fact.

The centre and border blocks are now all pieced, ready to join together:

I have to keep telling myself that when they are joined it will all look so much smaller. I'm planning on finishing the piecing tonight and it will be basting tomorrow and some quilting.

My very good friend Janice has agreed to loan me her Juki 98 which has more room under the arm. I am hoping that this will make the quilt easier to turn than it would be under the arm of my Elna. Really, why don't the manufacturers make all machines have a longer arm. Every body would be happy. Surely it can't be that expensive. I don't want a lot of embroidery stitches. I want a machine that sews basic stitches and has room under the arm to do sit-down table quilting. Not much to ask, it it?

I've done enough for a mallowpuff

2009-01-05T01:05:00.003+13:00

It's one o'clock in the morning and, while I haven't got quite as far as I wanted today, I have done heaps and it is time to go to bed!

Here is how it is looking. Most of the border blocks are pieced. I need to finish the corners and sew everything together but it is quitting time for today.

There are a couple of fabric choices I am not happy with so I am going to sleep on it and see what it looks like in the day light.

PS. I'm being spammed (of the "cool blog, leave to me yur phone nmbr" type) so I have enabled comment moderation. Darn! It is such a pain but at least the word verifications are now easier to type, as in they are more like real words rather than a random jumble of letters.

The Plan Develops

2009-01-02T11:09:00.003+13:00

It is now half past eleven in the morning and I have been up since 6. I've done 2 loads of washing, drunk two coffees and eaten 1 piece of Christmas cake. I've also done heaps of sewing. This is what the quilt is looking like now:
Yegads! It's a bit of a mess, is it not? Is it working as a design? I'm in the "what on earth do I think I am doing' stage. I'm telling myself it will look much better from 10 metres away. Maybe the borders will help pull it together.

I still have all the borders to piece - and all the quilting to do (and the basting, and the binding, forgot about those bits) Am I mad? Well, maybe the jury's still out on that one but the chances are I am. I have to be to put myself on such a tight deadline. But I'm not giving up now (and I treasure every moment of my long summer holidays, thank you for asking.)

Back to the machine for me.

Moving Right Along

2009-01-01T21:05:00.006+13:00

I've had a really quiet, quilty New Year (Thank goodness there were no loud stereos in the street. The noisy neighbours across the road seem to have quietened right down.) I have made good progress on my quilt. I sewed all yesterday and most of today. I can tick off the right number of days on the timetable. Yipee! I'm up to date and on track. So far, so good - and I've even tidied my piles of fabric - haven't vacummed the floor though :-)

Here is the plan of what I am doing:
The blocks are all different fabrics and I'm working out how the secondary star pattern works. Some will be dark and some will be medium and some light. (Thanks to Janice for that suggestion. My original fabric choices for sashing were way too overpowering.) I'm actually further on than this. I'll post another picture again tomorrow. I just have 3 more sashing strips to make and then I can piece the sashings to the blocks. Then I need to work out a new border. I might actually get this done!

I Might Get There

2009-01-01T08:22:00.003+13:00

It is just as well that I don't have anyone in the house at the moment. I have spent the last 2 days doing nothing but quilting! The house is a complete mess. I am making progress and have almost half the blocks completed.

The rest should/could/will get done today. I still have the borders of course. The design of these is proving somewhat troublesome since my original plan made the quilt way too big for entry into the competition. But, I have a another plan!!

Here is one of the completed blocks:

Why I was getting stuck.

2008-12-29T16:31:00.004+13:00

One of the reasons that I had almost given up on getting my quilt finished is that it is a BIG quilt. I am making it, primarily, for my bed and I want it to be 2.4m by 2.4m. So the sheer size of the project become somewhat daunting. The other problem was that I don't (didn't) have a design wall big enough to work vertically. I actually don't have a wall big enough to put that size design wall onto. However, I have found a solution. It just took a while to get there.

I bought 2 pieces of soft board.* They measure 1.2m by 2.7 m. I had to cut them down a bit. Most modern houses have a 2.4m stud. My house in from 1937 and has a 2.7m stud. So 2.7 m long soft board would have been a bit of a squeeze. I cut them down to 2.5m. I thought I would lean the 2 sheets vertically against the cupboard opening where I store my fabric. The problem was that the stuff bends very easily and one sheet was bending more than the other. After a few days of struggling to work on it I finally went to Mitre 10 yesterday and bought 6 pieces of aluminium edging which just slides onto the edges. One goes on each long side of the 2 boards and takes care of the curvature problem (I wish my curvature problem was so easy to fix!) The other 2 go on the short sides at the top and bottom and temporarily join the 2 boards together. Wahoo, a flat surface I can work with.

Of course I can't easily get into my fabric cupboard while it is up, but it is possible to slide the whole thing far enough out of the way to get to that elusive piece of fabric I absolutely must have for the quilt I'm working on :-) I now have a wall that measures 2.4m wide by 2.5m high. I can take it down and store it when I am not working on a large quilt. Now I can give you an idea of the scale I am working on:
Lots to do, huh? I'm not going to make the sashing pieces all the same colour, it would overwhelm the blocks. Another reason for needing a big design wall. It is much easier to choose colour and value when I am looking at it in a vertical plane. Back to the sewing . . .

