Yellow

Yellow Daffodils, Yellow Chicks, Yellow Primulas, Yellow sunshine - nice and bright and cheery so Yellow it was for the binding.  Seems appropriate for spring time. Is it really spring it was so cold today I'm not sure! I finished this little one off this week and enjoyed the peace of sitting hand stitching for a wee while.  All done and ready to be donated, I think you will agree it does look colourful.

Back under the table to that box again and I found these strips which I have duly cut into triangles.

You might remember our Group Challenge last year was Illusions and I made kaleidoscope blocks with this fabric which featured 3 tumbling blocks falling from the top corner (its in the gallery if you can't remember it!)  Well I have joined these together and am now in the process of making another quilt.  I won't have enough of this fabric to make a good sized quilt but........

 I am going to combine them with some of these

                 

Cut from this fabric

Well that's the plan anyway but as always the plan may change as I go along.  I've had another play on the quilting frame too so all is good in my little quilting world this week.  Hope you have all had a lovely weekend and you haven't eaten too much chocolate!!

From the Box Under the Table

I dipped into that box again - you know, the one with all the scraps and came out with eight Jelly Roll Strips left over from the 'Seaside' Connecting Threads quilt aka Steps and Stairs. (the photo is in the Gallery page).  I cut them in two and stitched them all together making a nice ladder quilt which I bordered with a neutral grey with a bright yellow spot.  A speedy small quilt which was intended to become a little ones charity quilt.  

Borders on, it was then loaded on to the frame and free motion quilted, here it is almost all ready to go

.......and part of the way through when my bobbin ran out.

I only broke my thread once, and that was when my bobbin thread ran out.  Some of my shapes have sharp edges, some overlap, there was slight stretching, but I can remedy that next time.  All in all I think we have a success and I do think it is pass, but I could do better.  Its a start and it is all about gaining confidence and learning new shapes and skills.  Slowly slowly I am determined to get there this time.  I have even ordered some different colours of threads in anticipation.  This is one thing I haven't worked out yet - how much thread does it take to quilt a quilt.  I think its anyones guess just like How long is a piece of string?

Here we are all trimmed and ready to go and choose a binding.........What colour will it be?

Sunny Days .........

.............Are Happy Days!  Its been a lovely weekend here with the sun shining most of the time but a few rather heavy showers in between.  We spent a lot of our time over the weekend in the garden tidying up fallen leaves which we hadn't managed to pick up before now.  The grass was cut and we swept paths and patios, repotted some lovely polyanthus which had been forgotten about at the back of the border and pruned and manicured some of our acers and roses.  All in all a very productive weekend and a much tidier neater looking garden........ for a wee while anyway until the weeds start appearing.

I think a few of you know that I have a Grace Frame for my quilting.  I bought this a couple of years ago with all good intentions.  It was to help me master free motion quilting and allow me to lay out a quilt and quilt it with my Elna 740 which is a mid arm domestic sewing machine with a slightly larger than normal harp space.

Excitement overtook me and as always when in a rush to try a new piece of kit I didn't spend the proper amount of time researching it all before jumping head first into this new to me method of sandwiching and quilting quilts.  Techie helped me build the frame which was great, however I now know it wasn't set up at the correct height for me.  The thread I was using kept snapping, needles kept breaking and my tension was all over the place with loops appearing everywhere on the quilt.  Then family life took over and I was too busy doing other things to spend the time needed to get things right and practice did not happen.

I joined the Facebook page for Grace Frame owners and lurked there, reading up on everyones tips, what tension they used, what threads were best etc etc.  I also spoke to a lovely lady when I was on holiday last September who gave me a tremendous amount of tips and ideas to try and how I should go about getting things just right so that I could actually enjoy the process.  So since last September when Techie moved to his new home I have gradually been sorting out the room where my Grace Frame lives.  I started all over again.  The height has been adjusted, it now has locking castors, so I can move it with ease should I need to.  My machine has been fully cleaned, needle changed tension fixed, feed dogs lowered and this week I took the plunge (special thanks K for giving me that final push and encouragement).

I loaded up a quilt sandwich - no it wasn't a real quilt, just calico for the top and an ikea fabric for the back and an offcut of warm and natural.

The thread is Glide, yes its a polyester and the needle is one the lady in Canada suggested I try Inspira Topstitch 90/14.    Well all I can say is Thank You everybody!  it worked like a dream - none of the previous issues and best of all I had Fun!  Here is the proof.

I know I have a long way to go but at least it is now looking brighter and I know I can do it all I need is practise.

Back Home

We had a lovely holiday and an enjoyable relaxing break in the mountains, we did manage to succumb to very bad colds for our first week and a half but it didn't matter too much because the weather was very snowy and cold.  we relaxed indoors sewing and reading.  We arrived home last Thursday evening after a long uneventful and reasonably comfortable journey.  Perhaps that had something do do with the overnight flight and the extra legroom and I managed to sleep well this time on the flight.  Jet Lag was minimal and I think I only had one night of middle of the night forays to the kitchen for tea and toast.

I am gradually getting back to the routine, of course we saw the family at the weekend and I had lovely Mothers Day treats.  Dad managed fine with his extra help when we were away and is looking well.

