WIP's - What I have been working on.

This week I tried a new way of sandwiching my quilts. I have been researching different ways of sandwiching quilts that did not break your back or kill your knees. I have been using my sewing table which is quite large to drape all the layers over and slip and slide it around to baste it together, however I now have a hole in my table for my sewing machine which limited the space I could pull tight and baste. After using google (my best friend these days) I decided to try rolling the layers on timber planks so to speak. I headed off to Bunnings (local hardware store) and purchased 3 x 2.7m thin planks of timber and headed home to roll the top, backing and batting onto them.

Once home I found rolling the batting the hardest and most back breaking - but then using my small kitchen table was not probably the best idea as had way to much over hanging, so next time I will try the floor as hopefully I don't need to get down on the floor to do this. Getting down is the easy part but getting back up again is a whole other story...lol not to mention how much the hard floor hurts my back and knees. Anyway I managed to get the batting rolled up - a little wonky but it was rolled up. I then used my new ironing table to roll the top and backing which wasn't as hard as the batting.

Then it came time to make the sandwich, I must say this is a much better way to sandwich the quilt even though I did it on my small kitchen table with lots of over hang, I definitely preferred the way you have control of the layers and tightness of them together. I was only able to baste a little bit at a time but by being able to see each layer as you lay it out and smooth it, tighten it before adding the next layer is definitely better then the way I was doing it. On my last quilt before this I ended up skating very close to the edge of the backing and nearly ended up with the writing on the edge being on the back of the quilt as I couldn't see if I was aligned properly. This new way allows you to adjust the different layers as needed as you can always see where each layer will go.

Rolling the top

The other end of the top roll.

Here is a photo of the sandwiching process.

So I also did some work on my Diamond Hill quilt as well and thought I need to start making those little diamonds for the border. The pattern offers different ways of doing these however I chose the paper piecing method without the paper and they are excruciating to make but they have the WOW factor once finished and definitely give you a great feeling of satisfaction once they are complete. Though while I was making these I did keep thinking about those on the facebook page that had applique's the diamonds on and that it would have been quicker to do that, however I believe you start as how you intend to finish and as I started to do them this way I was to continue to do them this way for the whole project. I also finally started to starch my edges over on the second border applique pieces.

Once the squares were completed to trim down I lined up the points of the diamond on the cutting mat with the lines on the mat. I just eyeballed the lining up.

Then I used my ruler to line up with the lines on the ruler with the ones on the mat and left a 1/4 inch seam allowance from the diamond point.

Then sewed together matching points and seams.

During the week I had a little visitor come visit me in my sewing room while I was squaring up these tiny blighters. It appears my daughters new budgie likes my sewing room especially my sewing machine and fat quarter's every chance he gets when he is out of his cage he tries to head for my sewing room. My daughter has only had him for a couple of weeks and he already is happily sitting on her shoulder and finger and starting to try and mimic a clicking sound we are constantly saying to him. I keep teasing her that the budgies first word will be the dog's name Buddy as we are constantly saying his name especially when he is out of his cage as the dog thinks they should become best friends and keeps harassing the bird to sniff it and push it around.

Well I feel like I have accomplished a lot this week on different projects as I feel I have been neglecting some of my projects as the Garden Window quilt kept me busy for quite a while and the wedding quilt is turning into a very quick quilt with me already starting the FMQ though I must say I am having difficulty in working out what to FMQ and where as this quilt came together so fast I didn't get my usual time to process what I think would look good on each section but never mind I am slowly working that out and hope what I choose will look good.

Until next time - Have a great week.

Garden Window Completed

Wow another week has come and gone so quickly. Well I have been very busy this past week between work, sewing, and family drama I feel I have accomplished a lot this week. No wonder I feel very tired and it's only Tuesday.

Where to start - I finally completed the Garden Window quilt, it is all FMQ and binding all sewn down. It was a great feeling to finish. So here is the picture I promised last week as it has been washed and finally the wind had died down long enough for me to get a photo (very early in the morning mind you).

I then moved onto a quilt for my old neighbours that became good friends for their wedding in December 2017. I started this last week and have completed the top and pillow cases this week. Now all I have to do is sandwich it and FMQ it. I have always wondered why people loved the HST for quilts, I now know. If you need a really quick quilt do HST, I can't believe this quilt went together so quickly and I even embroidered some of the squares on my embroidery machine.

So without further ado here are some photo's to enjoy.

