Rainbow Quilt

As I told you the other day, I made my eldest daughter a quilt for Christmas.

I’m nothing if not fair and even with the children (I hope) so obviously I needed to make the smaller child a quilt also.

She’s always been into rainbows, bright cheery colour explosions.  Her dress sense is – well – unique – to put it the best way and she doesn’t give a you know what how other people see her. 

So when I saw this tutorial online I thought it was the perfect quilt for a rainbow child.

I had to order the jelly rolls in (nowhere sells Rainbow jell rolls anywhere!) but even with that cost it still worked out a pretty cheap quilt.

So what do you think?

 

Mother quilted it in a swirly design which I think worked really well on such a straight quilt.  Kinda cuts through the straightness of it.

I’m very pleased with it.  It is a really quick, (if a little cumbersome) quilt to make and apart from keeping your wits about you in terms of colour placement (it’s very easy to stitch the wrong row on) I found it really easy.

So if you’re in possession of two jelly rolls you can’t decide what to do with, this is a great idea.

Hope you like it.  She loved it.  She loves anything rainbows.  And being eight – well, she’s not twelve, if that makes sense!   I have a couple more years of exuberance to go yet!

An overdue post about Christmas gifts

Hi lovely readers.

I’ve been sitting on this half done post since Christmas, and have finally managed to take a ‘tadah’ photo of the finished item for you.

Some time ago, mid last year we took the girls to the Flinders Ranges for a holiday.  Amazingly, in a town of 200 people we managed to find a quilt show.

Considering there were only 200 people in this tiny town, it was a very nice little show which had more than a few lovely quilts and a very large trading table.  I’m assuming you ladies who live overseas have trading tables?  Everyone makes stuff and sells it in the hope of raising funds for your local groups who need them?

We used to have them outside our local supermarket (Eudunda Farmers – remember them?) and I remember as a little girl just loving them.  You could always get some truly excellent cakes from them.  They’ve fallen by the wayside in the larger community now, all the councils are too tied up with red tape and public liability.

But I remember them!

Anyway, eldest daughter took a real shine to one particular quilt on display.  I took a photo and promptly forgot about it until a few months later when I found it on my camera.

Now, I don’t know about you but as children get older, they get very difficult to buy for.  Our kids are very lucky, they have a big family who spoil them rotten (and truth be told, I think their mother might spoil them too) and they literally want for nothing.  Short of buying my daughter an Iphone for Christmas (the one thing she truly wants with all her little heart), I could think of nothing at all to give her.  And over my cold dead body is she getting an Iphone any time soon.  

When I found this quilt picture on my phone, I knew straight away that it would make a great gift.  As much as I love the fairy quilt in her bedroom, she keeps reminding me ‘that she’s twelve now, mother’ and would like the fairy quilt removed from the wall.

So that’s what I did.  I worked my butt off, and worked so far out of my comfort zone, but I made her a lovely quilt for Christmas.

It was so far out of my comfort zone it wasn’t funny.  The colours are not my choice (she LOVES them).  The design is so far left of anything I’d ever do myself I found it really difficult (nothing is balanced!  Things have different measurements!  It’s not symmetrical!!!!)

Once I finished it, I gave it to my mother to quilt and she’s done a very lovely job.

So sitting up till very late once my daughter had gone to bed and stitching down the binding was one of the last jobs I did before Christmas day (don’t we all do that at some time or other??).  I am very pleased with it, especially as an exercise of working with patterns that don’t follow your particular likes or comfort. 

She says ‘it’s a nice quilt, mum’ – which wasn’t quite the reaction I was hoping for but since Christmas she has been asking when I can put it on her wall, so I guess in ‘tween’ speak that means she likes it.  Who knows?  They are a mystery to me, these children of mine!

(and to be fair, it’s like giving coal to coalmen – my girls have so many quilts).

So there you go.  The story of one Christmas Quilt.  I’ll show you the other one tomorrow (and that one was WAY in my comfort zone and I loved every minute of making it!)

Have a happy quilting day!

A Catch Up

Hi lovely readers, sorry I’ve been a little absent.  I suspect that Thursdays seem to be my day of blog catch ups.

I’ve had little time to sew, but I have been spending much time knitting.  Sadly the knitting is very boring to show you on a blog, so I will spare you that.  I thought I’d show you what’s on the go around the house lately if you like.

I finished my lovely row by row, and it was too nice to fold up and put it in the cupboard, so I have it draped over my lounge chair.

I love the cosiness of a crocheted blanket.  It’s way too hot to use it yet but I will when it cools down, I can assure you!

I’m still slowly plugging along at my hand quilting though to be honest, I rarely find time to do it.  It’s that old ‘you can’t sit down in the daytime’ problem I spoke of before.