* This is a whole 'nother story! We used to be able to get a product called flameguard - which we used to call pinex many years ago. At the beginning of this year it was priced at about $25 per sheet of 1.2m by 2.4m, a very reasonable cost. I encouraged my quilting friends to buy some, which they did. When I decided to get some more guess what? They don't make it any more, grrr..., and the replacement softboard is over $55 per sheet, grrr..., grrr... ! I wasn't going to pay that much when I needed 2 of them. so I went to Bunnings. They had some older softboard that was painted black on one side. It was $26 per sheet. But since they were wanting to get rid of it they gave me 2 sheets for $30. Must have been my lucky day. Just as well, really. It cost me $42 for flannel to cover the boards (no fluffy sheets in the shops in summer, ask me how I know!) and the aluminium edging was $15 per two metre length, and I got 6 of them. Sheesh!

I'll Get By With A Little Help . . .

2008-12-28T18:58:00.004+13:00

. . . from my friends. When I told them I had given up on getting my quilt finished before the deadline my good friend Jo protested and suggested I needed a timetable. So she typed one up on the computer for me (the picture should be click-able):
So far, I have managed to tick off the first day! Yippee, all the hand applique is done. But I have done some work towards getting the sashings done. I'm just not sure I have done enough to cross off the second day :-)

Now I look closely at the time table, Jo has put Saturday at the start of the week and it is now Sunday, so I am already 2 days behind. Yikes!

Thanks to those who have left encouraging comments. I try to reply to all comments by email but Nola and Karen have their settings as 'non-reply'. But thanks any way for taking the time to leave a comment.

Stuck

2008-12-26T23:21:00.004+13:00

Well, this is where I got stuck with my quilt. The sashings are pieced and I am not happy with the light/medium/dark values. I don't know which way to go. The first or the second? Or some other combination?

Or maybe this way out combination?
(Just kidding)

Slow Progress

2008-12-24T08:27:00.004+13:00

This is one of the applique blocks that I have been working on over the last few months. The challenge for me was to design something original and I was hoping to have this quilt finished in time to enter for Symposium but this is not going to happen! Entries are due in by 14 January and my quilt top is still in pieces, some of which haven't even been pieced yet, let alone getting it basted and quilted in the next 3 weeks! (drat - I won't be winning Best of Show for a while, will I?) There are 25 of these, all in different fabric, and I still have 5 to finish off. Then they are surrounded by a pieced sashing which I am having difficulty getting the colour values right for and I have done only about 10% of what I need to have done. Oh, well there is always next time.

Requiem for a Singer

2008-12-14T08:40:00.006+13:00

My trusty old 1963 khaki Singer blew a 'foo foo valve' the other night - literally. I was merrily quilting along on a hearts of hope quilt, which a group of ladies has put together for one of their very dear friends and I offered to quilt for them, when my machine blew up. I knew the old rubber coated wiring was in dodgy condition, I just didn't realise that the condition was perilous. When the cord connecting the light to the electric motor blew it set the quilt on fire. 'H*** sh**' was the expletive deleted as I jumped and then saw flames! Frantic patting of the area with my quilting gloves!
Fortunately it was the very edge of the quilt, the batting was 100% cotton and therefore didn't melt, and the worst affected part will be cut off when the binding is attached.
But a tiny part of the scorch mark on the back of the quilt will not be covered by the binding.

As for the Singer? It is off to my very friendly sewing machine mechanic to be fixed. I love quilting with this machine. There is so much more room under the arm of the machine than my Elna. Why do they make modern machines with such a small harp? Why can't they make a basic low to mid price range machine that has more room?? I know there is a brand new Bernina with 12" harp coming out here in NZ next year. But I am positive it will be way out of my budget. I don't want all the fancy embroidery stitches. Just the basic features we have come to know and love like needle up/needle down, thread cutter, and the walking foot, free motion foot and 1/4" foot included as standard, not optional extras!

Oh, that's right, the Juki 98!

Here in New Zealand we can get this supplied with a very easy to use frame as well. My friend Janice has one. I want one! I just need to save some money. That is going to be a bit harder to do for a while. He, of Honey Bunch fame, is off to University next year. We do not qualify for any student allowances and the amount he can borrow on the student loan is not enough to cover the cost of his halls accommodation. He does have a holiday job but it will not be enough to totally cover the extra so it is mum to the rescue (but only while he continues to pass his courses!!).

Oh well, one day Roger Rabbit, one day!

What I did this weekend ...

2008-12-07T23:09:00.003+13:00

... was to travel on an 800km round road trip to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. I'm rather tired but also wired. Which is why I am on the 'puter when I should be in zzzzzz land. I gave my mother a quilt which I called "Where on earth is Bettina Monica Nesta?" Those are mum's names and she hates very one of them. She is called Betty which is usually a diminuituve of Elizabeth. But I think she was called Betty even before she was born. I remember as a child her telling me that her older sisters thought her mum had a baby doll just for them! It is a scrap quilt (and I don't think I have a picture of it) I made a couple of years ago. I named if after Mum because it had a tiny piece of fabric with an old lady motif on it.

This is mum and my stepfather Bert. I am thankful that they are well (relatively speaking for their age) and their minds are fully functioning.

My parents split up when I was 18 and Mum has been married to Bert for almost as long as she was married to my Dad. Amazing huh?

Getting organised

2008-11-27T21:37:00.004+13:00

One of my quilting students is starting a new quilt using a lot of fabrics of the same colour family. When I asked her how she was going to remember which fabric is which she showed me these plastic zip bags with a pocket on the front. She has printed out all the colours and numbered them and has cut each one out and put in the pocket window. When she cuts each piece of fabric she is going to put it back in the correct bag.

