Daisy Mae - Yummy

Check it out.....Mum and I have been waiting a while for this range Daisy Mae by Denyse Schmidt to come into Spotlight....Mum spotted the bolts on Friday behind the counter, and it was Sunday before we could get back to Spotty.

When we went back on Sunday the bolts were still behind the counter!!! What's going on doesn't anyone else want to buy this range in Darwin!!!

Anyway we put on our nicest customer voice and asked if we could look at the fabric, we were allowed to go behind counter and we arranged everything by colour, then decided we loved the whole the range....

The blues....note those very sophisticated greys....

The greens.....

The oranges...and I especially loved the couple of reds....

We were slightly restrained...we only bought 1/2 meter of each most of the fabrics, and have made up our own "little" fat quarter packs!

What to do next! So many ideas....so little time! Have I said that before?

What just happened?

What a hectic couple of weeks I have had...unfortunately not quilting related...but home renovations...my kitchen had gone from this....

to this....

Check out this beautiful laminate from Laminex...

As my kitchen man pointed out, he had matched the design from the benchtop to the edge, so the pattern flowed over the top...A man after my heart! Apparently it took him ages...but perfection often does! Hubby and my daughter like the pattern because it is bright, but my sons don't like it because it looks like fabric...so sad too bad!

We also had our flooring replaced so I had to empty my house into our "family room"...where is my sewing table?

There it is....quiet sobbing :(

But the good news is I will have my own little room to sew in...can't wait to get it set up...but wait... the painter who is coming in 2 weeks has just pulled up outside...he has had a job cancelled...can he start on Tuesday ??? Sewing room set up will have to wait another week...sigh...

In the mean time, I will wander around touching fabric and looking at magazines! So this isn't a completely quilt free post, check out the blocks I was sent from the second round of the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee...


From Leila, who blogs @ Sewn by Leila

From Christina...

From Eva Marie in the Netherlands, who blogs here ...

From Anna...

From Jennifer, who blogs here ...

There are some clever and generous ladies out there! So now I have twelve blocks all together...

I think I will do a scrappy red, pink and orange checker board sashing...not sure when that will happen...but that's the idea at the moment....Now I am going to go and find some other project you haven't seen so I can do another post real soon!

More fun with Regal Dapple

After last weeks post about my pink scraps quilt and the fabric I used for the sashing, Brandon Malby's Regal Dapple, that Dapple has been on my mind, so when I was reading this book...

And I saw this pillow, it's called SleepyHead...

I knew instantly that I wanted to use the Dapple as the background....so I pulled as many pastel Kaffe's as I had...

That in itself was a challenge because I tend buy the brighter red and pinks, but I am really happy with how this has turned out...have I told you before that Vliesofix is my best friend....

The pastels really pop against the dark background.

I used my Clover 1/4 bias tape tool for the first time, to make the vines...now that is a little tool worth making an investment in.

I am going to free motion quilt to outline the applique, at the moment the applique is ironed down with the fusible webbing (Vliesofix)...the problem is now I have a little voice in my head saying....make it into a quilt...make it into a quilt!!!

So I have the block pinned on a little curtain in front of my sewing machine so I can consider what I will do next...and of course the observant among you will have noticed I have about 15 little berries to apply.

Pillow or medallion quilt...what do you think?

Pink Scraps quilt top done :)

For those of you who have been reading my blog for last little while, will have noticed lots of pink happening, and particularly pink scraps, whilst I was attempting to keep up with the Block of the Month Quilt Challenge over at Bumble Beans.

Anyway, I fell behind early in the piece (fancy that), and I decided to repeat the three blocks I had already done, three times, the deadline to show the quilts was 18th January, and I missed that as well, but no matter because now....

I am a little excited, I have just this minute finished ironing down the last border of my pink scraps quilt top, and it's looking quite fabulous! Well at least I think so....everyone else might think it's a hot mess (colour pun)!

I have used a Brandon Mably print - Regal Dapple for my sashing, I went out of my comfort zone to use this, and I am surprised how much I like it...I guess I shouldn't be that surprised I had two meters of it in the stash cupboard...so I must I have thought it was a good thing when I bought it!!

I finished the last of my blocks on Australia Day (last Thursday), so now I just have to decide how to quilt it!

Do you like this shot? I stood on top of the outdoor table for this one...lucky the table is solid wood! The quilt top is 48" square, sorry not to have a better whole quilt shot but it is very windy and overcast today, so inside, where I could hang the quilt, the photos aren't that good.

Anyway if you think this interesting, pop over to 15 Minutes Play and check out the other challenge entries, and the winners.

What I liked most about this challenge was the randomness of only using scraps for the blocks, which has given each block a different look, and the process of "making fabric"...sewing scraps together...I enjoyed and it is certainly a technique I would use again....off to play with some more scraps!

4x5 Modern Quilt Bee Wonky Stars

This quarter, for the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee, I have sent my partners Wonky star blocks, these were fun to make but as you can see a bit on the fiddly side....

For Leila, who blogs @ Sewn by Leila, requested cardinal red and white...

For Cristina, who requested cardinal red, charcoal grey and white....

For Jennifer, who blogs here requested pink, green, grey and white....

For Eva Marie in the Netherlands, who blogs here, requested medium grey, aqua, green and white...

For Anna, who requested, citron, aqua and white...

I have received three out of my five blocks, and I know the other two are winging their way to Oz, when they get here I will do a post on them.

These blocks will be the last swap I participate in for a while, as I know 2012 will be a busy year, so I am cutting back to "core" sewing activities....i.e. sewing without deadlines!

So now I feel I am on top of my sewing commitments, all ready to get behind again :) I have been fiddling around with my pink scraps again and I hope to be able to blog about them after this weekend...what are your plans for this weekend?

Bloggers BOM Catch Up

One of the things that was on my list of things to do whilst I was on holidays, was to make blocks for the Blogger's Block of the Month quilt-a-long that is being run by Canton Village Quilts.

Some of the reasons why I thought I would do this was it's a small commitment, once a month for 12 months, one eight inch block every month...how hard can that be! And I was inspired by this blog, where the quilter is doing the Farmer's Wife quilt-a-long all in red and white, and it is looking gorgeous!

So here we go, my effort with red and white....

Block One from  A Quilting Life

Block Two from Field Trips in Fiber

Block Three from Loft Creations

Block 4 from Pat Sloan

And looking smart all together.....

So the next block will be released on the 25th, and I am all ready to go!

Just an impulse purchase!

After last weeks colour explosion using my Prints Charming scrap fabrics, I was craving using some more colour.

In December, I had the opportunity to visit the Material Obsession shop in Sydney, and under the guise of "Mummy's Santa gift", this kit found it's way into my suitcase, the quilt is about 84" square. Look at all the applique....what was I thinking!!

Anyway, not to be deterred, I decided to start with the most manageable part of the quilt, which is of course the nine patches....

So many yummy fabrics, I am going to have a lot of fun putting this quilt together.....luving these Tammis owls with the Kaffe spot....

Kaffe roman glass and Brandon Mably....

Going mad with a Brandon Mably pairing....

Kaffe Millefiore, and Brandon again...

Amy Butler, and is that Dena Designs stripe?

Amy Butler and a classic white and black spot...

I had fun pairing these up, and I thought you would enjoy the eye candy! Now I just have to decide on how to do the applique...I am thinking that machine raw edge applique might be the most achievable for me ;)