The Pillow Cases:

The quilt top

The three middle squares have been machine embroidered

As you can see I have been rather busy but then my daughter has been working a lot last week which helped as I sew while I wait for her to finish at night, it helps keep me awake.

So till next time, go ahead and sew :).

WIP's - Works in Progess

Well I have finally finished the Garden Window Quilt - YAAAYYYY and have the sore finger to prove it from hand sewing the binding & label on. I am really happy with this quilt and like the FMQ that I have done. Now to save the money to fly to Melbourne to give the quilt to my MIL. I can't wait to see her reaction. I tried to get a photo on the weekend however because I wanted to get a photo the wind outside picked up making it impossible to hang my quilt on the fence to get a photo as it kept blowing off the fence. I don't have a space big enough inside to get one. As soon as I can I will post the finished photo.

So I started working on my next quilt for a friend who is getting married. The wedding quilt is a really quick and easy quilt to piece using HST and I started with 10" squares as you see below. The quilt will have 3 colours: a blue, a coral and while/cream background.

10" Squares

You place a white and colour square with right sides together and sew all around the edge, once sewn you then cut them diagonally from corner to corner as shown below and you end up with 4 HST.

Cut diagonally to make HST

4 HST

 Once I had sewn all the 10" squares together and cut them diagonally it was time to mess around with the placement of the HST. I tried two different layouts and ended up choosing the bottom one Layout 2 of the two pictures below.

Layout 1

Layout 2

I will 3 rows of big blue diamonds with some machine embroidery marking the big wedding day in the middle of the a couple of the blue diamonds. 

Block 1 completed

It hasn't taken long to get to this stage so the quilt top should be rather quick to finish except for the machine embroidery will probably hold up the whole process as I need time to sit at the machine and do this. I am still really new at machine embroidery. 

I also belong to a group on facebook called quilting guys and gals and they are doing a quilt of many colours monthly block. There are no specific pattern, it is up to the individual what pattern you want to use or can use different once for each month, the only stipulation is the colour. A different colour for each month. 

I saw on Pinterest a quilt pattern making butterfly's using the dresden plate pattern, so I feel in love as I love anything with butterflys. So I decided for my quilt of many colours to do this and have a different colour butterfly each month. How this is all going to go together at the end I have no idea but am loving the creative process this is creating.

September is Red:

I got a start on October as well which is Yellow:

An update on my Diamond Hill: I have one corner of the border completed and slowly working my way through another corner. However my life keeps getting in the way and not much progress is happening. Now if I could only make work go away just imagine how much I could get done lol.

Well that is my progress this week and I am quite happy with how much I have accomplished considering my work and personal life has become extremely busy and not likely to slow down anytime soon. Till next time.

Garden Window - Nearing the end

For the past two weeks I have been plugging away at FMQ my Garden Window. It is a massive king size quilt that I have been FMQ on my Janome 6600. I love having my sewing machine sunk into the table it really helps with the FMQ and stops the drag on the quilt. I must say that it is difficult to FMQ a very large quilt on your normal sewing machine but I always manage to get it done. I love this creative part of quilting and deciding on what to put where and what will enhance the quilt top etc. I also love the challenge of FMQ and to try new things. I have only been quilting for approx a year and a half so am still really new to FMQ so to speak, though I think I would probably call myself a beginner or still learning even after 10 years of doing this as there is still so much to learn. I am enjoying the learning process.

Centre of the Quilt - The flower panel

I have FMQ using some metallic thread though the photo's are not really picking up the thread very well. Mind you metallic thread is not the easiest thread to FMQ with or sew with really, but I accepted the challenge and managed to tame the wicked metallic.

First border beside panel

 Here I used my pounce pad & stencil for the first border and kept in a flower theme, you can still see the chalk powder on the material & I just noticed a dog hair from Buddy.

Third border on sides

 There are three red squared on each side which I used my Westerlee Rulers with. I also used some more metallic thread here however the metallic thread was thicker than the center ones used and was believe it or not more painful to sew with than the normal metallic though I think it might have been my needle. I used a metallic needle size 80 as that was all I had and even tried a 90 universal needle but the thread kept shredding on a regular basis. So when I get the chance will investigate different needles for using metallics with. In the end I got the job done after a lot of sighing, swearing & cursing & of course walking away before I do something rash, but it was completed and I am very happy with the result.

Third border on the sides

These strips are with the red squares and I used the Westerlee rulers again also with metallic thread and it actually looks like a mermaid's tail, so a cool effect I created. 