I thought it was a brilliant way of keeping things organised. I suggested she stick a piece of masking tape to the end of each piece of fabric and number it as well, so that if things get mixed up she has the actual fabric labelled as well as the pocket. Of course she will have to be careful to cut the fabric from the other end to the label :-)

A bit of applique

2008-11-21T17:41:00.003+13:00

It has been very slow going and I am still not even halfway through the hand applique blocks that I am doing for the quilt which I hope to finish in time to enter Symposium. Every week I promise myself I will do some every day. Mmmm.... Oh well, the school holidays are coming up in a few weeks and I'll get it done then. But that's what I said to myself before the last lot. Who am I kidding??

Here is a little bit of a preview:

Another Invasion!!!

2008-11-16T20:54:00.007+13:00

This time of an extremely welcome sort - visiting quilters from England! I got a phone call last Friday from a lady called Pat who is visiting Wanganui with the Friendship Force group. She had visited the local patchwork shop and asked if there is a quilting group in Wanganui. The shop gave her my number and she called to ask if she and some of the quilting ladies from the tour group could come and visit after dinner on Sunday evening to talk patchwork and quilting. Of course, I said yes.We have just finished a delightful hour and a half getting to know each other and I now have new friends from the other side of the world and an invitation to visit the Isle of Wight - as long as I plan my visit around the second Thursday of the month which is when their guild meeting is held :-)

All I have to do now is win Lotto!
Along with Pat came her sister Sue and friend Nava all from the Isle of Wight, and Joy from Southampton. I have to confess I didn't get the fourth lady's name so I am expecting (hoping!) Pat to read this blog post at some time when she gets back home and let me know.

**Update**

The missing name is Sue L. She is new to quilting and doesn't belong to any group. I hope she was inspired by what she saw at my place.

I am hoping to meet Nava again next weekend. I am going to Calico Christmas, the Auckland Patchwork and Quilters' annual show, and Nava is expecting to be there too. We have made a loose arrangement to meet for lunch. I am so looking forward to this!

And, yes, I know it is almost 2 months since I have posted. Life has been in the fast lane lately. I have hardly got near the computer andI have 2798 blog posts to read - ahem!

My new best friends . .

2008-09-21T21:49:00.003+12:00

. . . are this dinky pair of curved embroidery scissors, a can of spray starch and some bee-ooo-ti-ful YLI #100 silk thread:
Yes, I've started some hand applique. I'm onto a new project which I aim to get finished before 14th January, 2009, in time for the entry deadline of our next National Symposium. I was halfway on the way to sewing a pattern I bought a year ago which I thought I might enter. It was for a lovely wall hanging and I had decided to enlarge it to queen bed size and make a new quilt to use on my bed. Then I read the entry rules which state entries have to be original designs. Jam on the brakes and come to a screaming halt! It took me a some time to get over the 'oh darn, I'm not going to have enough time to make this plus another quilt' feeling and come around to the idea of putting aside the first quilt and make up my own design. Which I have and it has some applique. Normally I would fuse this, but I don't like raw edge on my bed quilts (O, la di dah, doesn't that sound snobby? Like I've got a huge stash of bed quilts to ring the changes with - not!)

The scissors I picked up on a sales table earlier this year, thinking 'I've always wanted a pair of these curved scissors'. I was delighted to find that the price was further reduced when I went to pay for them. The spray starch is for ironing the edge over the freezer paper. It smells like home baked biscuits around here at the moment, I'm using so much of it. I'm not normally known for my hand stitching skills. In fact I was told very clearly (grin) the stitches on my test piece were way too big, hence the silk thread. Which is wonderful to stitch with. The thread just disappears and I can get really, really tiny stitches. Of course I know really, really tiny stitches are the aim here, but how come no one ever tells you in the quilting books and magazines that the tinier the stitches, the more of them there has to be?? And the more of them there has to be, the longer it takes to stitch something down?? Huh! What was that deadline?

Unwelcome Visitors

2008-09-12T19:16:00.004+12:00

WARNING: This post has no pictorial content.

I live in a 70 year old house and old houses, being as they are, are prone to invasions of certain kinds of pests. In the last week I have trapped and disposed of the remains of eight (yes, 8!) furry little rodents that decided to make their home underneath my kitchen sink. There is a wonderful mouse trap available called the 'Better Mouse Trap'. It is a gray plastic trap that works a bit like a spring loaded bulldog clip. The great thing about it is that when the mouse is trapped the head can't be seen - wonderful for the slightly squeamish like me. Don't, however, make the mistake I did. After hearing the trap spring I suggest you wait a decent interval before opening the cupboard door before disposing of the contents of the trap. You want to give enough time for the poor thing to be properly dead and not wriggling its little legs!

PS: This post had no quilting content either :-)

A Wee Bag

2008-09-06T06:50:00.003+12:00

For those of you who know me, you will understand that I don't 'do' bags. I don't mind making the odd one to put a quilt in for an exhibition, but as far as handbags go I buy a black one, put everything in it, and I use it until it wears out. Then I replace it with a new one. I don't change my bag to go with my outfit (I don't 'do' outfits either, but that is another story - vbg). So it was with some surprise that I found myself making a bag the other night. The teacher of Japanese from my school wanted to make a bag like one she had seen in a magazine but there was no pattern. Yours truly volunteered to draw up a pattern to make something similar. After a test run using left over scrap homespun this is the result:

It is not exactly like the original. The bottom is curved instead of having what looks like a gusset insert in the bottom and the handles are wider and not as long, but I'm pretty happy with the result. I love the fabric I used; chocolate, pink and lime green - what a funky combination! In fact it would look really good in a quilt, wouldn't it? Of course it will have to be a much smaller quilt now, since I now have less of the fabric than I started with. But hey, it's not like I don't have plenty of other fabric to quilt with!

