Another Great Giveaway from Ohio Quilters Journey

I'm in surf mode tonight and have been viewing some very inspirational blogs. One of which was Ohio Quilters Journey who is having a Summer Gone - Need Inspiration giveaway.
Go and check out her blog and while you are there enter her giveaway...ends 4th August (USA time).

Quilty Threads is having a giveaway

Lindi is having a Winter giveaway. Follow the link and enter her giveway. While your there, check out her blog...she is a very lovely lady.

Trip to the Country

I recently spent four days in Horsham attending my niece's 21st birthday party. It was also my mums 79th birthday, so I got to spend some time with her as well. I cleaned some of my mum's windows as a birthday present, which she said was better than any present I could have bought her. Now she can keep an eye on the comings & goings in the neighbourhood.

While I was at my mum's she brought out a quilt to throw on the bed as the nights are mighty cold up that way. I had totally forgotten about this quilt. It is a shaggy raggy quilt which mum & I made together when she was visiting a couple of years ago. As you can see from the pictures it has an assortment of cotton fabrics on the top and the back was made up of an assortment of chenilles from some old bedspreads. Along with the batting the chenille makes this a very warm snugly quilt.

I also came across this plaque at my mum's house. It was something which as a teenager I made at high school in woodwork & metalwork. From memory it was when I was in Form 1 or 2. Goodness it is that long ago. It did bring back some memories. I also made an egg flip as another project. That I think has long ago been discarded.

My niece Megs who just turned 21, with her current boyfriend & my mum.

Megs with her dad & mum (one of my older sisters), and her three older siblings.

Sisterly love.

In December 2007 Sooziii organised a 'Decorate your blog competition'.

Sooziii's Decorate Your Blog Competition Of course being new to the world of blogging I figured that I should get in on the act. And Sooziii was going to give a prize to the blog which was voted to be the best...even better. Then aubirdwoman and Lindi said that they would supply a prize for 2nd & 3rd places. Well I was lucky & was placed 2nd. I received this lovely wall hanging from aubirdwoman for my efforts.

This will now be hung every Xmas along with all the other decorations.
I love the french knot detail in these sprigs which I think represent holly.

Angels guard over Santa from the back.
Thank you Sooziii for running the competition & thank you Sheila (aka aubirdwoman) for the gorgeous wall hanging. I'm a little late with this posting, however as the saying goes 'better late than never'.

Toffee Apple Bag by Melly & me.....

In December 07 Lindi from 'Quilty threads and other things' had a fabric giveaway and I was one of the lucky winners. Lindi did ask at the time if I had any dislikes. I advised Lindi of the colours and themes which I tend to go for all the time and also said that something outside my comfort zone, the norm, would be good. Well what I received was definately outside of my comfort zone and the three fat quarters are pictured below. The colours did grow on me after a while and I came to like the middle pattern.

I had purchased a bag pattern called 'Toffee Apple Bag' by Melly & me and decided that I would make this bag out of the fat quarters which I had won. I added a cream for the lining and purchased another fabric in the same colour tones for the handles. The finished result is shown below.
As this bag was a bit bright for me, I gave it away as a gift to a friends daughter who was turning 21. I'm not sure if she liked it, but as fashion trends change it may became more to her liking. It actually would make a good beach bag as it is quite roomy inside and the bright funky colours are more summery than wintery.
Thank you Lindi for these lovely fabrics. I enjoyed using these fabrics in making up this bag.
With the bits & pieces left over I was able to make up some round floral shaped pin cushions in various sizes. I teamed it with some matching light blue vintage chenille on the base with the patterned fabric as the top. I will add some pics when I have the camera out again.

Maria Quilt Challenge

My friend Marg put forward a challenge to a few fellow quilters at the end of last year, which involved making a quilt with only the following supplies...

a small hessian bag that contained: one piece of tape; one oz. of pins; one hundred needles; four balls of white sewing cotton; one ditto black; one ditto blue; one ditto red; two balls of black worsted, half an oz. each; twenty-four hanks of coloured thread, one of cloth, with 8 darning needles and one small bodkin fastened on it; two stay laces; one thimble; one pair of scissors; one pair of spectacles, when required; two lbs of patchwork pieces.

