Cali Mum's Quilting Bee and a dress

Last night I

put the finishing touches to my fourth lozenge for my Cali Mum's Quilt Bee quilt. 

Here it is.....

It looks wrong, but it's not - just the angle the photo was taken on.

Two days ago I cut out and made myself a dress for summer.

I really like it.  The best bit is that I drafted the pattern myself using my measurements and no other pattern.  Luckily I have made many a costume/outfit using commercial patterns and have had to make alterations to fit the recipient so I have a fair idea of garment piece structure.  I even have (somewhere stashed away) a 1950's clothing pattern making book.  This is an Enid Gilchrist book and you have to draw up the patterns yourself from the diagrams and measurements given.  I have made a couple of things from this when the kids were young.  I remember there was 1 coat that I made that everyone always commented on when the child wore it.

If you want to know how I did up the pattern for this you only have to ask and I will do a tutorial.

Single Girl and Swap Blocks

I have just finished putting together the blocks for my Small Quilt Talk Signature Swap Block Quilt.  You may remember these blocks I made....

and these.....

Well after waiting patiently for my set of swapped blocks to arrive I bought some extra fabric, made a few more blocks to fit my chosen layout, made a few more blocks because I can't count and ended up with this.....

You can't see the top row - it over hangs my queen size bed!  Once it has been quilted it will be bound with a nice brown.  I am going to send it off to be quilted.  This is something special and I don't want to ruin it with my dodgy quilting.  I'm thinking feathers in the plain borders and I will leave it up to the quilter as to what she does with the blocks themselves.

I am really happy with the way this flimsy turned out.


I also finished to the flimsy stage my Single Girl quilt.  Remember this.....

 

Well it has turned into this.....

 

 

Here's a close up...

 

 

It too is almost big enough for my bed so it will look good on a single bed.

 

Not sure on how to quilt this one.  I'm thinking concentric circles inside the rings and curvy diamonds everywhere else.  Probably by hand using a pearl thread and big stitches.  What do you think? 

 

 

 

Cali Mum's Quilting Bee #3

I have finally gotten around to finishing off my 3rd lozenge for my Cali Mum's Quilting Bee quilt.  Hubby and I spent 6 days doing nothing but listening to cows and sheep recently and I took some craft supplies with me.  One lot was to work some more on this quilt.

 

 

I have also cut out and sewn up 2 rounds for my 4th lozenge and am half way thru putting together the last round.  Won't be long before it's done also.

 

 

Another of the mum's asked about me making her daughter one of these quilts.  I told her she would not want to pay the price I would ask for it.  Whilst away I did some math.  To make one to fit a single bed - approx. 160 x 200 cm - if I charged $10 an hour for my time and passed on costs for fabric and wadding she would be up for around $2500!  To make the bigger one that I am doing the cost would be more like $3600.  I haven't told her yet - didn't get the chance when I saw her last.  As much as she loves her baby girl (the child's 7) I doubt very much that she would pay this much for a quilt even if it is entirely hand sewn.

 

Whilst away I also finished off a sock that has been on the needles for some time and I knitted it's friend.  Sadly though, 1 of them is either to big or too small.  I have to figure out which.  I was not thinking and managed to knit the second foot about 1.5 inches longer than the first one.  Oppsy!

 

I also worked some more on my Cross Stitch Dolls House bedroom carpet.  It's being worked on 32 count even weave linen with 1 strand.  when I first started it I needed a magnifying glass to see the fabric.  Now - since it's been so long - my eyes have altered and I can see it quite well so long as I don't wear my glasses.  I am short sighted after all.

 

 

In a week I am going to my first market in over 2 years to sell some hand made goodies.  I am taking along a couple of small quilts, all my cloth dolls and some bears.  Hopefully I make some money.

 

This lady is one of the items for sale.  She is designed to hang on the wall.  I will make her a friend wearing a cream dress with gold stars.  The friend will hold some bells on rope.

 

This little bunny will also be at the market...

As will this lady....

 

And this Owl...

 

Secret Santa Swap and a Single Girl

I have signed up for a Secret Santa Swap with the ladies from Small Quilt Talk - a Yahoo group I am a member of.  I have even finished what I was making for my recipient already.  How's that for being organised!  There's 3 hand made items and a book that I have 3 copies of.  I hope she likes the gift.