Night Metropolis

2008-09-01T20:34:00.004+12:00

I tried to make this post last week but my internet connection and/or blogger was not playing nice. After waiting for ages I lost the post completely. Who knows why these things happen? I gave up and went to bed instead.
I've put the last stitches in the binding of "Night Metropolis" - apart from a label. I hope the picture is clickable so you get a better view. I quilted the 'windows' on Janice's Swiftquilter. I was pretty impressed with how straight I got the freehand stitching:
Bur I have to confess I was going to quilt the grey' window ledge' as well but it didn't go so well so I stopped and ripped out what I had done. Stitching lines on a 45 degree angle was much harder than going up and down. I did the 'in the ditch' quilting on my own machine after I did the windows. I found it too hard to keep the stitching next to the seam line on the Swiftquilter. After that I decided it didn't need any more quilting :-) Considering that I used scrap batting the quilt hangs reasonably straight.

I am impressing myself that this quilt has taken only a couple of months to finish. It is growing on me. I'm feeling an urge to make another one. I bet my scrap pile still won't look any smaller!

Japanese Tailors' Knot

2008-08-14T22:28:00.007+12:00

While Ayumi was with me she taught me the way Japanese tailors tie new thread onto the end of the nearly used-up old thread. This is so as little thread as possible is wasted. The knot ends up against the fabric so you can continue to hand sew without having to pull the knot through any fabric. I have never seen this done before and Ayumi was very pleased to be able to teach it to me. Her grandmother taught it to her and because her grandmother has passed away, it was a special thing for her to be able to pass that skill onto me. I asked Ayumi if I could photograph the steps so I could remember. To make it stand out in the pictures we used two different coloured wools and a scrap of fabric. I hope you get the idea.

After sewing 2 stitches in the same place, the used up thread goes out to the left . .
. . . and is held in the left hand. The new length of thread (black) is place under the old thread:
The new thread goes around over the left thumb and under the tail of the new thread (but over the tail of the old thread):
Hold everything between the finger and thumb:
Grab the tail of the old thread and poke it through the loop of the new thread:
Hold both tails in the right hand and . . .
. . . drop the loop of the left thumb and hold both tails in your left hand:
Pull on the old thread to get the loop down onto the fabric:
Hold the loop with your left forefinger:
And pull on the new thread:
Make sure the knot is lying against the fabric:
Voila!
Now thread your needle with the other end of the new thread and continue sewing with the new thread.

Thank you Ayumi for teaching me this. You have beautiful hands!

A visitor from Japan

2008-08-12T21:36:00.006+12:00

It has been a busy month since I last posted (no excuse, I know). It was particularly busy for the last 2 weeks as I have been hosting a teacher from Japan. Ayumi teaches English to her Junior High School students in Toyooka. She came on a school trip with 11 of her students for 10 days. The students were billeted with some of our students who study Japanese and I had the pleasure of having Ayumi stay at my place.

Ayumi has never done quilting before so I showed her some of my fabric stash and let her choose some to make a small wall quilt. We got some of the cutting out and sewing done that night. It had to be a fairly simple pattern given the time available. The next day was club day which gave her another opportunity to get some more sewing done. Here she is using the rotary cutter like a professional:
One of our members showed Ayumi how to attach the binding:
And a few days later the quilt was finished:
Pink is Ayumi's favourite colour!

Bicycle Clips

2008-07-13T23:26:00.003+12:00

Being a Gadget Girl I have, among a zillion other quilting gadgets, a set of bicycle-type clips for securing a rolled quilt when quilting on a domestic machine. I have to say I have not found them that useful and I usually scrunch the quilt up while I am quilting. Last week I was able to use Janice's Swiftquilter and Juki to quilt my "Night Metropolis" quilt. The Swiftquilter does not have a fourth roller for the batting and at the beginning of the quilting process the excess hangs on the ground. I had a bright idea! Roll it up over a spare curtain rood and secure it with the bicycle clips. It worked pretty good:
Yes, I confess, that batting is leftover pieces sewn together. Yes, I joined the pieces with the sewing machine. Yes, I realise the quilt may not be all that flat (in fact I will be very surprised if if is flat). Well, it is a scrap quilt!

I am heading out to Janice's again tomorrow to finish off the quilting on "Night Metropolis". I think I've got carried away with the amount of quilting on it. I've done all the 'windows' and I need to go back and quilt the 'attic' frame part. I'd better head off to bed early then. What? It's 11.41 pm already? Oh well, at least I still have one week of holidays to go :-)

See what I mean?

2008-07-10T23:17:00.003+12:00

I made a few of these string blocks a while back (like about over a year ago - see April 13 post. One day when I am not too tired I'll learn how to do that link thingy with the time stamp)
I have finally got around to trimming them all and here they are, up all stacked up and ready to go:
Guess what?
Yep,
More scraps!

See what I mean?

I was really, really strong, I moved them from the cutting table to a plastic bag. The plastic bag hasn't made it to the bin yet, but it's a start, right? I haven't yet retrieved a single piece - emphasis on yet :-)

Scrap Useage

2008-07-07T18:37:00.004+12:00

I have started to make inroads on the scrap collection. I've made this quilt top using crumb blocks which I cut to 4 1/2" and put in an attic window setting:
The quilt is quite large, 1.5 metres by 2 metres, and has 140 blocks (10 blocks by 14). I'm calling it "Night Metropolis". It is school holidays right now and I am going out to my good friend Janice's tomorrow. I will start quilting it on her Juki and Swiftquilter. I had better have a good think about how I want to quilt it in the next 12 hours.

