Easy Street Step One

Yeah, I know.  I don’t need to do another quilt.  But I really do enjoy Bonnie Hunter’s mysteries and she promises there will be no more string blocks, so I’m giving it a go.  I reckon I’ve just made the deadline for the Mr Linky thing on her blog by about ten minutes, so Yay Me.

I decided that I would go with what Bonnie was doing hers out of, if only to push me into a whole different colourway.  I tend to stick to one or two variations on the same theme, which makes me lazy.  By choosing to use what she uses, I have to force myself to just ‘go with it’, and perhaps end up with a quilt I really love, rather than another ‘meh’ one.

So, she’s used grey, white, purple and lime.  I don’t have even the slightest grey in my colours, but I do have 2024935656 strips of black homespun.  So that’s what I used.  And creams/whites from the ever diminishing box of neutrals. 

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with this one.  I’ve got nothing else to do (cough).

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

A flimsy finish

And it is pretty flimsy really.  This is an old, old, OLD design we used to sell at the shop.  A hundred years ago, the ‘in’ thing was to do little wall hangings – very country…you know the type.  Times have changed now, and the country look is nowhere near as popular.  But we still sold lots of little cutesy designs like this.

This is so far from where my quilting is right now, it was a real chore to finish it off.  And it’s still not finished either – it remains a top.  Can’t quite see what I’ll be doing with it that will make it worth finishing.  I suppose I’ll stick it in the cupboard along with everything else.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

So Hi! I’m Back!

I’m finally off the sick bed and back (hopefully) into the land of the living.  It’s been a pretty tough slog, these last two weeks and I’m crossing my fingers that sickness has left the building.  I don’t enjoy having sick kids, I don’t enjoy being sick myself and I really don’t enjoy having sick kids WHILE I am sick.  No one wins.

So obviously, I’ve had little opportunity to finish anything, or even stitch anything.  But I’m in the process of putting a little tutorial together on something I’m stitching so hopefully that will make up for such a lack of anything quilty to show you. 

For now, wanna see where I live?

 

I never get tired of looking at it.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Hello lovely readers

Have you noticed I’ve been gone?  Did you miss me?

We are all sick here.  My lovely daughter brought home a virus from school and promptly shared it with the rest of us.  Today is the first day in a week I feel capable of words on a computer page.  The older I get, the less I can cope with these little gifts.

I’ll be back real soon.  I’ve missed you.

Suzie

Grandmother’s Choice

I haven’t been able to catch up with the Grandmother’s Choice blocks these last two weeks – I’m not sure where my time goes but it sure isn’t going the quilting way.

I mentioned last time I posted that I wasn’t too keen on doing the American flag for my quilt block, though I’ve seen a lot of very pretty ones on the Grandmother’s Choice Flickr page.  But, I’m not an American and I was sure I could try and find something relevant to Australian Women’s Voting Rights to put into my quilt.

Did you know, that whilst the US gave women the vote in the early part of the 20th Century, New Zealand was actually the first self-governing country to grant women the vote; in 1893 all women over the age of 21 were permitted to vote in parliamentary elections (from wikipedia). 

In the late 19th century, an enterprising South Australian woman named Mary Lee was foremost in pushing the right for a vote for women in Australia.  And, predictably, there were quite a few men who were against the idea.  But, many men realised that the day would come, quite soon, when they would HAVE to allow women to vote, and a bill was drafted as such. 

But they weren’t quite as forward thinking as we would have liked.  The original bill was drafted to include an amendment stating that whilst women could vote, they were not allowed to stand for parliament. 

One enterprising man, Ebenezer Ward who was fiercely against women voting, decided to be a bit clever.  He put forward an motion to remove the amendment that women couldn’t stand for parliament.  He wagered that NO man would vote for any legislation that would allow women to actually RUN the joint, and by default the remainder of the bill, i.e. the right to vote, would be kicked out too.

But it backfired.  The voting bill was passed, women over 21 were allowed to vote AND stand for parliament in South Australia. 

Of course, South Australia was not alone in its push for women to vote.  The movement was world wide.  But I’m very proud that it was South Australia who were at the forefront.  I never learnt this in school, by the way.  Which I think is a shame.

We know the name Catherine Helen Spence, who was the first South Australian woman to run for a seat (unsuccessfully) in parliament, but we easily forget the name of Mary Lee, one of the original agitators and suffragettes.

And so, in honour of Mary Lee, this block is Mary’s Block from Blockbase.  

 

Obviously I won’t do it in purples.

Did you enjoy your history lesson?  South Australia can be hard on itself at times.  We’re not as flashy or cosmopolitan as Melbourne or Sydney, but we’ve done some pretty amazing things over our history.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

More Show And Tell

A million years ago, when I was working in the quilt shop, I made a log cabin quilt.  I do believe it was the last ‘whole’ quilt made with log cabins that I have done. 

