More about Mary

 I have almost fallen back in love with this quilt.  Not that I had ever fallen out of love, I had just moved onto the next one.  Do I sound very fickle?  When I decided to turn the 7 blocks into 9 and make a small quilt, I had forgotten how really beautiful they are.

I am almost thinking I might make 12 now and make a slightly larger quilt.  There are 25 blocks in the pattern, and a huge appliqued border.  Some of the blocks are a bit of challenge with lots of cut outs and intertwining/overlapping stems.

You can see the original Mary Mannakee quilt here , and if you go to Pinterest (like I did) you get heaps of photos.

I used a collection of dark "poison" green fabrics, a few different reds and golds, plus that beautiful blue in my blocks.  So glad I decided to use the blue as well, as i seem to have a lot of red and green quilts happening.  This will break it up a bit.

One thing I must add about using a printed background.  This fabric is sort of off white, with a tiny red arrow like print on it.  When you applique red onto the background, it sometimes looks like you have bits poking out, or jagged edges that should be smooth.  On closer inspection you can see that it is the background print.  I was doing a bit of "tidying up" on them last night, and found I could not poke the bits back in.  On that point as well, if I do get a pointy bit on a smooth shape, I use a wooden toothpick, and poke it back into place. Works 90% of the time.

I went to the Australian Quilt Market in Melbourne last weekend.  Spent lots of money.  Next post I will show you some of the new things I have coming.

Past Reflections - Block 2

I am off to Melbourne tomorrow for a long weekend, and ticking off all the things I have to do, and this is one of them.

This block is fairly simple, if you don't like making pointy leaves!  It is now available to download on the Legend and Lace website. 

Thanks for all the people who joined into the first round of this BOM.....I guess people like applique, and they like "free stuff".....don't we all!  I have had lots of lovely emails and comments from people.

I have had the last week at home on my own while the DH has been off with his gold detector around the old gold fields of Victoria.  I told him he had to bring me home a large nugget, or the detector was going onto Ebay!  Very expensive device with little action so far.

For the week I had heaps of things in my mind that I wanted to do, and got about half done.  The sewing room is still not cleaned and tidy, but I might get some time and inclination to do that later today.  It is raining so there is one job off the list, which was to water the garden.

I am working on a commission for Quilters Companion magazine (so can not show photos yet) and I am up to the binding, so that is considered done, and after that I might get some time for my own pleasure..

Anyone got their latest Quiltmania magazine?  I have not seen it yet, but someone told me that my Little Sisters quilt is in there.......must be photos taken in Sydney.  I really must see that.

Ok, now off to do some work on THE LIST!

Friends Quilts

The Adelaide Quilt show was on the weekend.  I went along on Thursday to do some demos on the Guild stand, then on Saturday to see the things I missed.

I took photos of some of my friends quilts for you.  We are suppose to get permission before publishing any photos and I thought it was easier to ask people I know rather than strangers.  No one objected of course.

This is one my quilts to start with....this rose and basket quilt you have seen before

This is my friend Janette with her stunning applique quilt.  She won 1st prize in her category.  All hand appliqued and quilted.  It took her 8 years to make.  Janette makes one stunningly beautiful quilt every 5 to 10 years.

This appliqued and pieced quilt is made by Sheila.  The photo does not do it justice.  The colours are vibrant.  Machine appliqued and quilted by Sheila.

Hand appliqued and quilted by Wendy Hunt, another member of our stitching group

My Summertime quilt....machine pieced, and long arm machine quilted in a Baptist Fan

These three quilts were made by 3 friends sewing together......Clare, Julie and Christine.  All the same designs, but different fabric choices.

 

And, finally, my Little Sisters quilt which I have shown you before.

If you would like to have a look at all the winning quilts, go to http://www.saquilters.org.au/festival-of-quilts-2014.htm

This is why I love........

Playing with fabrics.....
Starting something new.....
Having a house full of colours......
Getting an idea in my head....

 Yesterday this was a pile of cut up fabric, for a pinwheel block.  Last night I sewed 4 of them together while watching TV.    Now, that is why I like hand piecing!  You can't put your sewing machine on you lap, can you?

When you put 4 of these blocks together, you get a whole new design.  the star in the centre is what took my imagination, but getting it is such a part of the fun.  When I first saw this quilt design it took me a bit to work out how it was made, but it is really simple.

In the long run, the blocks will not be together, it is just a trial.  I will not choose the layout until they are all finished. 

Just thought I would show how it turned out.

Something new

Last week I was looking at all my unfinished projects and thinking that next year I would just concentrate on getting them all finished.  Glad I did not take an oath on it!

For the last 6 months I have had this Pinwheel/Kaleidescope kind of quilt in my head.  I found a design on EQ and decided I would make it on the machine.  There are rotary cutting and template sizing, and I have this new Creative Grid Ruler, that I thought would do the trick for me.  I cut out a heap of blocks, and sewed 2 together, before I realised that the size is "not quite" right.  The ruler must have slipped a few times, or I moved it, or some other things happened, and they were all sent to the "naughty box".

You would think that would settle it, but I still had the idea in my head, so today, I cut out the templates for the blocks, and plan to hand piece.  I unpicked the pieces, and will mark them all up with pencil and this will be my "carry along" project for the next few months.  So far I have cut enough for 20 12" blocks.

