Lots of Little Ones

Two more little ones have arrived safely last weekend, both boys, Harry and Zachary.  Their quilts are well on their way to completion in fact Harry's will be wrapped up shortly ready for delivery tomorrow.  I will let you see the completed quilt next time, I haven't taken the photo yet.  I need some fabric for the binding for Zachary's so by this time next week It will be complete.  I haven't been idle though another one involving hourglass blocks is on the cutting table!  The half square triangle Darling Little Dickens quilt is awaiting the arrival of a little girl so watch this space.

Its been a lovely few days and some of our time has been spent in the garden enjoying the sunshine.  There are a lot of little ones in our garden too.  We have been watching blackbirds who have been nesting in the ivy on our wall, they have now flown the nest and are enjoying foraging in the garden and making lots of noise.  Unfortunately a little one got stuck in our gate and Grumpa had to come to the rescue.

I am delighted to report the rescue was a success and the youngster was seen later being fed by its Mum!  The second rescue of the weekend was a little coaltit fledgeling who managed to get in to our bathroom.  I rescued this one and it flew off into the trees so seemed to be fully fledged, and managing on its own.

Never a dull moment in our house!

The Kaleidoscope quilt is well and truly finished and I am delighted with the challenges it gave me, there is certainly room for improvement but I think it will be appreciated by someone somewhere.

This week I will be continuing with the baby quilts. I think I will try and get time to load another quilt on to the frame for some more practise.  I hope you all have a lovely week and enjoying whatever you are doing.

Threads, Threads and more Threads

The Kaleidoscope quilt top came down off the design wall and was all stitched together this week.  I decided this was another quilt destined to be quilted on the frame.  

Lots of thoughts about the quilting but as you all know the more you think the harder is is to decide.  I had a plain black cotton backing (another bad choice) and I set to and cut the wadding I loaded it all up on the frame, chose the thread colour (gold) and ...............my mind just blanked!  Now at this stage I should of course have walked away and left it for another day but I didn't and needless to say the session was not successful nor did it have a happy ending.  Just look at all these threads on the floor.  

I spent more time unpicking last night than I did sewing what a disaster!

Never mind today is another day and I have just tried again and for the last hour or so this is what I have achieved.  Feeling much happier meantime.  This quilt may not be seen again when it is removed from the frame but it is a learning curve and we all need to practise our FMQ.

The Quilting is not that noticeable on the busy pattern of the kaleidoscopes but it certainly shows on the back!

The HST baby quilt is progressing  too and should be ready for hand stitching the binding later in the week all being well.

I hope you all have had a productive week and not had as much unpicking to do as I had.  I do not like using a seam ripper.

Whirligigs Finished

I didn't think I had achieved very much since my last post but when I sat down to think about it I have done quite well.

This week we managed a little road trip, its not often we manage a weekday outing but the weather has been so nice this week Thursday was set aside for a trip out.  Normally we head to the borders, Peebles, Melrose and down that way however we decided to go north to Perthshire.  When the boys were small we were lucky enough to have the use of my parents static caravan, which was situated on the side of Loch Tay at Kenmore.  We all loved it, long walks along the beeches - a long avenue of trees by the side of the river, fishing for minnows and as they got older in true fly fishing style the  first fish was caught, climbing Drummond Hill equipped with binoculars, camera and of course the walking sticks.  Great memories were made during those long summer holidays and it was good to remember them last week.  Things of course move on and changes have been made to the area - its still beautiful though!  

An added bonus is Karelia House, situated off the main routes this is a little gem of a quilting and craft shop.  Fabrics and notions, wool and accessories, sewing machines and threads all to encourage you to buy. The ladies are lovely and very attentive chatty and happy to offer advice.  The gentlemen or non crafty travelling companions can enjoy a coffee, read the newspaper or just enjoy the ambience of the cafe, while of course purchases are made by the crafter.  The lunch menu is enjoyable too offering home made soups, sandwiches and cakes.  Of course I bought some fabrics!  It would have been rude not to - just some more pastels for the babies.

I think this little trip encouraged me to get on with my sewing - five projects have been worked on this week, some only a little stitch or a trim but five is the count.

Number one is Whirligigs, now complete other than the label.  This is a first on two counts for me.  I have finally mastered the art of foundation piecing YIPPEE!!  and this was the first 'real' full sized quilt I have successfully freemotion quilted on my frame.

2nd -  crazy patches I am making at class

3rd  - a little baby quilt I FMQ on my frame, again a first as I thought I would see if putting a fleece backing on the frame would work, no real reason why it shouldn't other than perhaps tension issues but - It did!

4th  - the kaleidoscope blocks on the design wall

and 5th some HSTs for another baby quilt

I am surprised with my achievements this week and I am now looking forward to continuing with my ongoing projects.  It is funny what encourages you to sew isn't it? 

Is This Our Summer?

I hope not!  once again I have been a bit negligent in blogging.  Please may I be excused - we have been on holiday to sunnier lands.  Im now back though but playing catch up again.

I did visit the Knitting and Stitching Show last week in Edinburgh and thoroughly enjoyed my day out while hubby was playing golf.  Lots of different traders selling their wares, I didn't buy a lot but it was fun to browse.

Project Linus had a very small stand at the show and hopefully they will have managed to spread the word and more donations of quilts will be made for disadvantaged children in the area.  I took along four more quilts as my contribution.  I hope they will make someone in need of a hug happy.

I have now made a start to the binding on my Whirlygig quilt so hopefully I will manage a proper photo next time.

Enjoy the sunshine while you can.  Lots of gardening to be done at the moment and all the lush new growth is appearing on our acers.  Im off out again with our coffee to enjoy sitting in our newly spring cleaned summerhouse!  Enjoy your week

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.