I found the crumb blocks really relaxing to make and quite addictive. Sadly, the scrap collection doesn't look any smaller! I think I've got enough scraps to make about a million crumb blocks.

Drowning in Scraps

2008-07-06T20:34:00.003+12:00

I guess I am no different from most quilters, I have HEAPS of scraps. This is my scrap corner:
Everything you see here is scraps. Everything on the shelves are scraps, in the white plastic ice cream containers, in the orange photocopy paper box lids, in the boxes on the floor. They have been starting to overwhelm me. I cannot bring myself to throw any of them out. I hear my father's voice echoing in my head "waste not, want not". I have been keeping pieces as little as 1" by 1/2" for goodness sake! One of my friends says I have 'scrap-a-philia' and I need therapy. Another asked one of her on-line groups what they did with their scraps. Thankfully (for me), of everyone who replied, only one threw out her scraps. the others are like me, they keep them. It is reassuring to know I am not alone :-)

Honey Bunch Hair

2008-06-28T22:44:00.003+12:00

He, of Honey Bunch fame, isn't too fussed about having his hair cut. I think he last had it cut at least 6 months ago, maybe even 9 months. Last week the back view looked like this:
I have fine, straight, brown (well, it used to be brown) hair. I would have given an arm and a leg to have hair like this. How did my child end up with thick, curly, blonde hair? (I blame his dad, who had flaming red hair as a child)

It is such a shame we can't inherit our kids genes.

Alas, the hair is gone. Mowed down by a 'number3' head shave. I suppose it will be back in 6 or 9 months or so.

I didn't even break the needle!

2008-06-22T21:03:00.002+12:00

I was busy sewing the binding onto a quilt the other day. I don't pin the binding on, I just line it up as I sew and do the continuous corner thingy. As I was sewing along I felt a 'bump'. Hmmm I thought, what was that? Well, this is what 'it' was. I has sewn straight over a safety pin which was close to the edge of the quilt- and I didn't even break the needle! Clever me! I thought I had taken out all the pins but there was still one left (well - obviously.)

This is what it looks like with the binding folded away from the top of the quilt:
This is what it looks like with the binding folded back up:
I took these two photos at the same time. I don't know why the colours are so different. I'm such a total klutz at photos. The second photo is more true to life colour.

Now all I have to do is unpick it! It has been sitting, looking at me for a week. I have hand sewn the binding down around 3/4 of the quilt. I feel kind of reluctant to undo my really clever achievement :-)

Avoidance Behaviour

2008-05-18T20:51:00.005+12:00

I really should be writing my reports which are due in on Thursday, but somehow I couldn't resist joining my strip sets together. The result was too short for a bed quilt so I made two more sets, one for the top and one for the bottom. You can only see the top half of the top. It is about 2 metres long and only about 1.2m wide, so I am going to add really wide strips to the sides to make it wide enough for a single bed.* The sashing strips are a Christmas fabric I had 3 metres of (What was I thinking? Oh, that's right, long strips use up a heap of fabric, just as well I had 3 metres, eh?) Actually it is a nicer shade of green that in the photo.

*Confession time, I did have strips on the side the same width as the sashings but because it still wasn't wide enough I ripped them off last night while Frances and I watched a couple of episodes of Antiques Roadshow. I'll use them for the binding.

Oh, well, back to the reports . . .

And then I got carried away . . .

2008-05-17T00:24:00.005+12:00

. . . making more strip sets. These ones are from pieces I got in some grab bags from Grandmother's Garden a few years ago. They are the selvage off cuts from 5" strips of fabric which they use to make 5" square fabric packs, so the length of each one was 5" (more or less, interestingly some weren't exactly 5") The widths of the strips varied depending on the width of the original fabric. I still find it amazing that quilt fabric is not a standard width and can vary by as much as 2"-3".
Mmmm.... there is enough here for a 'Chinese Coins' strip quilt, and it hasn't made one smidgeon of difference to the size of my scrap pile!

Stress-free Stitching

2008-05-10T22:31:00.005+12:00

I have a lot of things I could be sewing but at the moment I'm trying to bring some order to my rather large collection of scraps which are dotted all over the place. So it has been tidying rather than creating, but the problem is when I pull out a container to sort through I find something that says "It just needs this and then it can be used for" to me. Shortish lengths of about 1 1/2" wide fabric scraps just needed to be made into this border (untrimmed as yet!) for a scrap quilt.

It is very relaxing not worrying about what goes with what, very stress-free stitching. I'll add it to my orphan block collection and someday it will find its way into a community quilt.

In New Zealand We Call It Tinny. . .

2008-05-01T19:33:00.004+12:00

. . . when things are lucky or work out just right, and so it was for the latest rookie quilt I have made for my beginner lessons. I had just a tad over the right amount of binding to overlap to do the diagonal join. The border fabric is quilte busy so I decided to join all the off cuts to use for the binding. I did a rough measure and this is how much overlap I had. Just right for trimming to the 2 1/2 inches overlap required for 2 1/2 inch double-fold binding.

This is the finished piece. I've called it 'A Touch of France' because of the colours used. It measures about 74 cm by 80 cm.

My old coffee table . . .

2008-04-29T13:05:00.006+12:00

. . . is now my new ironing board! Last year I went on a quilt retreat to Karen Bird's at Kimbolton and was very impressed by her very large chest freezer being put to good use as a large ironing surface. Way better than my normal ironing board, an old Suzy brand which is great for clothes but fabric has a tendency to slide off the pointy end. I hardly ever iron clothes. I subscribe to the 'if it needs ironing don't buy it' philosophy of clothing purchases. I'd rather be quilting!