The inspiration behind this challenge is based on the work that Elizabeth Fry did with female convicts in England in the 1800's. Some of the female convicts being transported to Australia where given the above supplies to use on the sea voyage, either to make clothes or utility items for themselves or to sell. The result of one of these voyages is the Rajah Quilt.

The quilt is to be handsewn using only the tools in the hessian bag. No template plastic, no iron, no pencils, no paper. Well it took me a while to gather two pounds of patchwork fabric/scraps. Now one would think it would be relatively easy, considering that most quilters have a fairly large fabric stash (I'm no exception to that) and bags of scraps coming out of our ears. Well when I went through my fabrics there were a lot which I didn't think would be suitable. I wanted to try and select fabrics which I thought would be available in the 1800's, or at least reasonably close in pattern & colours. I eventually scraped together the two pounds of fabric which included a lot of scraps, some calico and even some old cotton checked shirts of my husbands which were destined for the rag bag.

The next challenge was to come up with a design. Now this was difficult as there was no paper or writing implements in the hessian bag. So it had to be all done in the mind and designed as I went along. I decided to go with a medallion centre which was a style which was used quite alot in the 1800's and just add various borders, style to be decided at the time, until I run out of fabric or get sick of it. So I roughly cut out a square of calico. I decided to go with stylised vines coming out of an urn. To do this I had to set the medallion square on point. Then I cut out some long strips to create the stems and stitched them down. Then lots of leaf shapes to attach to the stems. These weren't as hard as I thought they were going to be. I stacked 4/6 pieces of scraps on top of each other, then just cut an ovalish shape. They are not all the same, which is fine, as nothing is identical in nature. I attached these using a blanket stitch around the edge with embroidery cotton. Next came the triangle to create the urn. I then put a narrow border of black & white check (hubby's old shirt) around the medallion. One of the challenges was cutting straight lines without the aid of a ruler, which was difficult. Hence one of the reasons for using the checked fabric for the narrow border. I could use the lines created by the checks to at least get a strip of fabric which was relatively the same width at the beginning and end. I then added calico triangles to create the square. This was difficult without the aid of a ruler, so I just roughly cut them out, bigger than required, then just trimmed them up once I had sewn all four on. Another narrow border of black & white frames this square.

At this point I was very pleased with the way things were going. I then fussy cut some floral bouquets and appliqued (needleturned) these into the calico triangles. I really didn't know if I liked these or not. But after hanging and viewing I decided that it wasn't too bad and they sort of fitted in with the theme. One of the other challenges which I have found difficult was not being able to use the iron. I can be some what of a perfectionist (ask any of my quilting friends) and am a quilter who usually likes to press my seams etc as I go along. However I have had to do with just finger pressing the seams and/or using the handles of my scissors to press down on the seams.

Stay tuned for the next stage of the Maria Quilt Challenge.

Quilt as you go Whirlygig

I received a request last night from Glenice in QLD who I met at the Dec SCQuilters meeting at Carrum Downs. She was admiring my 'quilt as you go' Whirlygig quilt that I am making using scraps of cotton fabric and chenille (old bedspreads, that is another story). I sent her the pattern of the Whirlygig pattern which was in an old issue of an APQ magazine, which I based this quilt on. I adapted it to 'quilt as you go' as it is easy to pick up and take it places to work on.

This quilt is a work in progress with no known finish date. The plan is to just keep adding hexagons until it is the right size or I get sick of it, which ever comes first. Each hexagon is approx. 8" across. So Glenice, her are some pictures of the quilt as it was this morning.
Here are some close up's of the individual hexagons so that you can see the detail. I quilted in the ditch, so there is no visible quilting on the front, except for those odd stray stitches which went of course. I started using the chenille in the centre as a feature, which wasn't to bad with the thinner chenille, however with six points meeting in the centre it was still a little bulky. After doing about five or six I changed my method and started only using cotton fabric in the centre. This was much better, less bulk and easier to handle.