I stuck some borders on it, and threw it in the UFO pile for another day.  I don’t know why, it was so close to being finished.

As part of my Get Stuff Done year, I dug it out of the UFO box and decided to finish it.  I may not know why I didn’t finish it years ago but I am glad I didn’t – the quilt couldn’t lay straight if its life depended on it.  I’m wasn’t convinced my blocks were all the same size, and the borders were stretched and made the whole thing billow like a cushion.

I decided to take the borders off and restitch them, but even that didn’t look like it was going to fix the problem.  There was only one thing to do – completely undo the blocks and start over. 

I unpicked all my rows, remeasured my blocks (and lo and behold, they were all different measurements) and recut them to size.  Then I stitched them back together again, put the small red border on (thankfully I have a stash you could see from space and I found the matching fabric) and stitched a cream border to the outside.

Finally, I’ve appliqued some flowers on the outer borders.

I still need to buttonhole stitch them down, but a few nights in front of the tellie and that will be easily accomplished.

So, I’m pleased now.  The quilt lies MUCH flatter. Thankfully I was able to shave a little from the blocks and not have it effect the pattern too much.  Good old Log Cabin blocks – so versatile.

Here’s an arty shot. 

It’s amazing how time clarifies the picture.  I know if I had finished this when I started it, I wouldn’t have fixed what are now glaringly obvious faults.  Sometimes putting projects away is the best thing, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks.  Do you find that?  Have you ever remade a quilt because you know you just won’t be happy with it otherwise?

Okay – now I’m off to do some ironing.  Hip Hip Hooray. 

Happy quilting!

Suzie

Catching Up

I’ve been trying to catch up with the Grandmother’s Choice quilt blocks, and I must say after a bit of effort, I’m almost there!

This is block eight – Rocky Road To Kansas.  It used a Y seam and I think I did okay.  I tried my hand at fussy cutting which I think turned out just fine.

I’m finding it difficult, with all the many fabrics I have in my stash, to find a variety of greens and reds.  I’m determined not to buy any more.  And I’m forever running out of backgrounds.  Do you have that problem?

This one is week nine – Brick Pavement, March On Washington.  Secretly I’m quite chuffed with this one.  I’m using the 1/16th measurement on my cutting board as Barbara recommended and I’m finding it really does help with the accuracy of some of these more challenging blocks. 

I’ve been a quilter for years, and it’s only now that I think I might actually be getting somewhere with my accuracy.  The internet has certainly made me rethink a lot of my quilting ‘rules’.  It’s a good thing.  One is never too old to learn something new!

I am off to make the current week’s block, which is an American Flag block.  No disrespect to you American ladies out there, but I might do something different this week.  Maybe I’ll try and Australian-ify my block this time.

Happy Quilting!

Suzie

Stay Safe!

I’m not sure how many of my readers come from the storm affected areas in the US, but I just wanted to wish you all good luck through the next few hours!  It could not be a more perfect day here in South Australia, seems unbelievable what you guys are going through.

So stay safe, keep dry and see you on the other side!

Suzie

Grandmother’s Choice Block 5 New Jersey

I’ve spend some time lately trying to catch up on my Grandmother’s Choice.  I’ve now made seven of the eight blocks, and block five was the latest one:

It was all easy peasy really, and it wasn’t till I had the whole thing made that I realised that I didn’t do a brilliant job.  Up close and personal it’s a little too wonky in parts for my liking, but I didn’t really want to unpick it given that it’s all bias triangles.

But when you put it with the rest of them, it looks fine.

I think once it’s all together and I’ve made all of my blocks, it’'ll look fine.

Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll catch up on that last block.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Show and Tell

When we closed the shop, there as quite some thought as to the next stage of our lives.  I knew what mine was going to be – I had a five year old about to go to school, and a toddler at home with me.  That part of it was easy.

But I think my mother (hi mum, she reads this now) found it a little more challenging, and so she invested her time (and money) into a long arm machine quilting machine.

Slowly but surely she is building up a clientele, and this is one of her custom jobs. 

I’ve included a few closeups, because the quilting is lovely (as are the blocks).

This pattern is from a local(ish) company called Kids Quilts.  They have lots of lovely things. 

Mum’s done little daisies in the quilt block above, can you see them?

Cross-hatched basketweave quilting.  Apparently v.v. complicated.

 

How cute is the little doll in the corner?

And some closeups of the back. 

It’s hard to take a photo of the back, because white doesn’t show up well.  But I think I did okay here.

I’d rather pull my teeth than do custom machine quilting for people, but I think she’s very, very clever.  And it means I don’t have to do my quilting any time soon.  Yay.  One of the perks.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie