Blogger's Quilt Festival

The life of this quilt all began in May this year. I bought a large collection of blue/green Kaffe Fassett fabric and had no idea what to make with it. This is a normal thing for me. Fabric needs to be looked at on the shelf prior to cutting.

Meanwhile, amongst other things, I made a yellow quilt for my niece as a wedding present.

As much as I wanted to get started I could not think of a way to use the blues. On one of my 'reading other people's blogs days' I found a fun block on Be*mused that stuck in my mind.

With that as inspiration and a whole lot of scrap yellows from the wedding quilt, the new quilt began. I put yellows and blues together - something I would never do. I decided that this quilt could be as mismatched as I liked.  For me, it was a big step away from safety. In the past, picking fabric from the same theme always saved me from thinking whether colours would match or not. Although I only used Kaffe fabric for the quilt, they were opposites in colours.

Here are some of my first blocks. Yuk!

During the same time I found a Facbook page that had Kaffe Fassett comment on your quilts. When the quilt top was finished I posted it to the page and waited for a comment from Kaffe. He did, at last, post a comment. "There is more contrast in this quilt than I usually like but I like the cool pallet and the setting is stunning, best wishes Kaffe." I was so excited that he wrote to me but I think he liked my back yard trees better than the quilt!

Anyway, with many projects happening at the same time, the quilt was basted but lay folded in my lounge, awaiting the final touches for 5 months.

When I saw that Amy's Creative Side was running her Bloggers Quilt Festival I decided that now was the time to quilt and bind my experiment together.

The garden has grown so much in 5 months with all the rain we have had recently.

I call it my Yuk Yum Quilt.

One block was not made correctly but I kept it as it was. Surprises are fun if you don't think of them as mistakes!

New Fabric

I was trawling around other people's blogs a few weeks ago and stumbled upon a new supplier of fabric on the web called Wondrous Woven Fabrics.
On their site I found a lovely fat quarter set that captured my imagination and I promptly tried to order it. They had never had an order from Australia before and so I emailed them to see if they could help me. I had a response within a very short time and a new button for international shipping was set up. The service was amazing!
So less than a week later these Robert Kaufman fat quarters arrived.

In the bag I found an extra half yard that was thrown in as a gift.

They don't have a huge range of fabric on offer but they do have prompt, accommodating service. 

Thank you Wondrous Woven Fabric.

The Customer is Always Right

Another one of Rivka's quilts has been finished and it is ready to go to a new home. The brief was 'colour madness' and this is what the customer is getting. Can't say I am in love with it, although it was fun making.

I'm a sucker for binding though, and this one looked so good with the Fassett backing.

Markets and other things

Markets were the order of the day on Saturday and I visited Magnolia Square and a mini market in the City Library. Magnolia Square was it's usual high quality experience. Although it's petite, it always has very clever, creative products with the friendliest stall holders. I just had to buy this little lavender heat pack from Memi Designs. She prints all her own fabric designs on linen.

The City Library was a little disappointing. There were only about 12 stall holders and the products were varied. One person had made some great little quilts out of op shop hankies but overall it took about 5 minutes to go through! In one of the other rooms they had a fun exhibition on the history of shopping in Melbourne. They had some great old photos and paraphernalia from days gone by. Worth a 'look in' if you are a little bit old like me and actually remember some of the places.

Sunday was for sewing. A mum of one of the teachers at school came over and we did a swap. She tried to show me how to follow a crochet pattern and I gave her the start on how to make a quilt block. My crocheting is pretty pathetic - so much so, that there are no pictures! Her block is off to a better start than me. 

Later there was a little bit of free motion quilting happening which I was really happy with because the triangles can make quilting very stretchy and hard to sit flat but the free motion made everything much more accommodating.

And some more coasters were made using some of the fabric I bought last week.

All Potted Out

Pot Mitts are small.
Pot Mitts use lots of scraps.
Pot Mitts make great presents.
Pot Mitts only take a couple of hours to make.
But after 10 hours of making the little blighters, I'm going potty!

I played around with ways to make them today because they are fiddly and it did make them a little less painful but I made too many and it took the fun out of it. It's just that I have a market to prepare for and the time is running out so...

1 down

12 to go

Another little boy quilt is finished. Almost the same as the other but with different backing and binding.

So I guess it's been a good week for making.

Making Things Weekend

Today was a day for all sorts of things.

Finishing boy quilt

Making a very large mug rug

First attempt at some linen coasters

And cleaning Phil's home (our class pet stick insect)

Go Magpies!

Firstly I have to say I am in a very good mood. Yesterday my footy team won their 15th premiership. It's been 20 years since the last premiership and the team certainly deserved to win. Last week was a drawn Grand Final so both teams had to come back to play a second time with a week's break. Lots of people hate the Magpies. Maybe they are jealous, maybe they just can't help it. It's almost a thing that Melbournites are born with. You either hate them or love them. I ask them, "Why do you hate us so much?" and the reply is, "I don't know, I just do!"
When my Grandfather immigrated here over 60 years ago, he was very ill and a family, hearing of his plight, took him under their wing. They basically adopted my parents when they followed to Australia and we were part of their family when we were eventually born.
They barracked for Collingwood and took my oldest brother to the game every week. When my next brother was old enough to know, he announced that he was going to barrack for Melbourne, to which the eldest replied that he had better follow the Magpies or he would bash him up. He was big on bossing  us young ones around!
One of my earliest memories of childhood was brother number two saying to me that I had better follow Collingwood or I would be 'in for it!' So the decision was made for me to preserve family harmony and I happily stuck by it.
I sat with my younger sister two inches from the TV and hooted with delight as our team romped through the final. My husband and boys were watching either at home or with friends but they all barrack for Melbourne so they just can't really be in the zone. I am not sure what the neighbours must have thought with all our screaming and crying out but I just need to say one more time till next year, " Go Pies!"

Later that night I actually did some sewing and stitched up the striped tablecloth. Looking very cool but so much smaller than anticipated.

So it was back to the drawing board this morning to add on a row and a column.

This time I let my son lay out the triangles before I stitch them up. He was really annoyed with me last time when I rushed ahead without him but I didn't want it to end up too planned.