Scrappy Log Cabins

I’m not sure if this is something I have shown you before or not – I can’t find the original post if I had.  If only there was a feature on blogs where you could tag each post and be able to sort through them easily.  Oh wait…

A long time ago I spent ages making a glorious reproduction log cabin in civil war fabrics.  You all know how much I love thirties prints so I thought it might be a good idea to make a thirties version.

About ninety percent through the making of the quilt, I realised it was going to be a behemoth of a thing.  It was too, too big.  But I’d stitched it all together and I’d put that in the back of my mind.  It was easier to forget how big it was rather than unpick it.

But when I laid it on the queen-sized bed I had designed it for, it was far, far too enormous.  So I bit the bullet, unpicked the thing and restitched it into a more manageable size.

It’s still a monster, but it’s better.  And it fits the bed with a lovely drape, so I am happy.

Of course, I now have a million leftover log cabin blocks.  So I stitched those together also and I have now got a smaller version.  Tadah!

It’s the perfect day today for bright, sunny fabrics.  I really do love them with their lovely colours.  I’m all about the colours at the moment.

Which is a bit of a conundrum really because I have many, many pieces of civil war fabrics, which at the moment really feel a bit drab.

Oh well.  Perhaps in winter I’ll feel more like working on them.  But for now, it’s colour, colour, colour!

Hope your weekend is going well.  Mine is busy, busy, busy!

More Monsters

So last post, I showed you my tumblers that I’d made from some of my lovely new fabrics. 

 

I needed to make an applique border.  I tried many things, I thought of clowns, trains, cars, dolls – I did not want to do monsters.  I’ve done monsters again and again and I’m sick of monsters.

 

The only thing that I could make work in the space was monsters.  They chose me, I think.

They look marginally creepy with no black pupils but that will come in time. 

I’m growing quite a stash of hand work to do ‘later on’.  I will have to live to be one thousand years old to finish it all.

Hope you’re having a lovely day!

Pretty Flamingos

I live in a small town.  There aren’t massive shops. 

My youngest daughter was invited to a birthday party today.  We went shopping for a gift on Thursday night, and my daughter decided that as birthday girl was very keen on flamingos, we should buy her something with flamingos on it.

Did I mention we live in a small town with not many shops?  Yes, I did!

She is quite a forthright young lady and was fairly unimpressed with the lack of availability of flamingo products, so I did what all mothers who can sew and are suckers do.  I promised I’d make her something with a flamingo on it.

And here it is.  Freshly finished at 12.30 for a 2.00 pm party. No pressure.

It’s a carry bag.  For photo purposes I’ve tucked the straps inside.

The outcome of the emergency gift?  The birthday girl barely looked at it before throwing it on the pile of presents she had received.  In fairness, there was a lot happening and she is only eight.  I’m sure she’ll have some time later on to appreciate it. 

And, my daughter thinks I’m the best mother in the world, so I’ll take that as a win.

Have a lovely weekend.

More colour

I was out most of today, running children around.

But I did have an hour or two spare to myself, and I took the opportunity to sew my tumblers into rows.

It took me ages to put the colours in a pleasing way, and still now I find that some are too close together. But such is life, and tomorrow, if I have another hour or two, I shall sew the rows together.  I had to number them because knowing me, all that arrangment would get lost if I didn't.

Such delicious colours.  They look really really really bright in this photo, but they are not too bad.  I mean, they are bright, but not in the 'see it from space' way that the photo makes it look.

School holidays start tomorrow.  Where did that term go, I ask you?  I will enjoy not having to be anywhere at a particular time, I can tell you.

Have a lovely sewing day!

The Need For Colour

Hi ladies (and gents?)

I'm flapping about from one project to the next right now, unable to settle on a single thing.  Remember that word from my start of year posts?  Discipline?  Not so much.  I've started so many things lately, I really need to smack myself around the head.

So one new thing I can show you that I hoped to have finished sooner is a new baby quilt.  No new babies around here yet, but sometime somewhere someone important will have one, and I figured I can have it in the cupboard for that special new baby.

I saw a really pretty quilt somewhere on facebook (I apologise if it was yours, I didn't know the name of the original poster) and I had some perfect fabric that I've been saving for 'something special'.  This design was very sweet, and though I'm not stealing the exact design, you could certainly say that I have been influenced by it.  Rows and rows of tumblers, and some applique (which hasn't been thought of yet) and then it'll be done.

Not sure why, but I am feeling a great need for brights.  Cheery, sweet, lovely brights.  The Go Cutter I have made short work of these tumblers, and after cutting them out, I was left with these lovely scrappy parts, which I have put into a special bag to use for applique.  I've also started an applique quilt that I will share with you another day.  I know.  I'm truly hopeless.

So that's my quick update for today.  I can see on the side there that I have some new followers - hello and thank you for joining us here!  I got very sad when I lost thirty or so followers a few months ago, I thought I had done something awful to offend them, but I realised it had something to do with google reader (or something else equally technically confusing).  So it's nice to have some people to take their place!

Today was a glorious, beautiful autumn day and I managed to get all my washing done and off the line - so yay me!

Hope you're all doing well, and I shall chat with you another day!

International Quilters Day

Hi Lovely readers,

I'm running short on time today, so just a quick post, full of pictures.

I've finally had the chance to upload some from our International Quilting Day.  

We had a brilliant day, the Apron ladies (the committee) were absolutely, totally, completely exhausted by the end of the day - you can see there were many, many visitors there.  Lots of shops, lots of guest speakers, a challenge.  It was well worth the organising and so far I haven't heard any negatives, which is brilliant.  It was organised within an inch of it's life, so I'd be surprised if something went wrong.

Nothing did, all is good.

Hope you enjoy the photos, the last few are from the challenge we hosted, you can just see the corner of mine in the above photo.

Have a lovely, sunny day!

Texan Braid

A quick post before I go to bed - I am wiped out tonight.

I told you yesterday that I was making a texan braid, the pattern of which came from one of Bonnie Hunter's books (I forget which).

I've cut enough strips to make the quilt.

There's just one problem - I'm really not enjoying making it.  It's not an easy quilt to piece.  It's not complicated, more cumbersome.  Not easy to chain piece.

Still I'm going to finish it because after I laid it out on the board, I really like the look of it.

It's coming along well.  Just cumbersome.

How was your day?  I don't know where mine went!  They fly by at the moment!

Have a lovely one,

Suzie

Red Star Scrappy Quilt

I am currently making a Texan Braid quilt, which uses lots of 2" red squares.

I don't have a lot of red, which surprises me because I thought I had loads.

Then I remembered - I made a quilt totally out of reds and creams.  I'm not sure if it's anyone's design - I made it too long ago and maybe I've seen it somewhere, maybe not. 

I had decided to show it at our International Quilting Day which meant taking from a top to a quilt - so I took the opportunity to take a decent photo for my quilt diary, and I now take the opportunity to show you!  You may have seen it as a flimsy but I thought it was noteworthy that it's now a QUILT!

One less flimsy on the pile.  One more finished quilt.  That's a plus!

See you later, alligators.