Still Back Blogging!

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!

Wahoo! Here it is!

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.

Ready for Quilting

The raffle quilt got basted at club yesterday and is now out of my hands and will be on its way to the quilter soon. When it comes back all I will have to do is sew the binding on and label it. I actually like hand sewing the binding down. When I get to that last stitch it gives me a wonderful sense of achievement.

It's a Flimsy!

Wahoo, look what I got finished last night:


And look what I got finished tonight:


I'll be taking it along to club tomorrow to baste it ready to quilt. I just wish it was mine. I guess I'll have to buy quite a few of the raffle tickets, won't I? (or make another one for myself - yeah, right!)

Project for the Week

It is Cotton On quilters this coming Saturday and I have been madly working on piecing the centre blocks for the raffle quilt, in the hope I get it done so we can baste it at club. There are 100 of these bunnies to join together:

And then the 4 borders and 4 corner blocks get sewn on. Did you know that 100 blocks, each with 8 points makes for a LOT of point-matching!

97 and counting

Sheesh, I think I'm going to do lots of posts in quick succession and life gets in the way! Anyway we are up to post #97 and I'm still choosing the goodie bag to be won :-)

I have been working on the raffle Quilt for Cotton On Quilters, appliqueing leaves onto one of the borders. I've really enjoyed the relaxing hand work. This is how far we have got:
I need to tell you that I have not done all of this work myself! This is a group effort! Lots of members prepared the flowers, leaves and berries. I have appliqued the vines on all of the sections and the flowers on one of the corner blocks, and the flowers and leaves on the middle border. I still need to add the berries and that one will be finished. Rae did most of the flowers and all the leaves and berries on the top border. Frances did the rest of the 2 corner blocks and is working on the fourth border. Audrey did the flowers on the bottom border. I need to cut out the last 2 corner blocks and take the while thing to club on Saturday to give someone else an opportunity to contribute some stitching.

Speaking of club, our Cotton On Quilters blog had disappeared off the face of the earth! I have emailed blogger help but to no avail yet. Does anyone with more nous than me know what I can do to get it back??

Eeek!

What is happening to bloglines? I don't check for a couple of days and I have 656 posts to read! When I look to see who of you has been so prolific I find that lots of posts are "repeated" (I don't know why bloglines does this). Whew, I can relax, you are all human after all and not super duper multi bloggers leaving me in the dust, like I thought!

I have been working away on one of the borders for our club raffle quilt. A friend came to visit the other night and while she sat on my sewing chair and chatted I spay starched the last of the leaves for appliqueing. It is really pleasant having someone to chat do while doing a job like this.
Yesterday I went out to Janice's to quilt a community quilt top that I had been given to finish. Took me 5 hours on her Swiftquilter from start to finish. Not bad I thought. Immediately after dinner I fell into bed and stayed there until morning. I was tired!! (but pleased with my efforts.)

PS: My 100th post is coming up soon. In the spirit of blogging celebration when I get around to making it and you leave a comment on it I will put you in the draw for a squishy packet. What will be in it I have yet to decide, but I have plenty of fabric to choose from! I will post a piccy of what is up for grabs when my batteries are recharged (yes, that is both kinds of batteries, the camera ones and my energy ones.)

More Cutting, cutting . . .

This is the progress on cutting for the raffle quilt:

How do you like my organisational skills? Or am I just 'anal' as my friend Jo would say? She says I am "that adjective" about my pins. I like my sewing pins to be all the same, the long and thin type (but not the quilting pins with yellow or white or flower heads) and I like them to be in their little round plastic container which has a little pin cushion on the lid, with NO OTHER OBJECTS in it, like stray needles or safety pins!! If they are bent they get biffed. The little plastic container is one I have had for a long time, at least 30 years. It used to have a foam rubber pin cushion of the lid but this has long disintegrated and I made a new little cloth and batting one and glued it to the lid. I'm gonna cry when it dies!

Cutting, cutting . . . and a little hand sewing

I am in charge of the construction of our club's next raffle quilt for our biennial exhibition in April of next year. We are making a quilt designed by Kim Diehl from her book Simple Traditions (used with permission.) I decided I would make up little packets of fabric, already cut, for people to take away and make into the blocks and to prepare some applique shapes for the border. Since I work much better to deadlines I decided I would have these packets ready for our next club meeting which is this coming Saturday. This is a really great idea (I thought), especially if a quilt is using a limited number of fabrics. But this one is a scrappy style of 100 plus blocks, each block has 25 pieces cut from 2 fabrics plus the background, and we are making no more than 2 blocks with the same fabric. Slows things down somewhat! I have done 20 of them, I will get there, I will get there, I will get there . . .

While I watched Close Up after dinner I did hand sew one side of binding down on the community quilt I quilted using Janice's Juki and Swiftquilter frame. 3 sides down and one to go. Then I was a good girl and started the cutting. So I can feel virtuous, but I'm sorry, no photo today.