String Flower

What's not to love about this global "quilt-go-round"?

I recently saw this delicious little top at Helen Quilts.  Helen's in the UK and hers is a little different from this one.

Helen found the pattern on Cindy Carter's blog (with Cindy's blessing to make it with love for others).  Cindy's in the USA. Cindy has about a squillion lovely free patterns there!  I actually didn't find this particular one, so if you want to make it you should navigate to it from Helen's blog.  Cindy's pattern is a bit different from Helen's and mine!  I'd love it if someone does make it and keeps the ball rolling around the world!

Thanks Cindy! Thanks Helen!
My little sweetie will be gifted to our local Sunshine Linus group.  I know it will gladdens someone's heart!
Check out the linky party at Quilts are for Giving.

Orca Bay revisited

...and renamed.

Violet Crumble

I love this quilt which Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville had as a mystery quilt on her blog for 8 weeks around Christmas time.  The instructions have now been removed from the blog and will be included in a forthcoming book.  My quilt is just over half  the size of her original.  Here's a close up.

Many thanks to Fiona, the Quilting Fairy, for doing such a great job on the quilting for me.  The swirls offset the angles and points perfectly!

OK, I've succumbed!

A couple of weeks ago we had the most glorious sunny autumn long weekend here.  This is how I mostly saw it, from my sewing room window.

(Alright, I admit that I took the photo standing outside so you can't see how much the window needs cleaning.)
So Saturday lunchtime I wondered what to do with myself and Randy's Sow-a-long started calling to me.  Remember I said that I didn't really need to start another long term project?  Well it turns out that I really did need to.  So, by Monday afternoon I had all these lovely blocks!

And I was all caught up - until the last lot went up on Wednesday and I haven't had time to do them yet, but I will.  I've tried to pick out fabrics that I think are a bit Civil War "ish".  I don't really know if they are or not, but that's the feel that I'd like to go with, but I also just want to use up the stuff that's in the cupboard as much as I can.
I've also decided to link this post up with Mrs P's Favourite Things Friday - because today it is my favourite thing.

Lanterns

I puchased a book with the pattern to make this quilt about five years ago, and I was recently given some floral fabrics that were just right for it, so at last I've got around to making the quilt.

Lanterns

I'm very happy with the result!

Who, who, who

Judy, that's who!
She made these lovely owl appliques on her fancy Brother embroidery machine and gave them to me to make up for a Linus quilt.

I filled the blocks out with stringpieced corners and then put them together quilt-as-you-go style.  I'm really happy with the result and I think a little kid will love it.
Thanks Judy, great fun!

The Farmer's Wife

I've been caught up in The Farmer's Wife mania that seems to be going around now.  Well, sort of.
I've been making 4" sampler blocks for some years and whenever another craze comes along I think "Gee I'd like to do that!" and then I remember that I am already  doing something very like whatever "that" is.  So, I have 81 blocks finished so far.  This is 40 of them.

There's applique and machine pieced and hand pieced, and paper pieced and English paper pieced and you name it.  Maybe I need some more appliqued ones though; there aren't very many of them.  I don't have a particular stash that I'm using for this - it's totally scrappy from whatever's hanging around at the time.  Some of the blocks are miniature copies of ones that I've put into quilts for friends and family, so it's a bit of a memory quilt as well.
I've figured out that if I have 88 blocks with 1/2" finished frames and 1" finished sashings and cornerstones and 5" borders I'll have a quilt about 59" x 77" which isn't a bad size to cover the bed of an old lady in a nursing home.
My biggest problem is that it seems that I've nearly finished enough blocks, but I don't think I'm anywhere near ready for this nursing home quilt yet!
I think I'll assemble it by hand - that'll slow me down quite a lot!!!

Donation Quilts

I've been busy making some donation quilts.  "Tropical Lightning" is very apt to the season - we're still having summer storms!

Tropical Lightning

And this isn't actually a quilt yet.  I've made up these quilt-as-you-go string blocks and I'll donate them as is - I'm sure someone will just love to put them together.  Ann's really good at it!

Sorry the photo's a bit fuzzy

I still have lots of strings left, even green ones.

Orca Bay Update

Top's done!

I've deviated from Bonnie's plan by putting the red strings to the light stars and also by using a darker frame.  I'm fairly sure Bonnie doesn't mind, and I love it.  Today I picked up some pinky mauve double width backing from Patchwork Angel (and it was on sale!) and once that's washed it's all off to the Quilting Fairy.  Woohoo!
Before you go, hop on over to Quiltville to see what everyone else has been doing with their Orca Bay mystery.

Magic Pinwheels

Another quilt finished for January.  I purchased this Pinwheel Magic template from Aussie Patches at one of the craft fairs that I went to last year, and (eventually) I made this quilt with it.

Hard Rock Daisies

It's started off with sewing squares together with a border and then, using the square template provided, cutting the whole thing to pieces again.  There's a tutorial on the Aussie Patches website, but this is what mine looked like before it was recut.

Pretty boring really, and a dramatic reduction in size.  There's quite a bit of scrap after recutting, from which those on-point squares in the border were cut. Or you could cut them into smaller squares to use as a frame.  It was quite interesting to do, and I probably will get around to making another - in the fullness of time, that is!
It's been raining and raining here this week, we had 278mm rain in 2 days (yes, that's almost 11") and  there's been a bit of local flooding, but things seem to be drying up now.  Just as well, I thought we'd all have to grow gills!
See you next time

Back in the garden.......

.....we have grasshoppers!  Little ones, big ones, massive ones, green ones, brown ones, you get the picture.  And they are all hungry ones - but I've got 'em beat now!

Net food covers - to keep the bugs off at al fresco meals for people, not grasshoppers.

This little pineapple is in my neighbour's garden.  Although we live in a pineapple growing area I haven't ever noticed  them starting off like this.  It's probably a bit hard to see them as you're driving past the farms at 80kph!

It's as cute as a button isn't it?  The fruit is about 2" high without the crown.
A few miles down the road and at the other end of the scale is this Big Pineapple which is 52' high.

It has been a local tourist attraction since 1971.  If you want to know more you can read about it here and here.

First finish for 2012

To begin with, and as a New Year gift to myself, I've decided that I don't actually have to save every single scrap of everything that comes my way!

So I've been throwing some stuff out............. and you know, it's quite liberating.  I've even found a bit of space in the cupboards to put some of the stuff that I do want to keep!  But enough of that.

I purchased a couple of Martinique layer cakes last year (or the year before that) from Patchwork Angel, and I made a quilt with the bits that I liked the most......

Tangelo Pie

.....which left me, of course, with the bits that I didn't like quite so well.  Not that there is anything wrong with them, they're just a bit pale and wan.  But I also had two pieces of yardage from the same range, which was quite dark by comparison, and I didn't quite know how to get them to play nicely.  But this is how I got it together.

Mocha Stars

And I'm pretty happy with that!  This quilt will be going to my friend, Bev, to use as part of her fundraiser for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea.

And just in case you're wondering, no, there hasn't been any further progress on Orca Bay, but I'm getting to it soon.

Orca Bay

Yes, well it's getting there!
I have all the parts made (although I am making only 35 blocks), but I have yet to start sewing them together.

Here are 6 blocks on the design wall.  You might notice that I have put the red strings against the light backgrounds rather than the dark, which gives me large black stars with "twinkly" points.  I'm leaning toward sewing it together that way.  There must be thousands of people around the world making this quilt, so check out what some of them are doing with theirs at Quiltville.  It's awesome to see the different colour schemes, and how fabulous they look.  Thanks so much, Bonnie, for making it possible for all of us!