2015 Mystery Quilt Introduction

Hello and welcome to my latest mystery quilt! I had such a good time with my last mystery quilt, I decided to do another one!  It has been an awful long time since I did the last one, but such is life!

This is an easy enough quilt with lots of piecing. If you’re a beginner, don’t feel daunted – just do each step as you can and you’ll be fine!

It’s a little hard to tell you exact requirements of fabrics, except to say that this is can be the epitomy of a scrap quilt, and you will need both lights and darks.

OR:

You can choose to make it in just three colours. In my case, I’m using blue and yellow, with a little bit of cream as the background. Still scrappy, just three colour scrappy.

There will be lots of piecing in this quilt. Lots. If you get tired, just give it a break for a day or so. But chain piecing should be your friend.

It’s all straight line piecing, and a beginner will be just fine.

My finished quilt measures 80” square. It’s easy enough to make it smaller or larger, but my instructions will give you the quilt size I’ve stated.

Each step is easy, and with instructions being released every week (approximately, as time permits) I am sure you won’t be too challenged.

Feel free to take a little break from time to time if you want to, but remember that others may be discussing their quilt around the traps and the design may be revealed if you’re not careful.

Please email me at sillygoosequilts@hotmail.com with any questions or queries and I’d be so happy to help you out.

Requirements List – 3 colour quilt

· Light fabric for backgrounds – anything bigger than 2 ½” squares or strips

· Blue fabric for blocks – anything bigger than 2 ½” squares or strips

· Yellow fabric for blocks – anything bigger than 2 ½” squares or strips.

there is no way to accurately tell you how much to use as this is a true scrap quilt. Just use the opportunity to get rid of some of those multiplying scraps! Anything bigger than 2 ½” is fair game!!

If you cut 2 ½” strips where possible, chain piecing will be easier. You can cross cut your units smaller later on.

· Ziplock Bags.

· All the usual requirements for quilting (rotary cutter, mat, board, iron etc)

That’s it really! Tomorrow I’ll upload the first lot of instructions and we’ll start the cutting and stitching.   Then I plan to post each instalment (about eight) each Monday.  Let’s have fun!

click here for a printable PDF

Jealousy

Jealousy is a terrible thing.

My brother is off on an adventure, sending me back the most amazing photos, and all I can think of is ‘why can’t I take photos like that?’.

I haven’t asked his permission or anything to share them with you but I will anyway.  Big sisters can do things like that.

This bottom one is my favourite.  Canola fields with the classical Aussie stone home, falling down.  There are so many of them around.  Can’t you see this one in a quilt?

Anyway.  Jealous.

Also, I’ve been keeping a secret from you.  A year or so ago I designed a mystery quilt, and never finished it enough to post the instructions here.  Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been UFO’ing like a woman possessed, and I’ve finished it!  Yay me!  So tomorrow, Sunday Australian time, I will start posting the instructions.  It’s probably going to go for about eight weeks, and it’s not a hard quilt at all.  I’m quite pleased with it.  So stay tuned tomorrow and I’ll post the first instalment!

I hope you’ll join in on the fun!

Excuse me, I am a quilter!

My daughter's (very lovely) dance teacher was in a desperate state a few weeks ago - she needed some collars made for their upcoming dance concert and no one does dressmaking any more....

So I got a phone call.

I'm soooo not a dress maker.  I used to be, but it's a muscle that you lose when you stop doing it.  But she asked me, and was so grateful and what the hell, I can sew, why shouldn't help someone in need?  I'm a clever sewer, I've got this.  At least that was what I was thinking at the time.

I spent most of yesterday doing them, with a little help from she who knows everything about dressmaking but didn't offer to make them herself (Hi Mum!).

Tadah!  I have now made twelve collars from the slipperiest, shiniest fabric known to man.  And surprisingly, they are not awful. And surprisingly, they weren't that hard either.

I'm certainly not going to go into the dressmaking business, but I'm quietly rather chuffed with myself.  As far as dance costumes go, they look alright!  And I exercised the dressmaking muscle for another year.

I will not hem jeans however.  Or replace zips.  You go far away with those!

Have a lovely day.

Suzie

Christmas Table Runner

There’s a concept in ‘proper’ blogging called batching.

The idea is to sit at your desk once a week or so and write a week’s worth of posts, so you have a few up your sleeve.

I have tried in a quilty way to do the same thing.  It’s much more time effective for me to take a lot of my photos on the same day – when it’s a nice sunny day, when I have time up my sleeve.  Then I put them all on here, and save draft after draft of quilt blog posts for a rainy day.

