Months Fly...

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's been nearly two months since I last posted, days just whizz by and I get caught up with daily life or quilting.

International Women's Day was celebrated in style yesterday as each attendee was given a complimentary handmade apron on their arrival.  Over 130 aprons were handed out and it was really great to see many of the women (and men) proudly wearing their aprons throughout the morning.

I made two special aprons for two special friends who ride their scooters around the local towns.  As a surprise I made them each a 'Scooter Apron' in the colours of their own scooters.  They loved them.

I had lots of ladies ask about my 'patchwork aprons' and many wanted to buy them.  These were going to be entered in a mainland apron festival in May but the festival will now be held bi-annually so these will be packed away and entered in 2017's festival.   My lovely husband made the stands to display them on.

I am now gearing up for my Selvedge Quilt display which takes place in a fortnight's time.  I have 30 quilts of varying sizes to display, each one made with printed and/or plain selvedges.  This week I was lucky enough to receive 3 packages stuffed full of selvedges so I am having fun working on a new quilt.

 Here is a cat quilt I have recently finished using selvedges.  Each cat even has a selvedge tail !

I am really looking forward to the Easter break, both my children and their partners are home for a few days to celebrate my husband's 60th birthday and my daughter and I will be planning our trip to Belgium in October while she is here.

Then I will begin work on my licence plate quilt, I am so excited about starting this quilt and it is all ready to go - stay tuned !

Happy quilting !

Selvedge Quilt Finishes

The walking foot sure has been 'walking' this week and I have got the quilting done on three quilts.  This quilt is made completely of shorter selvedge pieces, both plain and word selvedges.  I even joined them together to make the binding.

This quilt has been waiting to be quilted for quite some time but now it is done and I am really pleased with how it looks.  Again a mix of both selvedge edges and it is one of the bigger selvedge quilts I have made. I love the border on this one.

These two bring the total to 29 selvedge quilts I have made so far and I have one more to finish before my display in March.

Happy quilting !

Quilting on a Hot Day !

On a very warm and sunny NW Coast of Tasmania day, I decide to begin quilting this large Selvedge Quilt.  

It won't be heavily quilted as I want the selvedges to be the highlight of this quilt so I am just doing the basic stitch-in-ditch to hold it all together.

Happy Quilting !

'Australia Day' quilts

Australia Day is January 26.  So I thought I would make a couple of quilts to show what makes me a proud Tasmanian and Australian citizen.

A picture in an adult colouring book was the inspiration for this 'Koala Friends' quilt.  

This 'Tasmania' quilt is made up of little crazy blocks joined together, fused onto a background fabric to represent the surrounding oceans.

I loved sewing the 'Tasmania quilt' so much that I thought I would have a go at an 'Australia' quilt.  This quilt is almost 1 metre wide and is called 'I Love a Sunburnt Country'

These quilts are now on display at a local art and craft gallery during January.  I bought the cute Apron panel off a quilt destash page on Facebook and it made up into such a fun apron.  

The small Tasmanian mug rugs have been so popular, I have just sewn another 30.  Lots of fun to do and they make great gifts.

And I couldn't sewn a Tasmanian Mug Rug without trying an Australian one.  They are just as cute but turning them was a little bit tricky.  

Happy New Year !  And to another year of making quilts to share !

Saturday Quilters Group

Every month for the past year, a small group of ladies have met at the local Gallery for a day of machine piecing/quilting.  I introduced the ladies to foundation piecing and over the months, they have swapped fabrics, stitched blocks and this weekend we met to baste two quilts ready for quilting.  What an achievement these ladies have made.  

 Here Janine is putting the final pins in her Twister quilt before she dives into the quilting.  

The quilting has begun on Rachel's Economy Block I Spy quilt.  

 Despite trying to emphasise the ease of moving the quilt under the machine better if it was rolled, both ladies were more comfortable to go about it in their own way

 Back to the quilting after a quick lunch break with a friend

 I spent a couple of days last week making these cute Santa Sacks and a matching Bib as Christmas gifts.  

This is my first Christmas quilt made over 30 years ago.  It is hand quilted (and perfect stitches I might add) and the 'binding' was hand done as well but I shuddered every time I looked at it. The pictures were taken from children's colouring in books and quilted in red and green cotton. It has sat in the back of a cupboard for many, many years and had been dragged out a few weeks ago and was in the 'throw out' bag to either go in the garbage bin or passed onto an Op Shop.    When it was decided to put up a Christmas quilts display at the local Gallery, I thought I would take it along and if we were 'short' of quilts, I would hang it with a little brief of its history.  Would you believe it sold a day after the display went up and I couldn't be happier - what could have been trash....

Happy sewing !  

Sewing and Snowing Weekend !

A few days until the 'official' start of summer and this is what greeted us as we arrived at our highlands shack on Thursday night.  Snow and one of the coldest nights I have spent at the shack in a long while.  Hard to believe that we were shivering in this weather while the mainland states were being ravaged by bushfires and extremely high temperatures.

 We had just got everything unpacked from the car and it started snowing again quite heavy, snowed a little more overnight and it was all gone by Friday lunchtime.  Saturday was a nice sunny warm spring day (as it should be).

I had made this Santa Sack with matching Bib as a Christmas present and had another to make over the weekend.  I just need to get the name sewn onto that sack and they will be in the post to Canberra.

 My weekend sewing at the shack was lots of flying geese, foundation pieced in long strips.  Wonder what they will be used for...stay tuned !

 I also managed to make another two blocks for this ongoing scrap log cabin quilt which is pinned to the 'design wall'.  I hope to get this one finished over the Christmas/New Year break.

This is our first pick of this season's strawberries and raspberries.  The raspberry canes are full of fruit waiting to ripen so there should be ample for Christmas celebrations and raspberry jam.

Happy sewing !

It's a Quilting Week !

My replacement walking foot arrived in the mail on Monday morning so this week I will be working overtime to get the quilting done on a few quilts.  I managed to get two more of my selvedge quilts finished before my Janome Acqufeed walking foot disintegrated mid-way through quilting.  I must admit it has been working hard for the past 6 months or so.

Unfortunately this morning I had a major migraine which restricted my quilting time somewhat but I did get the quilting done on this small Christmas Tree wallhanging.  Let me tell you it is hard work concentrating on sewing a straight line when your vision is blurry and your head is throbbing like crazy.  I like my crooked star, many of the decorated trees I see in the lead into Christmas have the star sitting at a precarious position at the top of the tree.

 My headache improved (with lots of medication) in the afternoon so I was able to get some quilting done on this scrappy lap quilt.  

 Last week, while I was waiting on the replacement walking foot, I decided to sew these smaller selvedges into blocks.  I was given these selvedges both plain and wording, cut into 5 inch strips, so I drew up some triangle foundations ready to make a quick quilt.

 So far, I have done 48 blocks with word selvedges and about 20 blocks done with plain selvedges.  I should have enough done to start joining them together by the weekend, when I have a sewing day here at home with a few quilting friends.

Happy quilting !  Thanks for stopping by.