I thought you might like to see how I made my new 'ironing centre". First I pinched a chest of drawers from my spare room. I had these drawers for my clothes when I was a kid, so that makes them 'almost antique'. Funny how they look quite modern even though they are over 40 years old.

The drawers have proved to be a very useful storage space for reels of thread and rolls of fusible webbing, baking paper, lunch paper for tracing, Glad Press 'n' Seal which is now available in New Zealand supermarkets. (when is the freezer paper arriving?)

The old coffee table minus its legs, which were broken from teenage boys standing on the table(!!), sits on the top. I haven't fixed it in place yet so leaning heavily on one end will result in a bit of a surprise.
I covered it first with a layer of thermaldrape lining
Then 2 layers of wool flannel. This is the type that used to be used for babies overnaps. I bought some when 'he of honey bunch fame' was little and never got around to making them. I did use cloth nappies with cloth liners though and I had a few pairs of hand knitted 'bunnies", as the overnaps were called, given to me which I used. So it didn't really matter that I never got around to sewing overnaps using the wool flannel. Much better to use it for padding on the ironing surface :-)
Then a cover of cotton decorator fabric. This is an old Laura Ashley fabric.
The iron cord sits nicely into a holder that came with a second hand ironing board I bought a few years ago so I would have a second iron and board. It holds the cord out of the way and when I unplus I don't have to drop any cords on the fl00r. Saves all that 'using your back like a crane' bending down when plugging and unplugging
Not quite as large as the 'big boards' from USA, but pretty useful all the same.

The Show is Over

2008-04-23T07:38:00.004+12:00

Yes, our biennial exhibition has come and gone. It has taken me a week and a half to catch up on my sleep. We had a great time capped off with a dinner to celebrate our 20th birthday. Guest Speaker Barbara Bilyard kept us very well entertained during the evening. We were thrilled that 3 of our 4 founding members, Cathy Owen, Thelma Dawes and Trish Souness were able to attend. Our fourth, Pat Britten, has not been enjoying good health and was unable to make the journey south.

Highlight of the weekend for me was selling two of my quilts. The first piece is a top I purchased a few years ago from Grandmother's Garden. Some of you will recognise the pattern. I finally got around to basting and quilting it and, finally(!), binding it. Someone really liked it.

The second quilt I sold is one I designed for our club's mystery half nighter. Well, the background was the mystery half nighter design. After I had done this version I decided it was a bit ho hum and needed more so I appliqued the flowers and leaves. Then I mucked up the quilting and had to unpick it after I got about three quarters of it quilted and start again. Needless to say I didn't finish it in time for the class, but I did finish another version in different colours without the applique. This is not such a great photo of the quilt that sold but you get the picture?

I also won a Judge's Merit for Steamy Summer Sunrise (which I see by my photo title I originally named Steaming Summer.) Oh how I do forget things.

This piece sat around for ages needing a hanging sleeve and label. I needed a way to make sure the top bits didn't flop over. I ended up hand sewing sewing some really stiff vilene which had been fused onto a piece of the backing fabric, cut to shape, onto the back of the quilt then I added the hanging sleeve.

Pat myself on the back

2008-03-26T22:00:00.004+13:00

Since I started teaching beginner classes last year at a local fabric shop I have been busy thinking up quilts to make as class samples and writing the patterns for them. This has challenged me to make more use of my computer, including EQ6 (in which I still don't know how to draw a 6o degree triangle!) Tonight I finally learned (now don't laugh) how to scan a picture into a file and then insert the picture into my pattern document (okay, you can stop laughing now!)

I thought I would draw my own pictures of how to do double fold binding. These are just the illustrations.

Okay, I have to work on not getting the edge of the paper showing, but not bad for my first attempt.

It takes a long time . .

2008-03-23T22:21:00.002+13:00

. . . to sew a 3 metre seam! Especially compared to piecing 4 inch blocks. I have been making bags to put the poles for our quilt stands in. The poles are 3 metres long so the bags had to be even longer than that, and I sewed french seams for extra strength, so that is twice times 3 metres for each one. I would get to the halfway point where the handle is and think "I'm only half way!".The bags are are not elegant, being made out of left over curtain fabric and curtain samples, but they will do the job. Here they are lined up at Frances' house, 20 poles in each bag.
And these are some of our new quilt stands that Murray, the husband of one of our members, has made for us. They have a slotted piece to go on the foot of each one so they are easy to pick up and put down. Murray also made us 8 "thingies" to lift the poles in position (anyone got a good name for these?) Frances and I had a trial "hanging" this afternoon. They work great. Thanks Murray!

Colour Challenge

2008-03-12T21:53:00.005+13:00

Janice has just reminded me that she hasn't seen my entry for the colour challenge in our upcoming exhibition, so here it is:
We had to use analogous colours on the colour wheel. It is the size of an A3 piece of paper. This is a miniature of a bed sized quilt from (I think) Quiltmaker magazine. Does a challenge have to be totally original? The challenge for me was in having the analogous fabrics to be able to do it. Does that count? I was going to make the plum colours weave under the purple ones, to add my own variation to it, and had made extra blocks to do that, but when I put it together I forgot I had them and now it is too late. Never mind.

Getting Ready

2008-03-11T00:08:00.005+13:00

Phew, a second post this month. Things must be improving!! Just so you know I have been a busy beaver, this is a pile of quilts which are going into our club exhibition next month:
Sadly, they are not mine, I just helped get them ready (but it looks impressive doesn't it?) Our exhibition is only 5 weeks away, yikes! You can check out our guest speaker Barbara Bilyard . I am looking forward to seeing some of her quilts close up. She has a reputation of being a "hard case" so it should be an entertaining evening. I get the honour of opening the formal part of the evening, so if anyone has a good speech they want to exchange for fabric you know what to do :-)

What happened to February?

