Tutorial Thursday

I’ve had a traumatic morning today with my two little ones.  It was school photo day, and the five year old was just not able to smile.  No amount of silly faces from Mum behind the (quite crabby, truth be told) photographer would help the situation and in the end she got so upset she started crying.

Sigh.

Big sigh.

We force our kids into stuff they don’t want to do and wonder why they cry.  I’ve got a whole cupboard of gorgeous, smiling photos from her, what’s the big deal with school photos?

Anyway.  Enough of that.  It was my longwinded way of saying because I’ve spent half my morning at the school with a fussy, upset child, I’ve nothing sewing-y to show you that I’ve made.  But I found the BEST tutorial for a split square type block.   If I link to it here, I won’t lose the bookmark in a sea of bookmarks for myself!  Killing two birds with one stone – you guys get to see a great tute, I get to save a great tute.  

So for my first :

Please click over here at Squash House Quilts and see the very clever, yet very simple way she makes these perfect little units:

All put together look fabulous and a great way to get a nice, crisp block with no stuff ups!  I’ll definitely be making them later on.

Thanks for reading today!

Oh Hello!

Imagine my surprise this morning when I opened my facebook page and saw this:

 

It’s my freebie, An Irish Blessing.  I was so thrilled to see this!

So if you’re over here from Victoriana Quilt Designs’ recommendation, welcome!  Here is the direct link to the Irish Blessing freebie, please take it and enjoy!

And please, join up for my mailing list by popping your email address in the Follow Me section on the right so you can be notified when I’ve posted.  I’ve a swag of patterns I designed from my time working in a quilt shop that I plan to share (when time permits!) 

Thanks again!

Fancy Schmancy Lap Top

So as part of my Christmas present to myself, I brought myself a fancy schmancy laptop.  This one is for me.  No one get their mitts on it but me.  It is one of the few rules I’ve enforced lately.

I’ve spent the best part of a week sorting the *&%&* thing out, but I think finally I may be ready to start using it!  Yay me!  This laptop is a ‘quilting only’ one, and will reside in my sewing room.  Sticky little fingers have no access to it.

I’ve uploaded a new facebook profile in the name of Silly Goose Quilts, plus pinterest, twitter and instagram.  I am now totally wired for sound as far as this blog goes.  My first facebook ‘like’ was Bonnie Hunter’s new Quiltville Friends page – walk, don’t run over to facebook and join that group right now and then be prepared to lose yourself for a few hours in quilt photos.

I’m about to put links on the side for all my ‘social media’ stuff, so please share, like, click – what ever the terms are now – on me.

Tomorrow I shall post quilt photos.  I promise.

Till then, happy quilting!

Ho Ho Ho

I know it’s not strictly Christmas, but I was methodically sewing labels onto the pile of wallhangings and quilts I have amassed and this one appeared.

I love this little guy to death.  This is just a really quick little wallhanging, it only measures something like 12” wide but he was too cute not to stitch. 

I love his little carrot nose and pot belly.

I love the rich colours I used.  You don’t see many of these around at the moment.  But like all things, I am sure they will come back into fashion.  I call them Debbie Mumme colours.

Apart from one drunken evening when I was nineteen and in Switzerland, I’ve never made a snowman.  Apart from that drunken evening in Switzerland, I’ve actually never seen snow.  I’m guessing that real life snowmen don’t turn out quite as cute as this little man.

It’s funny how all the Christmas decorations and cards, the wrapping paper and trimmings are all ‘Northern Hemisphere’ – they all feature snow and eggnog and the like.  Here is Australia it’s normally stinking hot, and where I live most people work on their fruit right up to Christmas, have that one day off and then are straight back into the fruit again – picking, packing and cutting stone fruit is a way of life for many people that live near me. 

As time goes on you do see more ‘Southern Hemisphere’ stuff – Father Christmas (I’m fighting this ‘Santa’ stuff tooth and nail, but losing the battle) is often pictured on the beach in thongs.  But on the whole, I think most of us would love a real life White Christmas.  Whatever that is!

Happy Quilting!

A Finish–of sorts

You all know my aversion to quilting the quilts, so please find the latest flimsy which will go straight into the cupboard with the other many, many flimsies. 

I call it ‘On A Roll’.  It’s made from two jelly rolls and some white homespun.  It’s 64” square, and it took me not very long at all, really.

It’s okay.  It was a jelly roll left over from the shop, and rather than have it languish in the cupboard I decided to try out a new pattern on it. 

I think it looks okay but I’m not sure I’d make it again.  That blue/brown floral sure hits you in the eye.  But what else do you do with a jelly roll?  I don’t love them.  Maybe I’m not creative enough to make something major with them.  But I find them very limiting.

Some of my points line up beautifully.

Some of them don’t.

