Where do I begin?

I am still alive, all in one piece, and hopefully back to more regular blogging.  I can't believe my last post was in April.  I wrote a few posts on my other blog, about my very long vacation, but ran out of memory on my iPad so couldn't upload any more photos. I'm going to try to post more about my holiday on that blog, but I've been thinking about doing that for two months and it still hasn't happened!

It's been so long since my last post, and I've struggled with what to blog about.  There's so much that's happened over the last few months, it's been easier to ignore my blog rather than try to squeeze everything into the first post after such a long hiatus, or to even pick one thing to blog about.

However,  if I don't start somewhere I'm never going to start.  So here it is.

I've finally found my mojo.

It took months for it to return, but it's back, and I hope this time, for a very long time. I've also had to wait for my Quilt Holder Upperer to be home so that I could photograph the quilt and quilt top that I've finished.

Since I've been back from the vacation of a lifetime, I've finished McFlurry, and just in time for Christmas 2013.  Never mind that it was supposed to be finished for Christmas 2011.

The wonderful Fiona at Quilting Fairy, quilted it for me in an all over swirl pattern.

I used a panel, shock horror, in the backing as I didn't have enough backing fabric.

The back

I need to take some more close ups to show the binding and my favourite blocks.

I finished the Mystery Star BOM quilt top. Albeit with a few changes, as it was never going to be finished, if I tried to attempt all the blocks that the lovely Sheila designed for the BOM.

I'm really really happy with how this turned out, it's now about 60 inches square.  To finish it, I made an extra block, (the aqua/green/orange block in the top left quadrant), and whipped up some more braid strips to fill in gaps. I then made a narrow black and white border followed with a piano key border using lots of white and black fabrics, with the odd coloured key thrown in to give a bit of interest. The four corners are wonky stars finishing up as 3 inch blocks. More photos to come.


I've even basted a hundred or so of the 2 1/2 inch squares that I cut earlier in the year and I now have about 40 hexies sewn together. I changed my mind on the layout, of course, but it's starting to look good. (More photos coming soon.)

I started a Dresden quilt, finally, after three years of saying I was going to do it.   (Even more photos to come!!!)

I take a long time to get my a into g.

On top of all this my brain has finally gone full steam ahead and I keep thinking of ways to use my stash.  Why oh why does that happen a couple of days after I've just started a new project?  I spent weeks looking through my quilting books, Pinterest, Flickr, anywhere, trying to find inspiration and drew a complete blank.

It doesn't help when you live in paradise and all the days are like this.

Ooops I seem to have disappeared for almost three weeks

Sometimes time just flies.

As usual, not a lot to show, but I have had a finish and almost a finished quilt top.

What have I been doing? Not much really.  Life has been tootling on and I just don't seem to have the time or inclination to get into my freshly rearranged and tidied sewing room.

A bit of this

and Scooter is finished.

Scooter

I was inspired to make this quilt after seeing this. I don't enjoy copying, I like to put my own spin on things. This is one of those times that what I had in my head and what I made, is not the same. I don't hate it but I don't love it.

Quilting in progress

Backing and binding

It's backed with a cute flannel and I'm not sure of the name of the fabric for the binding. I wanted to use something from my stash, but was having trouble finding what I wanted,  J went through the fabrics she had brought up here to work on, found it and it was a good match.

Crinkly after washing

Speaking of J, she has started on a hand sewing project which is absolutely gorgeous.  Personally, I think she is crazy, but unlike me, J is disciplined and will finish her projects.

It's a design by Sue Cody called Gelato Rose. Quilt as you go, so at least after finishing each block, the batting and the backing is finished as well. All you need to do is sew them all together.

These are the first two blocks she has completed.  Only 18 to go!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also played with Kirsty a couple of weeks ago. We went to the  Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show, you can read all about it here.  I bought a few things, including these blues.

Wow, Kirsty is a great photographer, but she introduced me to Happy Street, a time sucking game that is addictive.  I want to curse her.  I have Angry Birds on my iPad and phone and hardly ever play it, so was delightfully, blissfully unaware of what would happen to me if I started playing Happy Street. Take my advice and don't play it, but if you do, I would love to be your friend so that I can move through the levels quicker, mwah ha haa.  It is addictive. Be warned.

A couple of weekends ago I pulled out this pile of fabric and started cutting.

Fabric pull

I was very smart. I planned to use some white charm squares for some of the triangles in the layout, to save having to cut a WOF strip. So off I went, and cut 5 inch WOF strips of all my blues and greens, then cut the triangles. Next step, to cut the triangles from the charm squares. Hmm, as usual, I didn't think it through before hand or do a test run. That's me, jumping in feet first and worrying about the details later.  It often kind of makes for some interesting design ideas/choices though.  I then realised that  even though the triangle was 5 inches high, it's more than 5 inches wide, so the charm squares weren't big enough.
I swore,
quite a bit,
took a breath,
and then had a play.
I used the off cuts from the WOF strips and added them to the charm squares to make them big enough to cut, and voila, an interesting addition to the layout.

Two pairs of rows ready to be sewn together

I became more creative with the cutting as I progressed.

That was a couple of weeks ago, and I still haven't finished the top. I've sewed the rows and even sewed pairs of rows together, and I'm crossing everything that I will have this project finished very soon, so that I can move on to something else.

Three for February Review

I just managed to squeeze in a couple of finishes before the end of the month.

