Steps 1 and 2 completed...for Grand Illusion

I have been cutting, cutting and cutting;  plus sewing, sewing, sewing all those 2 1/2" blocks that Bonnie loves.  I have to say here, that I also love cutting and sewing lots of small blocks.  I would rather make a quilt with a zillion small pieces than one with just a couple of dozen large blocks.  I love the process and often wish it would go on a lot longer.

So - here is Step 1 - 2.5" finished pink/blue triangles, with the navy and yellow 2.5" squares.

 Here they are sewn into their blocks - they don't look very scrappy - that is because I didn't have many actual small scraps to use, I only had larger (fat 1/8th or bigger) pieces in my chosen colours.  Also the different materials are very much in tune with each other colour/hue wise.

 Step 2 was supposed to be 2" green and neutral 4 patch squares, but I made them 2.5" squares. My reason for this - I wont be making many of these as I'm not sure if I will actually use them and if I do I can cut them down;  if I don't they can be used in other projects more effectively if they are 2.5".

Back to the sewing room for me for Steps 3 and 4.

Patriots in Petticoats update

Remember back in July I posted about my civil war quilt Patriots In Petticoats that I had started at a retreat. Well I have now completed the final four blocks and the central medallion block.

This is the central block - Martha Washington's - measures 24x24"

The final four blocks

One of the log cabin blocks that form part of the borders

Hopefully over the weekend I will get them all together.

Take care,
Joy

Another finish and some more bits & pieces

Another long term UFO is finished!  The pattern for this quilt was originally bought as a BOM (pattern and buttons only) - I didn't particularly like the materials that were included in the full kit and also I wasn't keen on the setting and I wanted to use some of my stash.

The blocks are all different sizes and are embroidered.  I lightly coloured parts of each block to give the overall effect I wanted to achieve - I used Derwent Water Pencils that my son had used for school (15 years ago) which I found when doing a clean out!

After quilting the buttons were then added.

Here is a close-up of some of the beautiful buttons.

 My Monday night group Regent St Stitchers are having a 'Birthday Block' activity, this year we are starting with November.  We all make the same block, but with the colours for the recipient for the particular month.  Unfortunately, mine is not until July next year, but these four below are for the November and a couple of December birthdays. We get to choose a light and a dark - when my time comes I have chosen white-on-white and for the dark different reds.

After 12 years a labour of love is finished!!

It is 12 years since I first started my hexagon quilt - Nell's Garden.  Finally it is finished and on my bed!

Nell's Garden

 I've called it 'Nell's Garden' in memory of a dear Aunt who taught me to sew, knit and embroider when I was a little girl.  She loved her garden and she also loved making hexagons.  Auntie Nell had them all over her house - even the curtains in her spare bedroom were made from hexagons!  Most special of all I was allowed to take the papers out!!  How good was that?  When she knew her time was coming she gave me her cardboard shapes - a whole shoe box full - my uncle who worked for a Greeting Card company had them specifically cut on the guillotines at work using some of the excess greeting card paper.  They measure 7/8", not sure why they are this size.

When I started to cut out the material I chose to fussy cut the centres of the flowers to represent something that is found outside or in the garden.  You can see from the following two pictures some of the centres.

 For the border I chose a brick red to 'fence' her garden and make it safe for all the kids who used to play there.  You can also see that I quilted (by hand) around each hexagon.  That is why it has taken so long to finish.

It truly was a labour of love.

A relaxing week at Hall's Gap

A fortnight ago I spent 5 days relaxing, sewing and chatting (not in that order) at a retreat in Hall's Gap, in the Grampian Ranges north of Melbourne.  There were 14 of us altogether. 

Most of us only get together once a year for this special time as we come from all over Victoria and Mt. Gambier in Sth Australia.  It's a fabulous time and the Retreat where we stay backs onto the National Park, and we get a lot of wildlife coming around - this inquisitive Roo thought he was going to join us for morning tea!!!!

I was very pleased with myself as I was able to complete 12 blocks of the pattern 'Patriots in Petticoats', a pattern from Common Threads Quilting.  I adore this pattern as the setting is very different from a lot of other reproduction quilt patterns.

There are 16 blocks of this size (12") plus a larger one in the middle and a border of log cabins set in a ribbon pattern.

Guild Quilt-In

Spent a lovely couple of hours on Saturday at my Guild's Annual Quilt-In.  This is me with Rose on my left.

Geelong Patchwork and Quilting Guild, like most guilds in Australia host an annual Quilt-In where invitations are sent out for others to join in our fun.  It is a fun day, plenty of tea and coffee and lovely things to eat.  Usually a couple of our local quilting shops have stalls selling all the stuff us quilters just love.