Applique border

 I am currently sewing the applique border. I just started with a variegated green cotton to mark the leaves and do the swirls of new growth. I am loving doing the swirls which you can probably tell as I think I have gone overboard with them but it looks so nice.

applique border

applique border

 I still have to do the yellow center's and then stipple in black in the back ground I will probably go with a largish stipple for the background.

When the metallic thread became to much I went back to work on my Diamond Hill BOM and have been turning edges and glue basting to my corner and have completed one corner. Sorry I forgot to take a photo of it on my design wall, hopefully soon I will have all four corners to show. I now have the freezer paper pieces to iron to the material to create a second border and repeat the process all over again.

I have been extremely busy lately and can't wait for my life to quieten down so I can get more sewing done. Till next time.

WIP Update

I am doing my happy dance I have finished my Garden Window quilt top. Yaaaayyyy (can you tell how happy I am to have finished piecing/appliqueing the top). I now have to sandwich it and then start the long process of quilting it. I managed to get it sandwiched over the weekend and I finally started quilting. This is where the fun begins as I have hundreds of ideas running through my head when I start quilting of what I want to do where, though the only problem is trying to remember the great ideas when I get to that part.

I finished machine sewing the applique down and placed it on my bed to judge the size, I thought it was a tad too small and maybe a small border would finish it off. Well when I started to play around with laying out fabric beside it I didn't like any of my choices. So off to the material store with my daughter to pick out a nice piece of fabric for the border. I take my daughter with me as usually I find two or three fabrics I like for what ever project I am working on and then can't decide between them, she comes along and tells me which one will work best. I love having my daughter take part in my hobby. So far she has never been wrong and everything she does choose makes the quilt top really pop. So we found a border however when I got home I didn't think it really suited being placed beside the black of the applique border. So I played with my fabric some more and found that the material really popped when I put a row of border fabric beside the black first. So long story short the quilt turned out bigger than I wanted but it looks fantastic. I have a queen size bed and the top nearly touches the ground either side.

Looking down on my bed you can just make out the border at the top

A closer look at the border that I added

As it is so big I folded it up so see the border with the centre and applique together

I have just realised as I placed my pictures here that I have the whole thing upside down on my bed and here I thought I had it the right way up - silly me. You can tell I have been looking at this quilt for too long as I can't even tell the right way up anymore  😊

The quilt below I made a few months ago however my daughter took it before I could get a photo or even label it. Well it finally made it into the wash and I was able to confiscate it back to take the photo and hopefully this week put the label on. You can't really see how beautiful the colours of the varying purples are in the photo but even I really love this quilt.

 This quilt was originally for my daughter's best friend who had moved to another school and she missed terribly, however near the end of completion my daughter let her friend know how she was feeling as her friend had hurt her badly. The friend didn't care that my daughter was hurting and they had words and broke their friendship. My daughter didn't feel that her friend deserved something so very special, beautiful & made with lots of love, tho she did feel guilty for not giving the quilt to the intended. However after a couple of months has passed they are back talking again tho I don't think their friendship will ever be the way it was.

This is one quilt I was very happy to keep as I fell in love with it from the very first block. I believe this quilt was never really intended to be given away as I love all my quilts I make and don't want to see them go however when I get to the giving part I have accepted they are going. With this quilt I never felt like that when I reached the end so I think it was intended to be mine from the beginning I just didn't know it at the time.

 Something else I did over the weekend. I went to spotlight as my daughter was after glass beads, I found this beautiful butterfly organza material on sale for $6 a metre. I couldn't resist and bought the whole lot (there was about 6 metres left) to make pretty curtains for my sewing room. However it turns out I could do both my sewing room and my daughters room and still have some left over.

All folded up looking absolutely stunning

Here at my window in my sewing room

A close up of it at the window 

 Well that's it from me this week and probably for a little while as I will be very occupied with FMQ of my Garden Window Quilt and won't have anything to post while I am doing this. Everyone will find it boring around me but I love to get to the FMQ part and really let my creativity fly!!!

