No excuses now

The cool change arrived on Monday morning, but will be short lived.  We will be back to the high 30's by Friday again.  No, it is not humid here.....some small blessing.  Just hot and dry.

 I received my copy of Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine this week.  I had almost forgotten about this little quilt.  It is a collection of 6" signature blocks that my online Yahoo group - ReproFabricLovers - did a couple of years ago.  I had them in a box, doing nothing. 

 From time to time I receive an email from the Editor, Elaine Rose, asking for projects for the magazine, and I send her incomplete quilt photos, as a motivation to get them done.  She saw this one and asked me for it, and I think I had about 3 weeks to turn the block collection into a finished quilt.  I dragged out fabrics from my stash, and made a little "strippy" quilt.  It is very basically machine quilted as well.  Looks ok in the magazine now.  Glad I did it.

Back to the hot weather.....my granddaughter comes to stay with me when it is hot.  We have an old house and it is much cooler than her home.  This is one way she was keeping cool on Sunday.  Don't you love the pose!  At least she is only 8.....in another 10 years it would be inappropriate.

Something close to completion.   This is a project I put together as a class idea.  It has hand piecing for the basket, and Broderie Perse applique for the flowers and some English Paper Piecing for the border. These little blocks were left over from the Sue Daleys "Antique Sampler" quilt.  I figured I might as well use them.  If you would like to have this class at your quilt group, or local shop,  please get in touch with me.

hot! hot! hot!

I am so glad that I made this block, and created the pattern a few days ago.  I doubt  I could do it today,  It is SOOOOO hot here!  Yes, I know you are having snow storms in the Northern Hemisphere, but we are into our 3rd heat wave this summer.  Yesterday and today it is 40C degrees.....that is about 105F.  We are not doing much around here except sitting in the air conditioning, listening to music and have cool drinks and eating fruit.

This block is called "Hearts and Berries".  It is already on the Legend and Lace website, and a few people have already found it!  As before, there is no charge for the pattern, but you have to register as a customer, and you can have the link sent to you in an email.  So, make sure you type in your email address correctly.

Does it look a little tricky with all those circles?  I use Karen Kay Buckley "Perfect Circles" to make them.  They are for sale on the website.  There are 15 different sizes in the pack, and 4 of each.....60 circles in total.  Have a look at Karen's Youtube video, and you will see how easy it is.

Once we get to back to normal weather......which is suppose to be tomorrow (Yipee!) then I will write a little more about things that are happening.

a little hand quilting

Two weeks ago I collected my "Return to Paradise" from the machine quilting lady who had basted it for me.  When I start on hand quilting an applique project I rarely have an idea of how I am going to quilt it.  I started by going around the outline of the shapes, and 1/16th" out, so you can just see the stitches.  However, in the case you can nor see them!  I have used taupe coloured thread on the yellow print background, and the stitches can not be seem.  Bummer!  In more ways than one I wished I had used maybe a grey thread.  I like to see my stitches on the front, but on the back I used a purple fabric, and you can see every stitch!  I have to be even more precise with the quilting, to make sure the back looks good as well.

 When Dawn created this pattern, she was kind enough to mark most of the quilting lines, and I am basically following that.  I got in touch with her and asked about the background.....wondering what the original maker made done.  I had planned on doing "echo" stitches in the background, and that is what the original maker had done.

 In the border, where I have used solid coloured fabrics, you can see the stitches much better

The holes in the leaves is where I took out the tacking.  They will go away with handling.  On the leaves and stem I will do an inner 1/4" line of quilting as well.

Every day I am doing at least 2 hours on this and hope to have it finished by the end of May.  It is really big, so hope I have not taken on too much.