A totally, completely, 100 percent finished quilt to show you!

Hi everyone.

Mostly when I show you ‘finished items’ they are very rarely finished.  They are flimsies, which as you know I am totally cool with.

But this quilt, which I’ve shown you before, has a place that it is to live, and it needs to be quilted to live there!

I’ve been in my current house 9 years.  This quilt was originally designed to go on my bed, but it got too hard and I decided to quit at the borders and make it a wall hanging.   It’s been on the go that long.

It languished for years while I fiddle faddled with other things.

This year was the year to finish it.  I only had a small amount of applique to go, and then I handed it over to my expert quilter and she has given it back to me as a work of art.

Tadah!

I’m stupidly pleased with it.  I did a really good job (if I say so myself) at the applique and Mum’s done an outstanding job of the quilting.

It’s a real pretty quilt, I think.  All I have to do now is hang the thing on the wall and I’m done!  Let’s hope I get to that quickly!

Hope you all have a lovely day, and I’ll see you soon!

Monsters–but of a different kind

I’m sure you’ve all seen my monster quilts, here and here if you are interested.

I’ve had another monster quilt simmering away that I finally managed to finish.

I had brought a whole stack of brights fat eighths, and had a bee in my bonnet about using the Tumbler die that came with the accuquilt (that big bit of worthless quilting supply I don’t use half as much as I ought).

So I cut them out, stitched them together in a very short amount of time,  appliqued some monsters on a piece of white homespun and then put them away.  Why?  Who knows?

I had a clean out the other day in my sewing room found them.  It took me a couple of nights to stitch them on, and it’s another flimsy done and dusted.

Bright cheery little buggars.  Great fun to do. 

Hope you’re keeping warm if you’re in Oz.  It’s freezing!  And it’s been raining!  Yay! (yellow monster is agreeing with me)

Museum Travels

We are still in the ‘cleaning up after school holidays mode’ at the moment, and so not much action has been seen in the sewing room.

We had a ‘stay cation’ this time for our holidays, and for the most part the holidays went quickly.  Australia only gets two weeks during school terms, our big seven week break is over summer.

Normally July holidays are freezing, however something has happened down here and we are in the middle of 25 degree days (in comparison to normally 15 degree days during most winters) so a lot of our time has been spent outside.

As most of you know, I live in country SA.  There are tiny towns that feed into bigger towns that feed into larger ‘cities’, which then flow into the Capital city, in our case Adelaide.  As the years go by some of these smaller towns end up dying a natural death – families move away to follow jobs and the small number of shops close, the bigger towns get a little bigger, and the smaller towns become nothing more than a spot on a map.

We decided to take our girls on a drive around these smaller towns (some of them, there are hundreds around here), ending up at a town my husband spent his first single male years at, Lameroo.

Lameroo had a big influence on him growing up – first big time away from Mum and Dad, football playing, girl chasing, all the things young lads like to reminisce about when they are older.

We found a local craft shop, and the lady behind the counter casually mentioned ‘the museum’.  Of course, my girls’ ears pricked up – they are not ones to knock back a museum visit!  I took lots of photos on my phone, they turned out alright, I think!

Annnnnd once again Livewriter won’t let me edit any text past the photos, so please enjoy them and I’ll see you another day!

Crochet….

I’ve been a finishing fiend again, you’ll be so proud of me.

Some time ago I crocheted a really quick cushion from some leftover Chunky Stylecraft yarn I had.

I’m not what one would call a clever crocheter, but I hope what I lack for in skill I make up in enthusiasm!  All I had to do was sew it together and it’s done. 

I’ve got a front lounge (the ‘good’ lounge') that seems to be the receptacle currently of crocheted items.

Some time ago I was given an odd sized piece of crocheting that we thought may have been the beginnings of a bag.  The lady who had crocheted it had long since sunk into Alziehmers and I doubt she knew her own name, let alone what she had intended it to be.

After a bit of tooing and froing, I realised it was a clever cushion!  All it needed was an insert made and one carefully placed seam and it was done!  Another UFO finished.

I’ve looked and looked to see how she joined her hexies and for the life of me I can’t see it.  I wish I was that clever.  And it’s so sad that it’s all gone now, up into the ether.  Dementia is a horrible thing.

So there are my two lovely cushions, and my gorgeous, heavy row by row.  Two more projects off the ‘to do’ list.

The light is not brilliant on that picture, I apologise for that.  But take my word for it, the crocheting just bursts with colours.  I have to tell you, each time  walk in the front room, this collection just brightens my heart every time I see it!

A quilt donation…

One thing about living in a small town, it’s the kind of place where everyone knows mostly everyone.  And if you don’t know that person, you know someone who knows that person.

And when someone gets an illness, it does send shock waves throughout the community.

A local girl has been diagnosed with some sort of cancer, she is fifteen.

So what do quilters do when someone is sick?  Of course, they make a quilt.

Our group made this for her, it was a split nine patch sashed with black homespun.

Machine quilted by my mother, stitched together by the group and bound by me. 

A group effort.  I do hope she likes it.

updated:  she loved it.