Consequently I have many drafts in my folders that I’m trying to clear out.  You think I would post more often with all the extra blog posts I have up my sleeve.

Here is a really pretty Christmas table runner that I made back in 2010 (obviously from the date on the stitchery).  The pattern was from a Country Threads magazine, back when I was buying craft magazines.

When I actually sit and stitch, I”m always happy with the quality I should do.  My eyesight is not so good at the moment but I’m yet to organise glasses, and so I haven’t stitched for ages.  Perhaps it’s time to get back into it.

Hope you’ve had a quilty day!

Suzie

Pastel Economy Block

Some time ago, I showed you a stack of fabric I had brought from some cheap place in China, buying it was more of an experiment than anything else.  It was stupidly cheap in price, and I wanted to see what the quality of their fabric was like.

To be honest, it’s not the best – it’s thin and some of it has a very loose weave and I’m not convinced it’s all cotton as they professed it to be, but the colours were beautiful and with lots of spray starch the fabric behaved.

I had a lot of fun making little economy blocks – and after a weekend stitching I’m happy to show you the finished result:

I had lots of fun making these blocks.  My points went together well and all in all, I’m happy with this little quilt.  I adore the colours – I wish, with all my heart, that Concord were still making those little florals they made thirty years ago.  I miss them. 

(I must have picked the only photo where the points don’t line up as they should – mostly they were good enough for me!.  This is not the fabric you want to unpick though).

Goodness only knows how the fabric will stand up to a few washes, but such is life.  I had fun.

Happy quilting!

Knitted Things

I’ve been cleaning out my linen press, and came across a whole bag of knitted baby items.  I do love knitting those little baby items – they give me so much pleasure.  I don’t ever seem to give them away, and so the bag gets fuller and fuller.  They only take two balls of 8 ply, and I really find I do it for relaxation more than anything. 

Many, many photos to follow:

Yes, I have made the same pattern over and over, thank you for noticing.  It’s my favourite and it works really well in a bright, strong 8 ply like the rose pink above.  I think it’s feather and fan but I could be wrong, I don’t know the names of these patterns like I do in quilting.

Did you have a lovely weekend and Father’s Day?  We drove over to visit my husband’s father – my dad died years ago so the day isn’t about him any more.  And my husband, of course – he did rather well.  My girls made their lovely hand made silly presents that they do at school – the stocking head filled with grass seeds that grows as hair, the gorgeous hand made cards – I keep them all, of course.  Not the stocking head, obviously but every card those girls have made is safely kept away.

God help the person who has to clean out my cupboards after I’ve gone.  I’m one more matinee jacket and hand made card away from my own episode of ‘Hoarders’.

Have a lovely day!

Suzie

Crocheting

Not too much quilting happening in these parts, as I have now managed to get the children's cold.  I know, I know - I tempted the universe last time by saying I hadn't got it so far.  But having a head cold is the perfect time to sit and finish a crocheted blanket.

I took the photos with my new Iphone and the blogger app - and I must say that the pictures turned out much better than I would have thought.  I'm a perfectionist, of course and I much prefer a 'proper' camera but this sure works when it has to.

I've made 100 of these crochet squares, and now I need to stitch them together.  I managed to get one row done yesterday, and hopefully another will be done today.  Slow and steady!

I'm by no means a good crocheter, but my girls do love a crochet blanket so it's certainly done with love.

Hope your weekend goes well!  Happy crafting!

Thirties Blend Dresden Plate Table Runner

Hello lovely readers.  Some show and tell for you today.  I’m still plodding through photographing all my projects, flimsies or not.

I received a pack of these ‘thirties’ prints from somewhere and whilst I love them, they don’t really look thirties to me.  I’d say forties or even fifties.  They don’t go with the (rather large) stash of what I would call ‘proper’ thirties prints.  So I found a dresden plate tutorial somewhere and promptly discovered I only had enough fabric to make a table runner, and that’s what I did.

It’s a gloriously sunny day here – the blossoms are all out, you can hear the bees buzzing and the birds chirping, it’s just lovely.  The whole family has been sick with something awful the past two weeks and being the mother, I’ve been busy keeping them tucked into bed with food and drink.  This was a particularly nasty virus thing that’s been going around our schools and my family managed to catch it all at once.  So far so good for me, but I’m crossing everything that can be crossed that it’ll just fly right past me.

I hope you’ve had a lovely few weeks, I’ll be back another day with some more show and tell.