All the blocks of my Single Girl quilt are made - I just have to piece them together and then it's off to the quilter it goes.  I am sending it off rather than doing it myself as I have no idea on what sort of quilting it needs.  I think the quilter will be able to help here.

Dear Jane quilts

There's been a bit of chatter recently over on the yahoo group Small Quilt Talk about Dear Jane quilts.  It seems a number of the members have also been making this quilt for themselves over the years and a few of them are inspired to get moving on it.

It makes me want to get involved too!!

I have long admired this quilt; not only for the history of it and it's intricacy, but also because it is a really nice quilt.  Some that I have seen on the internet have used all sorts of colour combinations - brights, monotones, solids.

I have the book 501 Quilt blocks and have gone thru it in the past to gather together assorted blocks to make my own type of Dear Jane - but it would have to be a WTF WYT Joy quilt.  Nearly 200 x 4.5 inch blocks is enough to make you go crazy, never mind the triangles Jane has on hers.......

Inspiration and Another New Start.

I got really inspired last week to make another quilt - or at least a flimsy.  This is what inspired me.....

It's called single Girl.   I thought I could use up some of my extensive stash to make it for one of my single girls daughters.  Here's a close up of another one in bits.....

I have also been wanting to make more scrappy quilts using stash fabrics for some time.  I have a lot of fabric and quite a bit of it has been around for some time - some is even vintage stuff that was gifted to me.

This is just 1 of my tubs....

 

So I spent the weekend going thru my fabrics and trimming off the ends to even them up.  I have in the past not cut a strip of a piece of fabric just to get a square - I cut the square out. 

That has left a lot of fabrics with odd shaped ends.  Those trimmings were then cut into 1.5", 2.5" 3.5" 4.5" wide strips,

   

and anything that I did not or could not class as a strip was put in a pile I called snibbles.  I also made a pile of bits that were not strips but were wider than 4.5" but up to around 6".  Confused??

Each of these piles are individually bagged up.  I now need to find somewhere to store them.

I had recently bought 4 pale grey fabrics to make my Single Girl quilt.  I had decided that I would make the curved piecey bit and then applique it onto a pale grey background.  I drew up my own curve - surprisingly they don't match on each side.  These are the pale grey fabrics I got......

And this is the first of my pieced curvey bits appliqued onto 1 grey 9.5" square....

I only used 1.5" strips in this one - it needs more variety in the widths so I will make more curved sections with both 1.5" and 2.5" strips, like this....

At this stage I am not too sure I like my stash fabrics with the grey fabric.  I think the underlying tone is wrong.  Maybe it will look better once I have made up quarter blocks with the other grey fabrics.  Each main block will have 1 of each of the grey fabrics in it.

I have been using my hand drawn 'pattern' to sew the strips together just guessing the angle needed to keep the curve going.  I then sewed a piece of lightweight iron on interfacing to the curved piece, trimmed it and turned it thru.  After finger pressing the seams I used the iron to attach it to the background square and then used a blind hem stitch (don't like that) to permanently attach it.  I think a straight stitch would be better.  I will not attach it by hand.  I have enough hand sewing to do with my Cali Mum's Hexi quilt, thank you.  This is what I have so far....

Speaking of which, I have the next lozenge finished and have made a start on my third one.  One of the Cali Mum's is going really strongly with hers and I feel I have to keep ahead of her.  She has 3 lozenges done so I better get a move on. 

There were 6 of us doing this quilt, but 1 never got around to getting her fabrics, another had her fabrics but is not motivated to get sewing and a third made a start but has also lost motivation.  Might need to see how we can get these girls back to sewing.....

Aussie Hero Laundry Bags

Yesterday I sent of 2 boxes of laundry bags to Australian Defence Force personnel overseas prior to voting.  Got them all packed and the boxes all labelled and taped.......................

and then remembered I had not taken a photo of any of them. 

I wasn't about to cut into all the tape so I have no pics to show.  Bummer!

I will however have some pics of the next few bags that I have/am making. 

The quilt recipient (se previous post) is also to get a laundry bag.  The quilt takes up all the available space in the box so I have to send him another box with his bag in it.  I will also include some puzzle books, some tim tams, some coffee sachets, a lip balm (was about to say lip gloss) as well as 2 or 3 more bags.  That way he can choose which one he would like and hand the others over to those who don't already have one, or pass on to his group's chaplain to pass on. 

I hope that is acceptable and doesn't get me or him into trouble with the powers that be.