Show And Tell (not mine, sadly)

I’ve always loved a good black/bright quilt.  Something about the combination of colours makes the quilt really pop. 

A few years ago, printed foundation papers were the rage.  Now you can just print them off the internet, but back then a few companies printed them for you and you would follow the dots, so to speak and end up with a lovely quilt.

I’m not a lover of foundation piecing.  I’ve taken to using a washaway stabiliser as my foundation as I cannot be bothered tearing out the paper afterwards.  But I digress.

This is not my quilt.  This is my clever clogs mother’s quilt that somehow has ended up in my cupboard.  That’s a shame.  Isn’t it lovely?

We would get fabric reps come and visit us back in our shop days. They would have ‘feelers’ (remnants of fabric that we would choose from to purchase in our shop) that they would bring in, in big suitcases.  Thousands and thousands of different samples of at least fat eighth sized fabric.  We would beg and beg and flutter our eyelashes to sometimes get given the old, out of stock fabrics.  We weren’t very successful but one lovely salesperson gave us some brights one day.  This is the resulting quilt.

Sometimes quilts work really well and this is one of them.  There wasn’t enough fabric to make it bigger, it’s about a lap size.  It’s been stippled with variegated cotton in the border, and I think stitched in the ditch in the pineapples.  But it’s just lovely, don’t you think?

School holidays is currently on here in my house, so stitching time is limited.  But I’ve a few show and tell quilts up my sleeve that I might show if I get some time.

Hope your weekend went well!

Happy Stitching,

Suzie

Bedford Industries Mystery Quilt

A few months ago, I posted on a sewing day we had at our group, where we stitched a mystery quilt.

I left the day having finished this much of our mystery quilt.  It came as a kit, all precut and it was great fun to do.  

Of course, in true Suzie fashion, it sat there like that for quite a few months until I could decide what to do.

One evening I went out to quilting and I saw one of the other ladies and the way she had finished her quilt off.  I loved it, and I asked her if I could blatantly copy it, and being the lovely lady that she is, she let me.

I first made lots of flying geese.  Excuse the crappy photo, that was taken with my Ipod which is difficult for me to focus.

I then did a quick cream border around the outside of the quilt, just to make the blocks pop a little more.  I wanted them to 'float' a little.

And then, I used one of my copious amounts of dusky pink fabrics to make a small border.  I believe that is called a 'peeper'.

So far so good.

I made the flying geese intentionally shorter than the rows, which meant I had to finish each row off with a cream buffer.  I really wanted just the look of flying geese, not too much to be overpowering.  

And here is the finished result.  You like?

Another flimsy bites the dust.  Finally, I think I'm getting my finishing mojo happening.

(I refuse to tell you what I've started in the meantime).

Happy Quilting!

Suzie

Ufo’ing like a woman possessed

I have nothing too fancy to show you but I must tell you, I’m feeling very virtuous these last few days. 

I have a big bag full of ‘I’ll do that soon’ jobs that are too boring to contemplate.  Of course, the bag is getting fuller and fuller. 

So I’ve been doing them!  And I’m almost at the bottom of the bag.  Most of them are boring alterations, sewing arms back onto teddy bears, hemming trousers.  Boring boring but I’ve been getting then done!

One of my jobs was to line my Lucy bag.  This job has been waiting well over two years.  It took me half an hour.

You can just see the tiniest piece of pink fabric from inside.  It’s not my prettiest work, but it’s done and I can now use the bag without all of the knitting supplies it holds falling through the holes.

This is not my work, sadly because it’s DIVINE. 

One of our quilting group ladies has had to clear out her mother in law’s house, as both her and her father in law are now living in care.  She brought a whole pile of things to group, and we were allowed to take what we wanted.

There was a very large pile of unstitched fancy work doilies that I lusted over, but someone else took all of them.  I found this unfinished something, and after a bit of concentration, we decided it was a cushion (for a long time we were sure it was meant to be a bag).

All it needed was the insert made, and stuffed, and then the crochet stitched in place and it was done.  Took me half an hour, and now it’s in my front room on my lounge.  It’s been sitting there in that bag for a good year also waiting for me to get my act together.

Why do we procrastinate so much?  It feels so good when all these crappy jobs are out of the way. 

So I’ll continue to work through my UFO’s and try very hard not to start something new.  But knowing me, that probably won’t happen!

Happy Quilting!

Suzie

More of the dolls….

 

 

I can’t make any claim to this lovely little man. We had a wonderful customer at our shop who would make two dolls, one for her and one for us, as long as we provided the fabric.  She was happy, we were happy and the shop was lucky enough to receive a new sample for patterns we sold.  And she did such a wonderful job. I wish I was half the doll maker the lovely Ingrid was.

Hope you’re quilting, or knitting, or stitching – or something that’s relaxing and fun!  Have a lovely weekend.

Suzie

Pat Speth - Nickel Quilts

I've been UFO'ing during the last few days.

Have you been following Pat Speth's Deli Geese blocks?

I have.  I've made heaps of them.  

I did plan to make all of her blocks, but she's currently up to number 44 and that's a lot of blocks for one quilt!  I don't need more quilts, so I'm almost ready just to finish the few remaining ones that take my fancy and then I will sash them and move on.

They are made in quite an interesting fashion where you stitch half square triangles together and cross cut them in a particular way to make different units.  It immediately caught my attention as I am always up for trying new things.

But as I said, I'm not about to make hundreds of blocks.  I'm on the end straight now and soon I shall sash them (and I'm thinking of placing the blocks on point) so that soon enough it will be another flimsy.

I think I'm almost getting a handle on the half pieced tops in my stash.  If I could get rid of some of the wool UFO's I'd be so pleased.

Are you quilting much this weekend?  Enjoy it!

Suzie