Echino Star

I have been reflecting lately about when does a Work-in-Progress project become a UnFinished Object? As I have so many unfinished projects around...just quietly... it gets me down from time to time, and I have to given myself a good talking too!! I do love the creating side of quilting, pulling all those yummy fabrics and playing around with quilt designs.

So to head off the "UFO Blues" I have decided to have April as an UFO month...it worked quite well for me last April, to have a big push to get quilts finished, as there are several public holidays in April.

This lovely Echino Star quilt falls in the UFO category, the top has been finished for TWO years waiting for me to hand quilt it with perl thread....

Yes, it would look lovely with perl thread, but come on, after two years I haven't done it...and there are sooo many other things I want to do... I have decided to get this quilted by our local long arm quilter. And besides,  I have a new lounge this quilt is going to look great on.

Can't believe it has taken me so long to make that decision, it really is a no brainer!! How fab are these fabrics...love the owl...

love the piggies...

Now to sew up the backing and choose the next quilt to work on!

Happy weekend sewing!

Crossed block top...done :)

I got up to my last crossed block on Saturday and realised I hadn't taken any progress shots...as this easy tutorial over at The Long Thread describes it really is a very straight forward process...I love sewing without having to match up corners and edges!

This last block was even more fun than just sewing strips together....because I was too lazy to get up and cut more strips I used up my leftover bits and pieces.

As my progress shots show...you need to piece up a 12x12" section...

Trim it, and cut into two pieces 5x10" and 5x6"

Take the 5x6" piece and add two 3x6" pieces of background and cut it in half.

Sew those two pieces to the 5x10" piece....that's the block...go make as many as you like...

I made 10....very happy with this....now to quilt!!

Yield: 50x50" quilt
Fabric: Denyse Schmidt fabrics from a variety of ranges, Background Kona Natural
Tutorial: Crossed Block The LongThread

Inspiration - Crossed Quilt Block

Thought I would try a little mid week inspiration this week....

Inspired by The Longthread blog

Red and White Folly

Back in January, when I was on my 5 week break, I had this great idea to take part in a new quilt-a-long, the Just Takes 2 quilt a-long, and as the name suggests, the idea is to make a quilt with just two colours, so I choose red and white....and every two weeks from the 1st of January,  a set of blocks would be published, the first set was six blocks, the second set was 5 blocks, the third was 2 blocks, the fourth was 5, and the fifth set was 4...so that's 22 in total ...so why have I only got 7 done?

Mmmm, that's an F for keeping up, but never mind, I am very happy with what I have done....

Yes, that's needle turn applique!! This block is 7.5" I am loving the Annie's Farm Stand print in this :)

 These four are all 6.5"

This one is 10"

This last one is 12.5"

So the blocks are all different sizes, it will be really interesting to see how they all go together! I must get back to this, but I have been distracted by all those Daisy Mae fabrics, I bought last weekend! More about those next time!

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?