The chenille adds texture to the blocks, especially the shaggy style.

I have used Hobbs Heirloom batting which is fusible on both sides. This makes sandwiching the three pieces together and the hand quilting easier as no pins required. Which is a good thing as it means less holes in my fingers and hands.
The quilting detail is only visible on the reverse as the light thread contrasts well against the plain backing colours. You can see a bit of the reverse in the third block pictured in the bottom right hand side of the pic.

Where has the year gone.........

Goodness me, where has the year gone. It is already March (my birthday month) and I haven't posted since before Christmas. I have been a busy girl since Christmas, doing I don't know what as I do not have much to show for it. We had a lovely Christmas and I received lots of pressie's from DH.....several quilting books & a Tom Tom GPS. These also account for birthday gifts and any other occassions which come up during the year. I'll add some pics of the books when I get the camera out next. I should have done them this morning when I was snapping quilts in progress. My Christams pressie to DH was a 4 day ticket to the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix at Albert Park later this month, which includes entry to the KISS concert on the Sunday night after the race.




I love the applique on the cover of this book. Absolutely gorgeous. It is one which is going on my wish list of quilts to make.

More bling for the tree...& other decorations

Today I headed off to the shops in search of some silver bling to put some wow into my Christmas tree. In particular I was looking for silver lamata. I went to about 8 stores, big & little, and no silver lamata. In the end I managed to get a string of small silver balls, but they only had one and I really could have used 2. I also found some lamata which was holographic opaque white, so at certain angles and from a distance it could be mistaken for silver. It does look better. What do you think?

This is my homemade wreath for the front door. It is just a cheap rattan ring and I have wrapped around all of my old, yukky & thin tinsel that any normal person would have chucked out years ago. I poked some old plastic decortations in the bottom, added some red & gold ribbon, which must have come off a past gift (see I knew it would come in handy one day) and lastly some red balls & green ribbon at the top.

The wall hanging which I made is as finished as it is going to be for this year. I added a star made from small gold colored metal charms stars. I also added some pressies under the tree. What was I thinking not putting any pressies on before. And either side of the tree are the words 'happy holidays' plastic with gold sprinkles. This tree now also has some bling.

In the lounge we have Santa Ted relaxing. This was the first Christmas gift my husband gave to me after we starting seeing each other. If I remember correctly inside Santa Ted's sack there were tickets to a Neil Diamond concert. No, no, no.......I'm not going to say which one, otherwise that would be giving away my age.

The pink flying pig Santa has landed on the coffee table in his sleigh. Now I wonder where the reindeer have wondered off to?? Looks like they ate & ran.

We have some 'Noel' blocks on the bookcase and another small plain tree void of decoration on the coffee table. And the christmas cards received framing the doorway. Now if you can't spy your card hanging up, then I bloody well haven't received it yet, or you crossed me off your christmas card list and haven't sent me one.

Don't forget to check out the Christmas blog decorators listed on Soozii's blog, then vote for the one you liked best. Just CLICK HERE and it will take you to Soozii's blog. There aren't too many so join in the fun and make one of us a very happy chappy. Don't forget to leave a comment so we know that you have been.

Lovely stained glass windows

I was just looking through my picture file for a picture of one of my childhood Xmas trees with all of my siblings on Xmas morning. Alas I couldn't find it, but I did come across some pictures of some lovely old stained glass windows which I took at the 'Our Redeemer' Lutheran Church in Warracknabeal when I held a family reunion in 2005. They originally came out of two county Lutheran churches, of which one of them was built on land donated by my family and named after my great great grandfather. They are lovely.

These first three I am told are from the church my family worshipped at last century.

Hmmm....I'm feeling a quilt design could be made out of these. A project for the New Year perhaps.