A Big Weekend and a Small Quilt!

I baked for the girls - but they didn't eat a crumb......

I went on retreat - but I stayed at home.....

My little online quilting group have just had a Skype version of a quilting retreat! We chose a quilt from a book we all have, warned our families, and got sewing!
It was so much fun! Time zones only got in the way a little and we seemed to sew our way through them :-)
This is the little quilt we chose to do —

 

It is Square Dance, by Lori Smith, out of her book Fat Quarter Quilting. It finishes at 16" x 20".
It was fun to do as it had the mix of piecing and applique... its size meant we mostly got to the quilting and binding stage by the end of the weekend.

A couple of posts ago, I asked if anyone had any great tips on invisible machine applique.... this quilt was a good practise for me; I worked hard at getting it as invisible as I could and have finally realised you cant have it totally invisible - I think the look I was striving for doesn't exist!! However I am happy with it and will write a little more about it in another post another day :-)

This was the first time I have used a wool:poly batting mix and I am quite pleased with it. (60/40 from Matilda's Own). It has a lovely puff and it also has a beautiful weight and feel. Dense quilting wasn't needed (which was good as the weekend was over!). I'm hooked! (And it kept my lap warm while sewing on the binding too!).
Thank you girls for your company!! Joanne shows her quilt here, and Wendy's is here.  We chatted with Joan too but she wasn't sewing the same little quilt.

I put the last few stitches in this block last night, my third from the Quiltmania mystery from last year. (Halfway there!)

Do you rememer the VW van I pattern tested a few blogposts back? Juliet now has it on her Craftsy site so if you loved it, you can now make your own!! It was fun to make.
Apologies to those of you whom I haven't answered after my last post, I hope to catch up soon. (Been busy sewing!)
Have a lovely day, happy stitching,

Where to start?

You know that feeling that you have when deadlines are met, the climax has happened and you are left hanging - what to do next? Well, that's been me this week! (You can read my last post here if you have no idea what I am talking about!)
The need to sew is so ingrained in me that it didn't take long for my itchy fingers to start wriggling again.
But what to do?
I decided a good start would be to have a good look at the leader and ender project I've had in the background for the last few weeks. I always like to have a leader and ender project (ideally a scrap project so I don't have to think too hard) on the go. 'Goodnight Irene' is a good gobbler of 2.5" squares, of which I have plenty! Terry from Terry's Treasures has inspired many with this project, and it goes together very quickly and well.

Goodnight Irene so far. After looking at others in Terry's linkups,
I think I am going to slow down on my use of the creams, and try to
make those 16 patch blocks a little more colourful.

And as is the way, scrap sewing does not always use scraps - it generates them too.......!!

I've been sewing 2 seams on the X-block instead of one so that when I trim it off,
I have a half square triangle - something else to find a project for!!

Now that my head is a little more sorted and I have some direction for Irene, I will send her back to leader and ender status and poke around for my next main project - I have plenty to choose from!!

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In the evenings I have pulled out my applique again, starting on Block 3 of the 2103 Quiltmania mystery. Here's the first little person from this block —

Can you guess what they are doing this time?!

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 I said in my last post that I have a couple more projects (yaay, finishes) to share; ones that I've been sewing at home for the New Year's Launch my favourite quilt shop held last week. This first one is a 'Seasons' project we are doing, with the first season being Autumn (naturally, for those of us in this hemisphere!). As the year progresses we will work our way through the other seasons.

The stand for them is really lovely and I look forward to making more of these little hangings :-)

 And on the wall in this corner of the shop you can see another wall hanging I have made; the long, skinny-ish one —

When I remember the name and designer I will edit this post!
The single ladies are also very lovely and are by the same designer.

Quite clever how she has done the perspective, from left to right rather than
front to back.

 

Isn't she sweet?!

It's been nice to have these finishes, but now it's time for me to rummage through my sewing cupboard :-)
Happy stitching, have a great day - and thank you for visiting

The same but different

I received a sweet comment from my sister-in-law the other day, which has prompted me to pull up my socks and write a post. Her and my brother have just been over to New Zealand for a visit, and our family had a belated Christmas (see *here*) together.
I hadn't finished their present then but when I saw them a few days later I had;  - here is the comment -
You can post a photo of MY Christmas present now too!!!!!!!! Because mine is gorgeous so you should show it off!
(Thank you Sandie).  So here is the picture!

Yes, you may recognise it, I have shown a VERY similar one recently, however, the quilting on this one is different :-)

I was inspired by a book I have called "Quilting Makes the Quilt" where the author, Lee Cleland, makes 5 identical quilts and quilts each one very differently, amazing the differences between them all. (She did this 5 times!). Anyway, I decided to do my two identical quilts sort of differently, a nice little challenge for myself.

Both had pebbles in the white hexagons, and the actual hexie flowers
were mostly untouched .