And my hexie project is slowly working its way along.  I flew to Melbourne with my husband (child free) on the weekend and I’m not at all a comfortable flier, so I was determined to do something rather than panic about plane crashes look out the window the whole time.  I’ve not stitched in a plane since they ramped up the security processes, so I was pleasantly surprised that no one cared, and I got quite a bit done.  In fact, I ran out of hexies mid way through and had to buy a book for the return flight home.

So that’s all I have to show you right now.  I’ve got a few quilts ready to be photographed and once I get that done, I’ll have a lot of new stuff to show you!

Hope your days are quilty ones!

Seeing Stars V2

In a hurry, in a hurry so a quick post to show you the latest version of the star quilt.

I had some stars left over from the original star quilt I donated (and instantly grieved over – why did I donate such a lovely quilt??) so I decided to make myself another one. 

Our group had a sewing day on Tuesday and so I managed to get all the borders on, and all the blocks trimmed.

Now I just have to stitch them into rows and then the rows into blocks and it’s done!

Such a quick, easy quilt.   If I have time I might do a tutorial.  We’ll see.

This week has been a much, much cooler one (thank God!), we lost a couple of shrubs in the garden but overall the damage has been minimal.  I still have a tree full of peaches (want some peaches? I have many!) so that’s worked out awesome too. 

Hopefully the worst of the heatwave is over, we were lucky this year that we had a day of rain on the Monday before that wet everything down so bushfires weren’t a risk, at least here in my part of the country.  Other parts haven’t fared so well, but that’s summer in Australia for you!

Have a lovely one, and I’ll see you soon.

Another Flimsy

Can you believe this quilt top has been done for months and months, and all I needed to do was stitch the hearts on.  Can you believe it took two nights and now it’s done?  Can you believe I have so many other projects that just need that little bit of work and they are done? 

 

I don’t know why I do this – put things away with such a small amount of work to do.

No mind – it’s done now!  Yes it’s a flimsy.  I think this one will be quilted soon though because it cheers me to see it hanging on the wall.  Everything is so gloomy and depressing right now – a bit of bright cheer won’t hurt anyone.

On Monday we had 18 degrees and rain all day.  Tuesday was 33 degrees.  Today is 43 degrees and tomorrow is meant to be 45 degrees.  And over 40 degrees days are scheduled for up to next week.  And no, I’m not talking Fahrenheit.  I  know it’s summer but it’s a little bit ridiculous, and the worst thing of all is my beautiful, luscious peaches run the risk of splitting due to the rain.  First world problems I’m sure (don’t you HATE that saying) but some stability in the weather would be nice.  Choose a temperature, Miss Weather and OWN IT! Mother Nature is certainly high maintenance right now.

I know you in the Northern Hemisphere are snowed in right now – I’m loving seeing your photos.  Snow seems so exciting – I’m sure it has just as many problems as extreme heat so I hope you’re all safe and warm. 

I’m about to pop out (in the hottest part of the day, yay!) to help walk the children to the swimming pool for swimming lessons.  Swimming lessons are part of the school curriculum here in Australia – at least in our part of the world.  It’s not safe to have kids who can’t swim living so close to the river.  I must remember to pack my hat and sunblock!

Have a good day!

double four patch–another flimsy finished

I’d made a scrap quilt some time ago from purples and greens, and whilst cleaning up I found many, many four patches.

What to do with these leftovers?  I ended up going simple – just alternated them with some larger blocks of matching colour and it’s ended up being quite a nice little lap quilt.

So many flimsies. 

What to do with all of them?

I’ll not worry about that yet.  I’m getting them all to a flimsy stage and then I can start on the quilting.  Systematically crossing things off the UFO list is a very satisfying feeling, and I’ve very nearly caught up on the sewing machine jobs.  Then I have to move on to the hand work jobs, but that means sitting down in front of the TV during the day and feel so GUILTY sitting down during the day.

I’ll have to get over that, won’t I?

See you soon!

Girls’ Art Quilt

Hello lovely readers,

I have another finish to show you.  It’s still only a flimsy but as we know, I don’t mind flimsies.

A year or so ago (my, how quickly time goes!) my youngest daughter’s teacher left to have a baby.  I was recruited into making a quilt for her – all the students drew a block and it was very well received.  You can see that post here.

I loved the concept, and so I decided I’d make my two girls do a few quilt blocks and I’d make them both their own quilt – a perfect snapshot of their ages.

They didn’t really approach it with as much gusto as I hoped.  Turns out drawing loads and loads of pictures just to keep your mother happy isn’t as much fun to little girls as it sounds. 

So I cut my losses and put the two girls’ blocks together, and now I have a precious Mummy momento just for me.

Already in the time it took me to make this a flimsy I can see how their artwork has changed and how they have matured.  The time is flying past me, my two babies are not babies anymore and it’s very bittersweet.  I know you know what I’m talking about.

I’m hopeless really, I keep everything they ever draw or write to me.  And I’ll keep this one forever too.

Have a lovely weekend.