Still.  It’s done, it’s photographed, I’ve tacked a label to the back of it and I can call it finished. 

Now to move onto the next UFO in the pile.

What have you been up to?

A total stuff up and a quick save

A quilt on both my UFO and Quilt Bucket List is the Twisted Hexagon.

I was inspired by this divine quilt:

Taken from the very clever ButtonTree Lane blog.

I’ve printed my hexies and half hexies and cut them out, and cut out a few fabrics.  I’ve had them sitting in the ‘box of stuff to get to’ for ages, and it was only yesterday while waiting for my kids to finish their ballet class that I decided to start sewing.  Hexies seem a good ‘sit in the car and wait for kids’ project. 

So I started sewing.  It all went along swimmingly and in no time I had one whole block finished.

Excellent.  And you can’t even see my stitches.

Yay me.

Then today, whilst sitting down in the arm chair, I took another look at the Buttontree Lane quilt.  And I noticed a teensy problem.  Can you see it?

It’s meant to look like this:

And mine doesn’t.  I stitched the half hexies around the wrong way.  No wonder it was so easy.

Of course, with such lovely teeny, tiny stitches, I couldn’t unpick it.  So I turned it into this:

Total save. 

And a new, much needed pincushion.

Tadah!

Some new things

Some days I really struggle to be creative and to show you the new stuff I've been making.  Sometimes I have nothing to show you except hemmed jeans, or washed floors.  And who wants to see that?

So I thought I might try something new - a freebie section of links I love.   I know lots of other blogs are doing this but I figure that the internet is a very big place, and even if we do double up with our freebie links, that doesn't matter.  I'm always up for a freebie.   Hopefully I'll be able to share some of my favourite places.

I admit the blog button is not the best - graphics are not my forte.

I thought it would be apt as my very first 'Fabulous Freebie Find' to post a link to a fantastic quilt tutorial called 'Silly Goose Quilt' by the Missouri Star Quilt Company.

I regularly lurk on the Missouri Star website.  I really like some of their designs - they seem to find natty ways to use up jelly rolls and the like - this quilt pattern seems like a quickie but a goodie.  And with a name like the Silly Goose Quilt?  Well, I had little choice, did I?!

Hope you like the link - happy quilting!

Suzie

Leaders and Enders

I’ve long been a fan of Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com – I know many of you are.  I love her style of quilts, the fact that her designs aren’t just scrappy – there is a logical flow to them that really appeals to me. 

She’s a big fan of leaders and enders (click here for a decent explanation of what they are if you are unfamiliar) and I’ve been trying hard to fall into line with her way of thinking.  Part of the problem with me and Leaders and Enders is that rather than just using them as their original purpose, I end up working like a bull at a gate on the particular project that I have in mind for them, rather than the one I’m supposed to be working on.

Which is what has happened in the last couple of days.

These are my four patches and my half square triangles from a box of pastel scraps I’m trying to empty.  I’m supposed to only be using them as the pieces in between the current chain piecing project, but of course, as you can see – I’ve been assembling things. 

I just love the pretty pastels.  I’ve been working so long on the reproduction quilts I have that I’ve missed the smiley, happy faces of the pastels.

I have to cut 600 half square triangles and 300 four patches to make a quilt about 90 inches wide.  I’ve been cutting for days and I haven’t yet got to the bottom of the pastel box, and it’s only one of so many other boxes in my sewing room.

I’ve so many, many boxes of fabric in my little room.  I’m drowning in fabric.  And I haven’t brought any for months!

I am enjoying the colours of this one very much. 

How’s your quilting day been?

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Goodnight Irene Continued

The wheels have fallen somewhat off of the wagon with blogging and quilting, due to visits by family and ninth birthday parties for young daughters, but I did have some time to slink away and sew.

Only the first row is pieced together, and I still need one more block to make it the length I need.  I also will be piecing a joined row of squares outside the outer edge as a border, hopefully that should frame it all nicely.  I have been trimming, pressing, stitching for hours now – trimming up half square triangles is a boring job really.

But the quilt itself is coming along.  And as I said, most of these offcuts were destined for the rubbish bin before I decided to do this quilt so that’s got to count for something!

I’d like to thank all my new followers for coming onboard – I hope to visit all your blogs and have already scheduled tomorrow in as a blog and sewing day (rather than boring old housework).  I’m so enjoying the Grow Your Blog party!

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Just checking

How's your day been?  Mine's been so flipping hot but that's getting boring, me telling you how hot it is.  At least when it's snowing you guys get to post lovely snow pictures that make my mouth water.

I'm just tinkering a bit on the blog today, trying to sort some things out, so this is a pretty boring post.  Here's a puppy to look at, seeing as you're here.

awwwww.....

I'll be back tomorrow with quilt stuff.  See you soon!

Suzie