I am not neat like some people, but you can get an idea of the types of colours and prints I am using.  They have to be really bold as the background fabric (on the right) is very sombre.

 The colour is called "Paper Bag" and it is from Moda Bella. 

When you put it next to another colour, it really makes the other fabric look more vibrant.  But you have to take care not to use anything too light as it will not show up.  I am a little concerned about the one below, but think it has enough contrast to work.

 The strips are cut 7" wide, then cross cut into triangles with the Creative Grid Ruler.  You put the top marker on one side of the fabric, and the 7" line on the other side, and cut along the two sides.

 Flip over the ruler and cut again.  I can get 5 triangles from a fat quarter width, cutting double

 From the full width of the fabric I can cut 11 triangles.  I write all this stuff down, so that if one day I decide to write the pattern, I don't have to do the calculations all again.  I have a little book it all goes into

Once they are all cut, I can just take my time at marking the seam lines and sewing when I have some spare time.

I still need a machine project and have another thing in my mind.  I am suppose to be working on next years Mystery Quilt......well at least thinking up ideas, so that Mary and I can see how it might work.  Ever since we finished the November Mystery last week, we are already planning for next year.....finding photos and emailing to each other.  Something will come up soon enough for us to get it all knocked together.

Before the end of next week I will have the last part of the Pom Pom Tree Block of the Month ready for you, and then the next Past Reflections applique block.  My DH is going away for a week and I get all the free time to myself.  Wonders will happen!!

Mystery Quilt day

For the last couple of years, my friend Mary and I have run a Mystery Quilt day on the Melbourne Cup day.  We hire the Lutheran Church Hall at McLaren Vale, and fill it with lots of lovely ladies, food, drink and fun times.

Doing a "mystery" is very popular, and we had 25 people this year, plus Mary and me, and our two helpers Jan and Natalie with the food, coffee, general run about.  The hard part is coming up with a project that is a Mystery until near the end, and one that can be made of any type of fabric.  We also like to get people to use their scrap bag as well, as it is expensive to go out and buy heaps of fabric, if they already have it in the cupboard.  Some people bought new fabrics, but many used what they had.

 This is the block we chose - Virginia Reel -  and we gave the instructions in 3 parts, so they could not see what it was until the end.  hard to tell from this photo

 When you start to put it together, you get an entirely different picture.  Here is a collection of florals

 And how about this?  A 2 fabric quilt, with black and vivid print.  Love this!

 Something a little more sedate, but stunning, in Batiks

Helen chose a collection of red and white prints.  It is going to be a Christmas table runner.

This is my version of the Virginia Reel in light and dark reproduction fabrics.  Again I can prove to you that Reproduction fabrics do not need to be dull!  I had this quilt professionally machine quilted in a Clam shell design by Helen Campbell. Mary made hers in Kaffe fabrics, and I have no photo of that but will get one.

We asked people to bring along any finished quilts from our previous workshops.  Amazingly some actually did have them finished!  I am pretty slack about getting things finished from workshops, but these girls were good

Our next workshop will be some time in March or April when we will bring back the "Big Star Day" with the Lone Star and the New Broken Star.

We will let you know closer to the time what the date will be.  Anyone on the mailing list will hear about it.

 

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A year of Finishes?

What would happen if we spent the next year only getting things finished that we started an age back?  Would you be able to resist the temptation of a new project, and gain satisfaction?  I hope to see, as that is my thoughts right now.

I saw that Hilda at Every Stitch got some older Baltimore style blocks out and decided to make them into a small quilt.  Well, I have a HEAP of those!  The first to come to mind are the Mary Mannakee blocks. If you put Mary Mannakee  into Google, you will see heaps of images.  I even saw some of my own blocks come up.

 I found these 7 blocks.  I could make a quilt with 4 (6 does not look right) or make 2 more and have a nice sized 9 block quilt.

This one is almost finished...it just has the slit through the centre of one of the large leaves, plus some swirls on the bottom stems to go.  I can do 2 more blocks, and have already chosen which one to do.  I still have heaps of the background fabric, and some of the blue, and I guess any greens/reds/golds would fit the bill

 What a performance it was to find the pattern!  Being bright red and I knew I had seen it "some place" and after tearing the place apart.....(I am going to have a major clean up soon)....I found it stacked with quilt books in one of my timber trunks.

.This one I am doing next.  Love the swirls of this block.  My DH John is feeling well after his disastrous winter, and planning a week away soon (yeah!) and I will be able to get stuck into a few things, and get these two extra blocks done.

In the mean time, I have to have this card trick finished by the end of November.  I machine quilted around all the "Cards" and going to do some Big Stitch hand quilting in the open parts of the blocks.  I got some variegated Valdani Perle 8 thread from Hettie's Patch (my fav shop in Adelaide) and plan to do some simple stitches.

 I used 1" masking tape to make a window for my stitches, stitching along the edge of the tape

remove the tape and you can almost see the stitches.

 Make another window and stitch inside that one tool.  You can save all these bits of tape for the next couple of windows.  They stay sticky for quite a few applications

This is what I end up with.  Not easy to see on this fabric, but if I have time I will do it within the Card shapes as well.  Took me about 10 minutes to do one, so I recon it is pretty fast going.

How about some more Hollyhock photos?  I love these flowers!!

 

I can't ever remember seeing this one before, so it has blown in from some other place.  Last year in this spot I had a dark burgandy.  They are full of surprises!