2008-03-01T16:18:00.005+13:00

It even had an extra day in it and I still didn't get any posts done! This is really bad. It's not like I don't have anything to blog about. I have plenty. I just seem to run out of day too soon. Soon, no one will visit me 'cos I've got nothing to say!!!

This is what I have been working on and got the letters fused last night.

This is the background:

These are the words:
And this is the fused top:
It is our Club's 20th Birthday this year and the committee thought we could do with an up date of the old banner. We are having our biennial exhibition next month and a celebratory dinner on the Saturday night. Barbara Bilyard from Auckland is our guest speaker. It is going to be a good night.

I must confess that this is not my design, my good quilt buddy Janice did that. She enlarged the letters to the right size for me to trace. We started some of the blocks at a club meeting and I finished it at home. It has been fun to work on it. Janice has very kindly agreed to quilt it, thanks, Janice!

This one is for Janice!

2008-01-30T09:54:00.001+13:00

Here is the new shed, in all its glory :-)
The washing line to the left and back of the shed is now gone and a new one has been put up to the left and front of the shed. an unexpected bonus in getting a new clothesline was that it has 6 rounds of lines instead of the 4 my old one had. Yipee! More washing! Ha!

Never mind the quilt, where's the shed?

2008-01-26T09:22:00.001+13:00

Janice wants to see a picture of the shed. Well the problem with that is that it is not finished yet. We had a problem with the skylight panel. It was damaged and we got a replacement. All good and fine, but the replacement is too long. One could be excused for thinking that a kit set shed means just that! Open the box and put everything together, no cutting to size involved. Well, apparently not. The shed person I spoke to on the phone was surprised to find that our kit set shed came with a skylight panel cut to the correct length. We are supposed to cut it ourselves! That's what saws are for right? Yes, true, except we don't have a suitable fine tooth saw and we don't want to crack the panel when cutting it to the correct length. Hey, it costs $75 for a replacement panel! Then the house guest went up-river for 3 days of R&R, so no progress has been made for the last few days. I do have a shed, it just doesn't have a whole roof yet.

And on the subject of my house guest, some of you want a clone of him sent to you. Just as soon as I figure out how to do that I will be selling to the highest bidder :-)

On the quilting side this is what happens when I don't watch where my hands are. Just as well I only caught the edge:

Something Finished - finally!

2008-01-25T09:25:00.000+13:00

Oh no, another whole month goes by and I have been a bad blog writer! Only excuse is I have been really, really busy (yeah, right!)

I got sidetracked by my new home stay offering to build a garden shed for me. He is a young new teacher from England who will be teaching in the same department as me at school. He was looking for somewhere to stay until he gets himself sorted with more permanent accommodation. The first day he offered to paint my house. The second day he offered to do any handy-man jobs I needed doing. Then he asked if there was anywhere to store a push bike. I don't have a garden shed and my garage is tiny. So we agreed in return for some free rent I would purchase a kit set shed and he would put it up. He built a proper floor for it and put in a step (It is on sloping ground - no where else for it to go). The washing line needed moving so the shed can fit, so he is putting up a new rotary clothes line for me. He clears the table after dinner and unpacks the dishwasher without asking and has one quarter of the washing a 15 year old Japanese boy produces. Okay, it is costing me money rather than contributing to my cash flow but HE CAN STAY HERE! (Do you think he can hear me shouting?)

We also had a stall at the Bushy Park Festival last Sunday and I was madly getting things ready for that. We had fantastic weather:

Here is the Bright Irish Chain finished. Not a great photo but I am pleased with the quilt:

Now, no prizes for guessing how long it will be before I next make a post. (but I will send a fabric postcard to some lucky commentor on this post)

How Not To Join Binding!

2007-12-28T21:08:00.000+13:00

I've had a break today from piecing the blocks on the new club banner and I decided to finish quilting the bright Irish Chain I started earlier in the year. A great day sewing, made heaps of progress and only fell at the last hurdle when joining the beginning and the end of the binding together:

Oops, time for a break, time for a Kit-Kat!

Mum, You've Got Coordinates!

2007-12-28T08:22:00.000+13:00

Is what he, of Honey Bunch fame, exclaimed last night as he walked by my design wall. "See, maths is useful," says I. He was referring to the little sticky labels I have put on each block for the new club banner. I have added the green quadrilaterals to the centre of half the blocks. I need to get these blocks joined together because my design wall is not long enough to get the other half of the blocks up at the same time. Hence the labels, so they get put in the right place when I am stitching.

Hey, I'm quilting!!

Blogger's Block

2007-12-24T14:32:00.001+13:00

O my, nearly a whole month since I last posted, how slack is that! I shall blame the busy end of school year and the fact that I have been spring cleaning my house - well parts of it! I am having a bedroom re-wallpapered so all of the stuff in that bedroom is dotted around the rest of the house until after Christmas. I have reorganised all my quilting magazines and I'm not going to tell you how many I have, auffice to say I have a dawning realisation that I need to STOP BUYING so much stuff! (And in the words of the Tui Beer ad - Yeah Right!)

Not much on the actual real-life quilting side:

I haven't finished my Lazygal Winter Class wall hanging :-(

I have made a few more blocks for the new Cotton On Quilters banner :-)

(the colour is not right, deeper and browner in real life)

Apart from that not much else is going on at the moment. maybe after Christmas I will feel more inspired.

