I work well under pressure

Thanks to everyone for cheering me on. I finished it, yay!


It was not without dramas, and I changed my plan, as I was going to tie in the middle of each block but it looked weird like crap. then I tried doing a fancy machine embroidery stitch and it looked even "crapper", so I gave up and left the centres unquilted. I am crossing my fingers that I do not regret that decision.


The other drama I had this morning, Fatboy aka Bailey squeezed himself in behind my iMac and knocked out the power cord. Normally not a drama but I could not get the 'puter to turn on again or work at all.  I tried a couple of times to get it to work and even in desperation called in Bitchypoo to help despite knowing that I would receive copious amounts of eye rolling and muttered comments. 


After swearing at the cat and calling him a bastard, I resorted to using my lap top to send pathetic whiney emails complaining how bad my life was as now I had to use my lap top. 


So on to the good stuff.


Ta dah, here it is, my first finish for 2011.

If you look hard enough you can see Karma's feet under the stool in the background.

Including photos of Lulu because she didn't try to kill my computer.

Breaking news, I tried turning on the computer again, and it's working. Yippeeeee!

I was in such a hurry to post this I forgot to add all the info. This is a Scruffily Quilt from the tutorial at Moda Bake Shop by Rachel from PS I Quilt and I used Rural Jardin by French General. 

Pressure

I stupidly decided about three days ago, on the evening of 26th January that I need to have a finish of something/anything by the 31st January. Nothing like putting a bit of pressure on myself. Why didn't I think of that a couple of weeks ago. So now it's head down trying to finish a quilt by Monday.

Finished the machine quilting, which took f.o.r.e.v.e.r., now on to this. 

When you think you have made a mistake.......

When you think you have made a mistake, you probably have............

The offending row

Note to self:
When you are sewing all your blocks together for the quilt top and you think you might have made a mistake....STOP, and check, I mean really really check it properly. Don't just think, oh it should be ok. Because if you don't check it properly chances are that when you have finished sewing all those lovely blocks together to make your quilt top they are going to be in the wrong order, and it is going to really really really bug you.  In fact, bug you so much that you have to unpick all those beautiful straight seams, that have been neatly ironed open, and re sew them in the correct order. What would have taken a couple of minutes at the most and might mean unpicking one,maybe two seams, now, involves unpicking a whole row from the middle of the quilt top and then unpicking the blocks in that row,and sewing them all back together in the correct order.


I hope I learn from this mistake.

It's all  better now.

A scruffily quilt, pattern from Moda Bakeshop , I love the colours, the design of the fabric, Rural Jardin by French General. yummm.

I am very happy with it since fixing my error. Now for the fun part, basting, not. Then on to quilting, binding, and washing it to make it all crinkly, yay!

An abundance of colour

Three rows completed, four more to go.

I absolutely love this, the photo doesn't do the fabric justice. It is so pretty and the colours are exceptional.   It was a fabric line that I purchased by default as I couldn't get any Rouenneries, and wow what a lovely accident. I can't wait to have this one quilted, washed and all soft and rumply.  


I've put aside bitchypoo's quilt as I inadvertently laid it out incorrectly, I realised that after I had sewn about 10 blocks together, grrrrrr.  It actually looked fine the way it was, but it's going to annoy me leaving it that way, so for now it's been unpicked and sitting looking sorry for itself.  So in the not too distant future I will try again, lay it out the way it is supposed to be, if it's better I will do it that way, if not, I should have left it as it was, and saved myself an hour or two of unpicking!


The exchange rate from Aus to U.S. dollars is so good right now, I have been, shall we say, a little over exuberant with my online fabric purchases.

Innocent Crush, yummmmmmm

Poppy by Laura Gunn

The Poppy fabric I saw online, I love the colours and the interesting prints. It was showcased in a beautiful quilt. I love to take inspiration from what I see but I don't like copying exactly. I use the pattern but change the fabric, or possibly use the same fabric but rearrange it differently. I saw that quilt and thought yay, I love it, want to make it, but now I have the fabric I don't want to copy it so I'm going to have to put my thinking cap on to think up a fabulous alternative.

I wasn't overly keen on Fandango when it first came out, but it has been growing on me.  Playing around with the warm palette and some Kona and Bella solids, for a new quilt. This will now be added on to the world's longest List of Quilts to Make.

These are only the beginning of the fabric invasion at Chez Sunshine. More to show after they have arrived on their long trip from the States. 

I have thought about doing a weekly post on fabric in and fabric out, but it's too scary as it will always be a bazillion in, and if I'm lucky 4 out, but more than likely none out. So instead I will just show you pretty photos of my purchases (that I admit to) and ignore the fact that my fabric stash is growing very very quickly.

Progress.................. finally

I have had a week of absolute nothing, well, nothing crafty.  I stared at a computer screen for hours on end, tried to get some inspiration, looked at and maybe purchased fabric online as the exchange rate is so good, read blogs to see what everyone else was doing while I was doing nothing.
Then today, all of a sudden the funk lifted and I had a great day, both on the home front, cleaning, washing, ironing and sorting though clothes and taking the excess to the Salvation Army, and more importantly, working on the layout of two quilts.  The first one using Rural Jardin and the scruffily quilt tutorial  from Moda Bakehouse. Roughly and quickly laid out on the floor before the possibility probability of being re-arranged by cats, dogs or teenage daughters.

The second one, bitchypoo's quilt, I had to take the blocks over to my parents house as I don't have a "design floor" large enough to lay it out. Sorry no photos of this as I forgot to take my camera.  Both quilts are  ready to go now, and I've sewn the first row of bitchypoo's this evening. A couple of close ups.

I started pulling fabric for another project and this is a very tiny sneak peek.

I need to use up some Kona Solids fat quarters, as I accidentally ordered (and paid for 2) bundles of the same colour way. Hmmmmmmm