Peeping Castles

A little girl had been born to one of my father in law's dearest friend's son. I ordered my fabric from overseas and within the week the fabric had arrived. With very little time before the party to introduce the baby to everyone I decided to just sew simple strips of colours into a cot quilt.

Finished Front and Back

With the weekend over in a flash I can happily say that the front and back of the recycled shirts' quilt has been completed.

The inside patchwork was done but in the end it was just too small to fit a grown man under so with very little blue fabric left I decided to make a white border as that was what I had lots of and in a moment if silliness I put the left over pockets  randomly around. Of course my son rearranged them for me - I think he has decided to take this project on as his own.

Then came the sewing of strips for the back. I was allowed to do anything on this side. I didn't bother with any planning, positioning, etc. I just kept on adding pieces. My only frustration has been my sewing machine. The bobbin keeps getting jammed and I had to stop / start all through the process. Painful - but finished now. So what am I going to be doing during my school holidays? Baste 3 quilts! The worst part of the process. At least it means that soon I will be able to do the binding - the best part of the process.

With a Little Help

This long weekend is all about the shirts. A few weeks ago my husband donated about 15 shirts to the quilting cause. They were either too small, faded or stained and no longer required so we cut them up and they lay around underfoot. I knew I wanted to use triangles and squares to make the quilt. I picked a block called "Winged Square" for my base. Each block had 48 triangles and 3 large squares in it. What was I thinking? Major labour intensive sewing. Anyway I cut and arranged and started putting the blocks out on the floor. Positive murmurs came from the family as it grew through the day. It looked okay but I knew I had to rearrange it. In the afternoon I had to drive one of the boys to work and by the time I came back one of my other sons had completely reorganised the blocks to a much better design. He then showed me 2 other options - all of them so much more clever than I could have done it.

He actually changed the original layout of the block and reversed some to the triangles blocks so that they created rows of colours in light and shade. Anyway he is now at work and I am anxiously awaiting his return so he can slot in the last 3 blocks.

Japanese Delivery and more sewing

After only a couple of weeks these gorgeous fabrics arrived from Japan via Etsy. They feel beautiful. Can't wait to use them.

I fell in love with linens after buying some packets of fabric from Amitie a while back. They were an assortment of linen, Liberty and fairytale characters. The 36 blocks made from these packs were finished this weekend so I went to buy the linen sashing at the shop. Lots more sewing happened getting the sashing on but unfortunately I was 4"of fabric short of finishing the quilt top so I'm only going to show you some of the blocks.

 The pattern is so clever because you get to use lots of scrappy bits and pieces and the colours can be anything as the background linen seems to absorb it all and let each block shine on its own. There are a couple of finished quilts like this one on A Very Fine House's blog .

Anyway, after all this beautiful fabric arriving from overseas I think I am going to attack the hubby's shirts first and I have started cutting the first few blocks today. I just need to stew on what I might make with my new stashes. It's so hard to cut sometimes.

My first all over quilted quilt

I spend way too many hours looking at other people's blogs. After a while I discovered that quilters take bits and pieces left over from other projects and string them together to make new patches and then put them together to make quilts! So I decided to experiment.

I surrounded the oddly sized patches in green and then scribble quilted all over it. I know there is a correct term for it but I forget what it's called at the moment. The immediate family response was that no one likes green and the quilt was cot size - way too small to snuggle up in so what was the whole point of making it?

They just don't get it. Firstly I used up lots of my favourite Amy Butler fabric that I love and couldn't bear to throw out. Secondly I quilted the whole thing all by myself. Thirdly I am going to dare to throw it in the wash and tumble dry it to see what happens to it. It's all been a grand experiment and once I had put the blue binding on it, I rather liked what it looked like.