We had a great speaker - Linda Steele, who talked and showed us her quilting journey and lots of her lovely award winning quilts. You can visit Linda's blog here to see some of her work.  While you're looking around the net you can also visit Geelong Guild's blog here and read about what we do and also have a look at the link and read our Monthly Newsletter.

The 'mess' in front of me is my hand sewing for the day - I was piecing some more Candied Hexagons.

One completed star block

Yesterday I cut some white triangles to put around my star blocks.  Sewing the 'Y' seams wasn't too hard at all.  It's just the stopping and starting each seam that is a bother.  But I will keep going as I like what I see and having already sorted out more reds and blues from my stash to make a quilt (I think...)  The templates I sized from EQ6 all work together.  A bonus as I didn't want to draw them myself.

I love stars

Many of my quilts are based on stars of some type.  I love them.  I have been fiddling around with EQ6 lately and managed to work out how to draw up a 6 pointed star.  These are 5 that I have sewn up. I still have to add the set-in pieces to make them into a hexagon shaped block.  Not looking forward to that - I might like stars but not sewing set-in pieces.  This will test my maths skills and if EQ6 turns out a good block. 

A project for a quiet day I think.

Playing with the blocks

Yesterday I finished sewing the blocks for the mystery quilt I'm doing.  Today I started to play with them on my design wall.  Don't know what you think, but I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.  Just need to find the right orientation for the blocks.  This is one way, but there is another which I'm going with - you will have to wait and see when I've sewn them together.

Next Mystery Steps

Step 5 is where the shorter of the strips are sewn to one side of the blocks and then joined in rows.  I will then be sewing the longer strips in beween four of the blocks, thus making one quite large block.  With the very cold weather we're having here in Victoria I'm hoping to finish it off this weekend.

Step 6 is putting these large blocks together - borders and binding is your own choice.  Once I have them together will post the final stage before I decide on what to do for borders.

Whoo Hoo - I'm back

on line, that is.
Have been having heaps of problems with Blogger.  Hopefully all is well again.

In the meantime I have been busy, busy, busy.  I'm participating in a Mystery Quilt through my Monday night group.  It is from the Bedford Mystery series.  This series of mystery quilts began in South Aust by a couple of quilters as a means of raising money for a local charity.  It is also the first Mystery quilt I've done and am enjoying it heaps.

Unfortunately, in my haste to get started I didn't take early photographs of the first three steps - there are 6 in all.  Step 1 was the selection of fabrics - I chose to do mine in 'country colours' - safe.... Step 2 was to make 4-patch blocks and strips with 1/2 sq triangle on the end. These blocks are some of the ones finished up to Step 3.

This next photo is Step 4.  These strips are the same construction as part of Steps 1-3, but are longer.  Hopefully the latter bits will be finished very soon. 

A bit hard to see on my 'design wall' as I have used a cream for the light colour material and my design wall is made from a cream flannel sheet.

In the meantime I have also finished some ATCs that are due to be posted very soon.

Another productive weekend

The fifth weekend of the month (when it happens) is usually pretty busy for me.  This last one was no exception.  Saturday was the get-together of the Geelong Scquilters.  We usually meet at The Blanket Box in Geelong, but this weekend we went to Pentland Patchwork in Bacchus Marsh, for me about 1.5 hours drive.  A really lovely day with a bunch of lovely ladies.

Then on Sunday I drove to Hoppers Crossing (about 1.3/4 hrs this time) for the Blue Willow Cottage I-Spy Charity Quilt sewing day.  These little quilts are donated to the Cancer Ward at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.  The girls at Blue Willow have been organising this day each year for some time now.  The Regent St girls (who I belong to) sew I-Spy quilts for them during the year, but some of us also go and join in the sewing bee.  It's great fun - no pressure; good lunch provided; they even bring around your coffee/tea for you instead of making it yourself!

These are some of the quilts that were produced or in the process of being sewn.  It's like a production line - someone is cutting; someone is ironing; some of us sew the blocks together; put on the borders; some do the quilting; and of course someone is sewing on the bindings.

In this photo afternoon tea is being brought around to us.

This photo shows LeeAllan, Dallas, and shy Sharon with her head down, busily sewing and some more of the quilts around the walls.

I'm afraid I forgot to take my camera with me to the Scquilters get-together, so no photos to show you. Will tie a piece of string around my finger to remember next time (???)

Have a good week, till next time,

Joy