Our Quilt is going to America!

2007-11-28T22:52:00.000+13:00

Whoa, life has got a bit crazy lately and is unlikely to recover for a couple of weeks.

The quilt Janice and I made for the Human Rights Challenge, (which won one of 2 awards and which you can read about on this blog) is currently being exhibited in Parliament until the end of next week. I attended the opening reception on Monday evening, very nice (Bellamy's does a very nice line in nibbles, including a 'melt in the mouth' beef fillet steak bite.) I found out that the two winning quilts are being sent to the USA to the State University of Michigan Museum's upcoming exhibition called "Quilts and Human Rights" (Jan 15 to May 15, 2008.) What a lovely surprise for us! Apparently we were supposed to already know about this, but due to a glitch in an email addy the correspondence got sent into the ether, never to return! Now all I have to do is win Lotto on Saturday!!

I have my rookie quilt class to teach tomorrow night and I need to buy a new iron to replace the one that died last week.

It is Cotton On Quilters' end of year meeting on Saturday and I want to hunt out some decorations for the lunch.

I haven't done my junior reports which are due Friday.

I haven't done 2 lots of marking which are not urgent but need to be done by the end of this week (ahem maybe the beginning of next week - the reports have a higher priority!)

Saturday of next week I am travelling to Wellington again to meet up with Linda from Canada, who is visiting New Zealand and who I am taking on a quilty shopping trip. We have only 'met' on-line so it will be fun to meet up in person.

After that it will be the last week of term and Junior Prizegiving and then I need to give my house a cleaning blast. That'll take us up to Christmas.

Somewhere in there my son (he of honey bunch fame) needs to have a 17th birthday celebration of some kind.

As for quilting content, I have:

(a) finished the letters for my Lazy Gal Winter Class quilt:
(b) done a test block for Cotton On Quilters' new banner:
Isn't this a cool block? Janice designed it for us on EQ6. My test block doesn't look very square. I think its the way I smoothed it onto the design wall. One down, 47 to go!

(c) finished the third applique test block using the ladder stitch method. Can't show you a photo 'cos Im soaking it to try and get out the supposedly washable kids' felt pen - well, what do I expect with red I ask myself. I'll have to get the napisan out to see if that will help. As far as the method goes I found it took me twice as long as the freezer paper method. Maybe because the daisy flower shape has 8 inward curves. No hand applique method is going to be quick, I suspect.

Well, that is enough content for about 4 post's worth. You are getting it all at once 'cos I know I wont get blogging again until at least next week (see above!)

More on Applique

2007-11-22T23:16:00.000+13:00

So, I still haven't got back to the hand applique. Got side-tracked onto the Lazy Gal class. But my friend Ruth got this book from USA (second hand)
It shows how to use a ladder stitch to applique. I'll give it a go and report back soon (or not so soon, as the case may be - I really don't know where the time goes to)

A rush of blood to the head!

2007-11-11T23:02:00.000+13:00

Just because I have nothing to do (ahem!) I have joined an online class called Lazy Gal Winter Class. The challenge is to make a Christmas themed wall quilt. The only rules are you have to make the quilt up out of your own head using no templates, no patterns, no EQ6, not much measuring, just in a free-pieced, improvisational way. I think I'm allowed to use applique. It is being run by Tonya Ricucci of lazygalquilting .blogspot.com. It's called a winter class 'cos it's winter - in the northern hemisphere! I couldn't resist the challenge of adding a kiwi summer Christmas perspective to the group blog. I knew exactly what I want to do almost straight away. It will remain to be seen how far I get :-)

Here is my first effort for the words which will be on the quilt:
You can check out what the other members are doing by clicking on this link or the link in my side bar.

Wahoo! Here it is!

2007-11-10T22:00:00.000+13:00

I got the binding on the raffle quilt finished so I was able to take it to club today. Pretty darn good even if I do say so myself. Still have to hand stitch down the hanging sleeve and do a label. When that is done we will get a better photo of it.

A big thank you goes to all the club members who worked on this quilt and to Bev Dyke from Nelson for her fantastic quilting, and many thanks to Kim Diehl for giving us permission to use her design for our raffle quilt. Tickets will go on sale towards the end of January next year.

Guess where the fabric was?

2007-11-07T19:20:00.000+13:00

I knew the left over backing fabric for the club raffle quilt would be somewhere. I just needed help finding it. See this innocuous pile of left over batting all neatly tied up, sitting on top of a supermarket bag with boxes of Basics Nappy Liners - the kind that melt with heat and are used for art quilts and which are no longer available here in NZ- not that I'm skiting here, you understand, and not that I've done anything with them since I got them :-) Of course this pile is waiting to be put away, along with a myriad of other things of the quilting kind:

Guess what was tied up with the batting underneath?

Yep, the missing backing fabric. It took Frances to find it. I picked up that pile last night, I know I did, but I didn't look underneath did I? Did I remember that it was the left over batting from the raffle quilt? No I did not. I sometimes wonder where my brain is. Still, it was just as well I didn't put the pile away, otherwise we would never have found it!!

The hanging sleeve is machined on and I'm off to do some hand stitching and watch the first episode of Glenn Close in Damages. I hope it's good. It's about time there was something decent on the box.

Back from the Quilter

2007-11-06T22:00:00.000+13:00

The raffle quilt for our club is back from the quilters, yippee! Bev has made a fabulous job of it:
I have machine stitched the binding on and it just needs a hanging sleeve put on before I hand stitch the binding down. Then it will be done. I just can't find what I did with the left-over backing fabric. I'm sure it is somewhere. . . around here. . . umm. . .