A Finish For February...

A Finish?...Well almost... :)

The binding IS on...

And it has been beautifully

custom longarm-quilted by Chris!

A case of the quilting making the quilt indeed!

(Picture heavy because I wanted to show the gorgeous quilting...)

BUT...

And here's the 'but'...
when I started this quilt in the 1980's

I didn't know what I was doing...

And so I backed each block with batting

and muslin and handquilted it in pearl cotton...

Meaning that when I tried to handquilt it,

it was too heavy going,

The quilt also ended up too large

after I'd joined the four large blocks and put borders on...

Chris kindly helped me unpick my handquilting...
And did a great job of echoing the stars with her custom quilting...

But (and here's that 'but' again!)

she couldn't quilt over my quilting
as it would have been impossible to get a needle through it!!!

So, although it's quilted

AND bound!

It needs some attention to the unquilted bits:

Not much, in my opinion, ahem :)

But enough to fix the 3 layers together

However, a finish is a finish...

Well almost! :)

Wordless Wednesday - Bears

Purple Oceans

An unexpected chance to sew

meant I have a few more blocks...

And a few more to go....

But they are all

(bar one which somehow, I cut really weirdly)

ready to be sewn!!!

I even have the border pieces cut!!!

They are in a nice tidy pile,

waiting for some more sewing time...

(Naughty me!: Last night I really got into piecing these blocks

and the studio was so warm...

that it was well after midnight

before I admitted that sleep might be a good idea!

- You just can't beat a bit of me/sewing time!!

Far cheaper than therapy LOL)

Wordless Wednesday - Lily Progress

Sunday Sewing

I have had sick children for over 2 weeks now!!!

Do you know what that means!?!?!

It means they are home off school,

they NEED constant attention

and they create a LOT of extra laundry.

Besides all that there is the worry...

you worry that they seem so unwell,

that some nasty bug just won't go away...

or some nasty teeth are causing pain...

and all you want is to see them better.

Then when they are vaguely better,

you want to sew!!!

Over the last week, I didn't feel

that I could spend much time in the studio

as there was always one child

either crying or being sick,

so I brought in some fabrics from the studio

 and just decided to cut, cut, cut!

(I cut scraps for easy use and I cut a new project.)

In my previous post, I showed the quilt

that inspired my Jelly Bean Borders.

I have really liked that quilt from the first time I saw it.

I also have quite a few Fat Quarters

that I have been 'saving' for a special project.

Well, I wanted to do this project

and I also wanted to use some of these 'special' fabrics....

Here are the first few sewn up.

I think I have another 20 something cut out...

I'm planning on making 48 blocks

and then I'll see what it looks like

with the same borders as before. 

I'm not sure all the blocks will 'work',

but I'll decide that when I have more.

It's really nice to use these favourite FQ's

for some of the blocks as it brings back memories

of either being gifted them or buying them.

*****

Here is one very good excuse

why my house is never tidy!!!:

How can you get cross with a face like this:

Innocence and light LOL

Jelly Bean Borders

I didn't mean to vanish off the blogosphere...

BUT someone in our house wanted the little people

to spend less time on the computer...

which meant I had no computer either :(

I do have a little (and I mean little)

tablet, but replying to comments, typing

and blogging are almost impossible

(uploading photos was indeed impossible!!)

Thank you for all the kind comments on

my rose hexagon quilt and apologies

if you didn't get a reply -

that wasn't intentional!

Anyway, I dug out my old laptop

and as long as I don't move it,

it should work!

So here are my 'Corn & Bean' blocks

with borders!!

I am calling this top

Jelly beans

because it is so bright and fun.

I'm sorry I didn't make more blocks and make it bigger,

but I am definitely making another one!!!

I found border inspiraton

from a pattern called 'Shadow Play'

In this magazine, that I have had for ages.

It uses Ocean Wave blocks that finish at 8 inches

(where mine are Corn & Bean blocks that finish at 6 inches.)

The pattern is also in a beautiful colour scheme

so it's on my to-do list too!!!

*****

When we first had snow I moaned about a few flakes

blocking my way to the studio :)

A week later,

we had a few more flakes!

 But it only lasted a day!

Somebody knew the best place to keep warm

when we had the snow

was on my newly finished quilt

on our bed!:

*****

Of course, I couldn't resist the
'Scrappy Trips Around The World'

blog madness...

I have been sewing my strips as 'Leaders & Enders'

and they mount up pretty fast!

My plan was to use lights and darks

and to have a dark blue running through

the centre of each block.

(One can't just let the scraps take over LOL)

I think I need to get a bit more variety

in the next few blocks I make...

*****

I managed to catch Bonnie's

Quilt-cam the other evening:

 Such fun!

Even if my husband does think I'm bonkers!!

While watching I managed to sew loads of leaves down on

my Carolina Lily borders so I've not got a lot left to do now.

Hope it won't be so long between posts again...