Saturday, June 28, 2014

two more finishes

Last week I finally pulled the proverbial finger out and finished off a small quilt that I started last year.  It was a Small Quilt Talk Challenge quilt - forget which month.  all I had to do was finish off appliqueing the bottom leaves on and then quilt it.  But now it is all done. 

See.....
 
 
I outlined around the border and the pot as well as around the flower.  Then I fmq'd a stipple in the white area and in the bottom pink floral area beside the pot.  I also did a couple of rows echoing the shape of the pot on the inside of it.
 
It's a bit hard to see, but here's a close up.....
 

I think it turned out ok.  Ok enough for me to then try the same fmq'ing on a larger quilt.
 




Here's a closer look at this one......


I did a medium stipple in all the white areas and then finished it off with a line around the inside of the black border, 2 lines down the middle of it, plus the binding turn over.  I took the excess baking and just folded it over to the front to make the 'binding'.

I must say I am really happy with the way this turned out.  Ok, I can pick fault with the quilting.  My machine didn't want to have nice tension and I broke a needle and then it kept coming unthreaded.  But I think for a first go at something like this I didn't too bad of a job.

It is being donated to Camberwell Showtime for them raffle off - either separately or as part of their silent auction night, so I hope they like it.  I used 2 different colours of grey - a light, a medium and a satin (that's the shiny stars in the pics).

The success of this gets me all inspired to drag out one of the many quilts-in-waiting and have a go on them.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Recent Craft Endeavours

Lately I have been bitten by the knitting bug.  In order to get over it quickly I have been knitting little things.  Things like these.....


and these.....


I have also been doing a bit of dress making.  Not for me or anyone I know, but baby burial items.  I found some moire taffeta and some satin in my stash of fabrics and I made these two dresses.....



The funny looking thing at the top of the above pic is a small bonnet.  The bootees can be seen better in the first pic.

I have about 8 flannelette  burial gowns too and I am knitting bonnets and bootees to go with them.  I also need to make some bloomers - luckily I also found some silk lining fabric that will suffice.

There is an Australian chapter of Angel Baby Gowns and I intend the satin items to go to them - if they ever answer my numerous emails.  If they don't that's their loss as I know a midwife who would take them.