WIP'S Update

It has been a busy week even with a three day weekend. I work full time and that has kept me extra busy this week. Here in Cairns we only have two shops that sell fabric other than Spotlight & Lincraft  (major department craft stores) and I found out that the main fabric shop is closing down. After I had a minor panic attach about where I was going to buy fabric and my heart settled down I came to the conclusion that I will have to start investigating the internet to purchase fabric. I like to look at my fabric, touch it, place it against other fabric to gauge if it goes well. Using the internet makes this very hard to do. Also the other shop that is left doesn't really have a large range of fabric either so I have that limited option. Anyway I went in and bought some fabric for future projects that were in my head and now are starting to get to the realistic phase of having material. Even though I don't plan on starting Esther Ailu's Love Entwined applique quilt for a long time I have purchased the background for it :).

I tend to only buy fabric for particular projects and I'm not really someone who buys fabric just because they can and you never know one day sort of thing. I do have some (very small amount) of material that I have done that with - mainly because I fell in love with it. I also tend to have a long list of projects that I want to do and plan to do and thinking about colours / patterns / quilting  etc long before I even get started. I can here you say "how do you handle all that in your head at once" - with great difficulty which explains why I don't sleep very well.

Well I have been busy sewing down the flowers on my Garden Window Quilt and bought the backing so I can sandwich it at some stage this week. I hope to start quilting it next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I have finally started the next phase of the Diamond Hill by cutting out my corner border pieces so I can start to applique them. I have the pieces cut out of the freezer paper just need to iron onto the fabric and cut them out and turn their edges so I can start placing them on the corner border. I hope to have this started by the end of the week.

I nearly wasn't going to write my blog this week as I thought I haven't done much but WOW I did seem to have something to say after all.😊 I hope everyone has a great week until next time.

WIP's This weeks progress

Well this week hasn't seen much sewing done either due to a little hospital stint for routine tests - all is OK. I had a friend come over and drop my sewing machine into my sewing table for me and it is wonderful to have such a flat surface to sew on and will be great when I am FMQ. I must admit it was like learning to sew all over again as I had gotten used to the sewing machine being above the table and now that it is lower it does feel a bit strange. I do love having my quilt top spread out on the table though without any pulling or catching on the sewing machine's extension table I was using. My friend will be back to add a draw to my table which will complete the major modifications I want to my sewing table. Now I just need to find a solution to my sewing machine mat that I made to hang my scissors and other accessories so that they are at hand when needed while sewing. I will let you all know what I find.

The hole under the sewing machine is so I can get to the knee lift and feed dog lever. The white marks on the table are from me ironing my quilting sandwich which I do on my table as my knees are unwilling to do the floor sandwiching. The table is stained then a clear coat of polish on top of the stain which is why it has turned white with the heat of the iron. I use really big bull dog clips to clip the backing to the table and pull it tight then add the batting and top then I iron the top and push out from the centre while ironing to make sure no creases before basting with safety pins. A lot easier on my knees doing it this way than the floor as I can walk all round the table.

As for the Garden Window Quilt I have all four sides of stems sewn into place and three sides of leaves sewn and flowers glue basted onto the quilt. I will hopefully get back into the swing this week and finish off all four sides of leaves and hopefully start on the flowers. I did decide on whether to add another blocked border to the quilt and realized once I placed the quilt on my bed that just a small 3 inch border would make it the right width and length I want. I have decided on a red border then sandwich it and quilt it. I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So off to the shops this weekend to get the batting and backing so that it is ready for when I get to the sandwich part. I have already purchased additional thread to do the quilting so well and truly on my way to the finish line now. (Sorry no photo's this time).


Last night I finished another block of my daughters special Empowerment Quilt. Each night I try to do a little hand embroidery and work on the embroidered block for this quilt. This quilt has been in progress for 18 months so far and with each block she is more keen for me to finish it. Now I have to trace the next block to start working on.

Block just finished

First two rows of the centre 

Showing placement of current block 

Each block has been sewn with an embroidery stitch around the outside by the sewing machine to frame the block. Then hand embroidered the quotations and embroidery motifs. I have used tear away stabilizer with each block as the material is very light thin delicate material. The stabilizer also helps to give some firmness as I don't really like to use a hoop to hand embroider with, I find that it really upsets my carpel tunnel in my wrists as well as the arthritis that is starting in my fingers. 

The story behind this quilt came from seeing so many teenagers especially my own two children have their self-confidence / self esteem shaken and broken especially by their own peers that I wanted to make something to remind my daughter everyday just how wonderful and special she really is and that she is completely loved every minute of every day. I decided to go searching for quotes of empowerment and then created the beautiful blocks by adding some easy embroidery patterns and free motion embroidery on some. I found a pattern that had big square blocks which I substituted the embroidery blocks with.