This month's Round-Up

On the first I posted a list of what I would like to achieve this month,

1) complete the Christmas table runner

2) sash the pretty blocks from Saturday's class

3) make a sample project for the Young Quilters ready for the Guild Regional day at the end of October

Sadly, there hasn't been quite as much progress as I would like, but the Young Quilter's sample was made, and the class held successfully so that one's OK.
All of the pretty surprising 4-patch blocks are sashed, and sewn into rows, just need to get the rows put together and borders on.
I didn't even look at the Christmas table runner! Oops!

Never mind, tomorrow is the first again, and I can just add to a new list! The surprising 4-patch and Christmas table runner will stay on there, but I'll have to think of the next task I'd like to finish.

Young Quilters

Yesterday was a lovely quilty day here in Wales. Region 12 (south and mid Wales) of the Quilters Guild had a regional day. I am Young Quilters rep for Region 12, so at these events I run a class for the children. I only had 2 girls at my class yesterday, my own home-grown YQ and 1 other, but they enjoyed the project that I had devised for them - Halloween Banners.
This is Bronwen's banner. I had created a sample with a pumpkin as the picture, but she preferred to make a spooky ghost instead. I'm very proud of her, she isn't a huge fan of hand stitching but persevered with the big wool stitches by herself.



In the afternoon we had a talk from Marie Roper. Her quilts were gorgeous, and she generously allowed us to pass them around to have a really good look. Bronwen and I particularly like her horse quilts - wish I could machine quilt like that!
There was a shopping opportunity too, I bought a book and some fabric ( will show that later!)
All in all a lovely lovely day!

Trying to live up to my name!

So far this week I've had very little time, and little inclination to do much more in the evening than veg out in front of the tv. But I decided that today I was not going to do the same thing. I have a little box of scraps cut up into 2.5 inch strips ready for a pattern I saw on Quiltville. I still need to cut up more pieces, but I needed a fix of something nice and simple to stitch and so I've started piecing the blocks. The quilt is called Crayon Box and it looks like it will grow quite quickly once I get going. I have a few blocks in various stages of construction, but here's a finished one.



I think this is going to be a bright quilt!

I have another top pieced from a Quiltville pattern. This one is waiting to be quilted ( along with about 4 other quilts in various stages of completion!). This was another quilt that I used only fabrics from my stash to make. Not bad!



Now if I can make about another 20 I might begin to see the mountain going down! LOL!

Another project (almost) complete

My little button picture that we did at the local quilt shop is done ( well the sewing part is complete!) This is the class that I went to with DD the other week (her first grown-up quilt class!). We made little suffolk puffs and attached them to a quilted background with buttons. This one just needs a picture frame now, so it's off to the shops I go tomorrow.



Now I just need to persuade Bronwen to sit down for long enough to finish hers off. Hopefully she will be inspired by the sight of mine.

More lovely mail!

Wow the postman brought me some more goodies today!
I ordered the fat quarter bonanza from the Fat Quarter Shop, that's 12 co-ordinating fqs for $16.80, surprise on colour etc. This is the set I got, chocolate and pink ( have I mentioned that pink is my favourite colour?) sort of art nouveau theme. And 12 fqs is a good number to have for a decent sized quilt.



Any ideas about what I can do with these beauties would be most welcome!

At last Blogger will let me upload photos.
Here is my lovely Autumn quilt.



And detail of the applique and quilting.


Isnt it lovely?

Thank you Bren!

Better get off to work now :(

Post once more!

I'm happy to say that the effects of the postal strike seem to be over at last. Woohoo! This means that my Four Seasons swap quilt has arrived!
Bren has sent me a beatiful applique basket quilt. The hand quilting on it is gorgeous too.

Blogger wont let me upload photos just now which is a shame as this quilt is really lovely but I will try again later

Not too much this week

DH is shouting at the rugby on the TV, so I thought I would catch upon here for a bit. I cant believe it's been a week since I last posted, very remiss of me. I've had a very very busy week at work creating a prototype, so I didn't pick up a piece of fabric til Thursday. Since then I've managed to piece all of the rows of my Surprising 4-patch quilt, and most of the joining rows too. This means that I don't really have anything very interesting to show you though! But I should get the centre done early next week, watch this space!
I've had a frustrating afternoon though. I have done the first round of my first mini round robin block, all very good, I was quite pleased with the pieced border I put on. The, when I came to square it up - disaster! The wretched thing is 1 inch too big! It's supposed to be 8.5 inches and mine is 9.5. I cant send it on regardless, because this will mess up things for the other people in the group. So, I will just have to bite the bullet and unpick it. I cant face that tonight though. For now, I'm going to try to relax and have a glass of wine instead!

Mum'n'daughter time

I hope that you're having a nice weekend. Today has been pretty hectic, but great fun. My quilting group, Cardiff Quilters, were hosting a visit by the Swansea Quilters so the day started early with setting out tables etc. Various members did demonstrations and I did the stamping on fabric one that I did at the Festival of Quilts. It seemed to go down well, and lots of ladies made quilt labels with some of my Welsh/Celtic-themed stamps to take home. Late in the morning my husband picked up DD, Bronwen, who was at a friends sleepover party. She joined us for lunch and then the two of us went to a local quilt shop for a little class in the afternoon. This is the first time Bronwen has been to a grownup quilting class, and she enjoyed it, although she did get a bit frustrated with the hand stitching ( tired from the sleepover I think!) We made pictures with Suffolk puffs finished off with a button. Bronwen needs to complete her background, and then I'll post some photos tomorrow when they're done

Slow but sure

Progress here is pretty slow at the moment, I'm not managing much more than 15 minutes per day on sashing the 'pretty' blocks. Still my husband will be out all evening tomorrow, so I can indulge myself for a bit longer!
I had wanted to have all the sashing attached and the rows sewn together before Saturday, so that I can get border fabric before they sell out of it. But that's not going to happen now, so I shall carry on slow and steady.
This is what the sashing will look like once it's done. The colours haven't come out brilliantly, the lavender looks quite blue here, and the blocks themselves do look quite a bit stronger in real life. I do hope that this is not going to overwhelm them.



But then, it's my quilt isn't it, and I can do what I want with it! LOL!
Take no notice of my bravado, I've made a quilt that didn't turn out how it looked in my mind and I was very very disappointed ( in fact it doesn't live on the wall, it lives in a cupboard!)

The first of the month..

I have been mooching around various blogs and decided to pinch an idea I have seen in several places.
I will set myself a couple of tasks to achieve by the end of the month. I'm also going to try to prioritise my ufos as well.

So, here I am committing myself.

I want to

1) complete the Christmas table runner

2) sash the pretty blocks from Saturday's class

3) make a sample project for the Young Quilters ready for the Guild Regional day at the end of October - I haven't decided what this project is going to be yet, but as there is limited space at the venue, it will have to involve hand sewing rather than machine, and may well use black fleece ( as I picked up a cheapy one from Ikea last week!)

There we are, I think that will do for now. If I put too many things on my list, I will just get overwhelmed ( and work is doing that for me just now!) and not get anything done.

Lets hope that I will have progress to report on October 31st.