I planned to go away for a long weekend, starting on the 28th February, so had to have these finished by the 27th.   I arrived back home today so this post is a little late, but better late than never.

Number 1

South Pacific Stars, with a peek of the gorgeous backing fabric which is from TradeWinds by Lily Ashbury.

The binding is another print by Lily Ashbury.

I rarely make quilts using the one line these days, but I really love the bright colours and almost every print in TradeWInds.  I still have a few fat quarters left tucked away in my stash waiting for inspiration to strike.

Number 2
The starflowers, although I love them, the thought of continuing making them to make a full size quilt made me feel sick. I just couldn't face sewing any more flowers and diamonds together,  so instead of making a whole quilt with these shapes as I had originally planned I'm now using this as a central panel. The next stage is to add borders around the edge. This is square, although in the photo it looks kind of misshapen. A note on this EPP project. I love sewing hexies, they are easy. When basting hexies all the fabric at the back stays within the shape of the hexagon. The diamond and kite shapes have little tails that hang at the back. You can see this in the photos below. These make it really difficult when sewing the shapes together, they get in the way and make it a PITA when sewing the points of the stars where they meet.


It's all wrinkly at the moment. I pressed it once I took the papers out of the back but as it's about to be manhandled again while I applique the borders on I didn't think there was much point in pressing ti to within an inch of it's life.

As usual I didn't really think it through. I started to straighten up the edges. It was easy on two of the sides as I just needed a triangle shaped piece to fill in the gaps.


When it came to the other sides, it wasn't quite that easy. After a lot of muttering and more than a little  swearing, I decided to leave the other two sides as is, add the borders and maybe add some appliqued  shapes.  After I added the triangles I realised that I needn't have bothered with them as I'm going to appliqué this panel to the dot fabric I used for the diamond shapes, that's also partly why I've left the other sides and not made them straight/square.  Next step is to add the borders. Lets hope the vision in my head is doable.

Number 3
I also finished one more Amitie Circle Game block.


All in all I'm pleased that I achieved the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the month. Let's see how I'll do this month.

Au revoir

Crying a few tears now as my best mate, buddy, pal, Shay, is finally on her way back home, despite that I may have tried to kidnap keep her here. Firstly, forgetting to look at the ingredient list on a curry paste that was added to a stir fry. We had both taken a mouthful before we looked at each other and let out a swear word or two and then ran to the refrigerator to check the ingredients.  A long stay in hospital so that I could visit her was averted, and so was any possibility of trying to kill her.  Secondly, the weather gods attempt at trying to keep her here almost worked.  We had THE MOST ATROCIOUS weather,  the last couple of days, horrendous winds and lots of rain. Fortunately we were spared the worst of it unlike a lot of people who have had to experience flooding again, only two years after the worst floods in many years. My sister and a friend are still without power after more than 24 hours, with the possibility of not having power back on until Wednesday morning.   Shay had to change her flight that flew out of Brisbane, as Brisbane airport was closed, and anyway, we hadn't been able to drive down to Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast as the weather was bad, roads were flooded and we were experiencing cyclonic winds. It meant that she had to stay an extra morning, woo hoo, but it still went too fast.

During the first part of the Tour de Shay, we took lots of photos, the second part, not so much.  Believe me, it's better if you don't have too much photographic evidence.

AND the best news,

I didn't get arrested.

WHile Shay was here we spent quite a bit of time sewing and chilling out. It's so nice to be able to sew with a buddy. I finished the binding on the Triangles quilt, and it;s now my second finish for 2013. It's still called the Triangles quilt because I can't come up with a better name right now. The plan was to hang this in the entrance but when I hung it there it looked horrible, the proportions were all wrong.  After a bit of a discussion with my go to quilt hanger upperer buddy, we decided to hang it in the dining room.

 It looks much better and happier hanging above the sideboard. I really love this quilt. It was quick to make and a great way to practice sewing triangles. I'ms definitely going to make another bigger quilt using triangles.

I used a charm pack of Lucy's Crab Shack for the triangles, the background is a grass green stripe by American Jane and the binding is a plaid from Lucy's Crab Shack line.

For the backing I used a Denise Schmidt dot print that I bought at Spotlight and some left over strips of the American Jane background. I quilted it in straight line quilting, 1 inch apart using a quilting guide that came with my Janome. The first line I quilted was marked out using a Hera marker, then I just used the quilting guide to follow 1 inch away from the previous line. I checked periodically to make sure I didn't stray too much. If I did, I adjusted the next line by either quilting closer or  further than an inch at the start of the line but tried to make sure the centre of the line was roughly an inch. It worked out really well, even I can't tell where I had to adjust the width of the quilting lines.

Starflowers has been growing too. I'v nearly finished phase one, all the whole flowers that I need and have 5 half flowers left to do. There has been a big change of plans and heart on this one, mainly because I value my questionable sanity too much.  All will be revealed, soon.......... eventually................when I know what I'm doing.

This photo was taken way back in November 2011, it's been a slow but quite satisfying project to work on.

In other news at Chez Sunshine, I had to have some palms removed as they were too close to the fence line, pushing against a wall and paving and were not planted correctly so that a lot of the root system was above ground. The photos aren't great because they were taken at 7.30am facing east into the rising sun.

The guys who removed the palms were amazing, so quick, and did a great job of cleaning up after themselves.  The palms were removed just in time, as they would most likely have blown over in the wild weather this weekend.