This week I am hoping to get back to my quilting, I have all these quilt tops to finish for the little arrivals due this summer.  I have almost finished Harry Hedgehog and it will be gifted soon and I will be able to show the finished result.

As you probably know I am in the process of gradually moving things around and transferring some of my quilting 'stuff' from the dining room upstairs.  This afternoon I spent some time sorting the fabrics I bought when I was on holiday.  This is the result

Did I really buy all that?  Yep! and I know I hear you all shouting - FAT QUARTERS!!  PRE CUTS!!   ah well we all have senior moments.  

I have used some of these fabrics already for the baby quilt tops I have made while on holiday so now they are all ready to go upstairs to be stored in my lovely new unit with all my other fabrics.

The clocks have changed for me twice this spring, its lovely not to have to close the curtains so early in the evenings.  Its great to hear the birds singing, its one thing you don't get in the Rockies until later as most of the birds there are migratory and won't arrive until things warm up. We even have a little Blue Tit looking at the new bird box which has been put up, hopefully we will have new residents and a new family building their nest. 

I hope you all have a lovely week - sewing might be a little slower for some of you now, gardens need tidied, grass needs cut and there are so many other Spring things needing done.  I will continue to sew - I don't know what I would do if I couldn't, and I have so many ideas and projects I want to do.

Snow, Snow and more Snow!

It seems as though it hasn't stopped snowing since we arrived and the temperature I don't think has been above freezing.  We have both now recovered from our dreaded colds and hopefully will be out and about a bit more this week - it is supposed to stop snowing and the temperatures should start climbing a bit hopefully.  The skiers are having a whale of a time with lots of powder!

Talking of whales - this is the next quilt on the table.  Under the ocean was a fun panel which was designed to be made into a story book, I as always buck the trend.  This fabric was in the bundle I bought in Addies at Cochrane.  This of course will be quilt number two.

So what do you do when it's cold and snowy and it's too early to start sewing............ I made a lovely big pot of soup for lunch, sweet potato, cumin and ginger.  Delicious, even although I say it myself.   Then I put the oven on and pulled all the ingredients together to made a lemon drizzle cake - I've never really had much success with baking here, I've been told it's to do with the altitude, well I'm not so sure.  The lemon drizzle cake turned out just fine so I am even more convinced now that the problem with my baking was not the altitude but the old oven!

I'm pleased to report baby number one has arrived on time, Finlay was born earlier this week.  I think Hazel will need to change her name to Harry!

Well we have had hedgehogs, whales and next up on the cutting mat will be bumblebees! Isn't quilting fun!

Hmmm, I was going to say the gremlins seem to have gone for now but although I've managed to get the photos here I'm still not able to do the formatting and size the photos............oh well you just have to make do with what you've got.  Have a quiet week everybody. 

Gremlins

They are still around and causing mischief, however I have managed to add some photos of the near finished top.  Another border has been added - the medium blue, and it's looking good.  I will put it away now and sandwich it up when I'm back home and nearer the due date of the first new arrival.

                               
We have had another snowy day today I guess you could say we've been snow bound with continual  snow falling since early morning.  We have about 8inches lying on the deck now and the trees in the back yard are hanging with soft puffy clouds of snow which remind me of Christmas cards.

I don't think we would have been moving very far today had it not been snowing - we are both suffering from the usual flight cold - hubby was laid low at the beginning of the week and I hoped I might escape it but he has very kindly shared it with me and I'm feeling quite miserable today.  However tomorrow is another day and a new week and I hope I'm not feeling quite so washed out and low tomorrow.  It think too it's true when people say that when you've been so busy and working hard your body just keeps coping and when you relax so does your immune system and all the germs attack. Hmmmm more Germlins!

It's good to be able to cuddle up under a quilt when you are feeeling poorly and I sure have plenty of those.  Knitting and reading tonight - I can't concentrate on planning the next quilt just yet.

Have a good week folks.  I believe you had a nice sunny day back home and hopefully lots of  new shoots and plants will start to appear in the garden soon.

Hazel Hedgehog

I have admired Elizabeth Hartman's projects for a long time and have purchased a couple of her patterns over the years.  I enjoyed making the New Wave quilt which was one of her designs, remember the one with the bicycles which I donated to PHEW.  It was a fun project and turned out really well it was just that little bit different. See it on my gallery page

I also have Fancy Forest downloaded as an ebook.  This is what I call a challenge.  K at class has made a lovely crib size quilt with this pattern and while I enjoy a challenge now and again I didn't really feel up to doing every little animal.  I'm having trouble with photos tonight so here's the link for fancy Forrest  Here

Remember the outing I had recently to Kaleidoscope, well I bought some lovely fabrics to start on one of the baby quilts which had happy little hedgehogs dancing along the fabric.  I thought this would make a cheery little play mat for one of the new arrivals.  The design hat was on and lots of ideas were beginning to form in my head.  The centre block of this quilt will be Hazel Hedgehog from Elizabeth Hartman's fancy forest pattern.  I've made a start and the pieces are all cut out ready to go.  I'm looking forward to piecing this one together!  

Add caption

This blog post tonight is frustrating me, I can't get the photos to load and there seems to be gremlins preventing me formatting.  Apologies I will try again later in the week. 

Happy sewing