I went a bit fancy in the corners of this one.

This was the first one, I gave this to my sister and her hubby.

While my sister-in-law was here we were able to compare the applique project we are both working on, the Quiltmania mystery.
It was so cool to see Sandie's - I was going to take photos of them side by side but mine looked quite insipid next to hers!!
We've both only done the first two blocks but it is a nice feeling to be stitching this alongside each other.

Raewyn's block 1

Raewyn's block 2

Sandie's block 1.
Sandie is using Kaffe Fasset fabrics - can you tell :-)

Sandie's block 2

Photo not in focus but I love that she has chosen to use
the little buttons on her boys.

What a difference the fabric makes, huh?!

Our summer is whizzing by, we have had plenty of visitors lately and all the holiday makers have been enjoying the sunshine. While we are worrying that our farm is rapidly drying out, there are diverse and perverse weather situations happening all over the world. In particular, I have been really disturbed to see the severe drought situation in parts of Australia. The world has shrunk due to blogging and it hurts to see fellow bloggers hurting so much. I have had a feeling of helplessness here in New Zealand but I was pleased to see a link on facebook which directed me to Buy A Bale... a donation (easily made through PayPal or Visa) buys feed (bales of hay) for stock, or other needs. Just imagine, even if we all just bought one bale of hay, the difference we could make.

I'm feeling a little caught up now, I wouldn't have thought I would go for 3 weeks between posts but oh well, I made it back :-).
Happy stitching everyone,
Have a Great Day,
Raewyn.

Geese, a Playground and Stars

Hello again, gosh I don't know what is happening but just at the moment these blog posts are coming thick and fast!

I've made some good progress on a couple of my evening stitching projects. I've now finished Block 4 of Lynette Anderson's latest Button Club, Chateau Hexagon.

Aren't these Cranky Geese characters? ... they look like butter wouldn't melt...!

Love this button!

(Leanne, I can't help but think of you when I look at these! Everyone else, click here to see what I'm talking about!)

And I've also finished Block 2 of Quiltmania's current mystery. Sorry it needs a good press, I'm always worried about pressing applique and stitching as I don't want to flatten it all..... has anyone got a good tip of how to press a block like this?

Aren't the little touches like the skipping rope too cute? Amazing the
different look you can achieve by simply using a few more strands of thread.
(I've just checked the real piece to make sure that bit of fluff we can see in
the photo above is just fluff and not my seam falling apart - whew,
I was worried for a minute there!!)

I have recently been tutoring a series of classes at my favourite quilt shop. We had four classes, holding the last one last week.
We called it StarMastery - covering different stars with lots of variations for each to keep everyone's brain's ticking. It was lots of fun, although I will admit to feeling slightly uneasy when several of my sewing buddies decided to take part!! They wanted to keep me on my toes, I think, and I hope the feeling was mutual - insert a sly he-he here!
Here are some of the stars made, they all look so cool and different of course in everyone's unique fabrics.
You'll notice that I was one of those teachers who gave homework.... and you 'll be able to see who did their homework and who didn't!!

Leeanne in Kansas Troubles

Jill

Kerry (if you click on the photo you may see that
Kerry is using a NZ Paua print as her colour inspiration)

Liz, who missed a couple of classes; we'll hold a catch-up soon.

Barb

Kerryn's been hanging her's up on the wall. Didn't get the best photo sorry Kerryn.
(But I did get some good advertising for the shop!!)

These are the samples I made for the classes.

 We still need to discuss different ways of putting them together, it will be so much fun to see what everyone does with them :-)
Time for bed to recharge my batteries for some serious sewing tomorrow :-)
Happy stitching everyone, and thank you for visiting,

Applique Mysteries

Evenings lately have been spent doing a bit of needleturn...both of these projects are mystery ones...who knows where they will end!!
First up - Block Two of Lynette Anderson's latest button club, Chateau Hexagon, this one is called 'Sampler Block' - isn't it sweet?

(You can see my block one, Birdhouse Corner, here)

Quiltmania magazine is doing a mystery quilt this year as well. It is designed by Japanese quilter Reiko Kato. Here (below) is block one. Now that I see these photos on the screen, I notice that they are a little dark, however I do think the appliques are really cute. I had loads of fun dressing them - I possibly put more thought into dressing these children than I did my own kiddies when they were little, but please don't tell them that!
I couldn't believe how excited I was by this project; I actually couldn't wait till evening each night to carry on playing and stitching!!

The complete block.

This Friday is FNSI night and I have registered to play along as well... this month it is being hosted by Wendy at Sugarlane quilts. Pop along to her blog (here) if you want to take part. I hope to be working on this stitchery, which was my 'nearly done' project for One Christmas Item a Month in June. But, by the time Friday night comes along something completely different may have fallen into my lap!
We shall see :-)


I think that is all for now, happy stitching,