Loving a bit of Holiday Sewing....

The best part about going on holiday,

besides being by the sea,

was staying in a cottage with no internet!

This meant I got a chance to do

LOTS of handquilting.

I started this quilt in 2006!

(Eeek! that IS 10 years!!!)

It's is my 'BQL Ostrich'

The story of it can be found here: 

http://sewkalico.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/ufo-of-week.html 

I don't hand quilt much anymore

when I can longarm quilt my quilts

in a matter of days.

But it is very enjoyable now and again

to have something in your lap

while you unwind 

from a day of unwinding on the beach ;o)

The Finishes

I rushed to finish my New York Beauty (NYB) wallhanging and so never got a chance to take any decent photos of it in its completed state:

I took a few close-ups of the hand quilting in the borders...

Sometimes I followed the patterns in the blocks...

Sometimes, I just went with what I thought suited the quilt...

And sometimes I just had to do a few circles...

**********

I have also finished the doll quilt. I gave in and quilted it 'Stitch In The Ditch' (SITD), BUT I drew lines that went all the way to the edges and through the solid squares so that the quilting made up a grid.

I enjoyed the quilting and am now pondering the baby quilt, more stitch in the ditch in a grid OR free-motion hearts?? We'll have to see :o)

Quilting, Shopping & Crawling on the Floor

Last night I had a wonderful evening with my dear friend Vicky. We talked about quilts and stuff and then she got me on my hands and knees laying out a quilt for her. What fun! I just wish I had taken photos! I delivered some quilt tops to Vicky for Project Linus that were kindly donated by Kate (Thank you Kate!) and I saw Vicky's WIP's and latest fabric accrual from a new-to-me patchwork shop that is actually very close to where I live. I will have to check it out soon...

After crawling around on the floor and browsing through patchwork magazines, I sewed a few more stitches on my NYB quilt...

Thank you for all the input with how to quilt it.... In the end, I went with following the circles in the darker thread and now I am filling in the borders and gaps with circles...

I do sort of wish I had machine quilted it, but then I would not have had anything to do while on holiday :-)

Today my husband needed to collect something in North Wales very near a fabric shop that I had heard about from my lovely bloggy friend Andrea. (Apologies Andrea that we couldn't pop in to meet you, but by the time we got there it was like a 20 minute trolley dash! I could have spent more like 2 hours there!! Next time!!!) Well, it's an amazing place and the fabric selection was great. I felt it would be rude not to purchase something (ahem!)...

Although the colours are not true in the photo, they are great in real life and they will be very useful for backings as most are about 2 or 3 metre pieces! I am pleased as punch as they say! And now I can get my Cathedral Stars quilt top quilted. (DH even chose the fabric for the back of that one - the teal with spots, although I may go with the brown swirls - ssh!)

Setting off on our road trip, we were behind some travellers with their beautiful caravans...

Appelby Horse Fair is over now for this year so they are all making their way home.

I just wish it would stop raining so they could have a more pleasant homeward journey!!

Questions about Quilting

I am in the process of basting my New York Beauty quilt top...

So now I am in a quandry about whether to quilt it with Baptist Fans all going in one direction,

or fans going in the direction of the blocks....

or to quilt it in circles...

... and what thread?

I hope I decide soon or it will remain a UFO for a lot longer *sigh*

A photo finish

At long last. It's handquilted in variegated thread, bound in scraps and just in need of a quick wash to remove the marks made while I made up quilt designs...

I am pleased with it. The blocks are from my BlockBuddySwaps with some from Ila, Amanda, Cobi, Maureen (I think), Theresa G and lots from me (I hope I haven't forgotten anyone!!). I did traditional binding instead of my usual sneaky Cheater’s Binding as I had taken so long on the whole quilt, I felt I couldn't just whizz the binding on.


On another note: We have a 'guest/sewing' room complete. It's really bare for now :-) so I plan to quilt my BQL Ostrich challenge for one of the walls. I will slowly move my sewing stuff in as neatly as possible so that guests don't feel as cluttered as I am LOL





I have been expecting a small squishie from Guðrún, but yesterday the Postie brought me this!!!



DS1 thought he was in heaven! All the yummy sweets and Lazytown stuff. Guðrún has some interesting Icelandic facts on her blog, but doesn't mention that Lazytown was filmed there. DS1 loves Lazytown...


Guðrún and I are swapping some fabric and I'm due to mail her some this week. I love all the fabrics she sent me and the box it came in (Sorry, you can't see that too well in the picture). So Guðrún keep your eyes peeled, I'm planning on going crazy too LOL!

19 months later...

..and I'm ready to add the binding to DS2's BABY quilt.

Ok, so he's 19 months old, life got in the way LOL
Actually now he'll probably get more use out of it as one doesn't have to worry about baby's regulating their body temperature etc.

Here's the back...

I didn't have enough teal fabric for the binding so I've decided to go scrappy yet again as I am not buying any more fabric!

All I have to do now (after I've put the binding on!) is to decide what to handquilt next:
The +/-20 year old 'monster' I started when I was at school with my Mother's help..



or My BQL Ostrich from 2006? Basted by Chris and ready to go...



The monster is King-size and I've already started a bit of the quilting and the Ostrich is much smaller and only 2 years in the making. Both are UFO's in need of finishing. What to do, oh what to do...

ps we have a new gate..

perfect for dispaying quilts...

Scarecrows and stitches

This weekend included a Monday bank holiday so we headed off to the Annual Scarecrow Festival at Wray. There are scarecrows all over the village...


And there are scarecrows that walk among the crowds... (DS2 did not like this tall lady at all!)



It's a great day out with most of the villagers exhibiting scarecrows outside their front doors. (DSIL's dog inspects a scarecrow on our walk around town)

Some of the villagers have a silly sense of humour...

The day before it rained so the field where the Fair was held was rather muddy. We took the kids on a few of the rides. While DS2 went on the Mery-go-round, DSI went on the swings. When DS2 was finished he just got off the merry-go-round and headed straight for the swings. I got a bit muddy at this point as I had to rugby tackle DS2 to the ground to avoid him being knocked out by a swing! Rather embarrassing really LOL

I've been handquilting the borders on DS2's 'baby' quilt.

I'm just making up the design as I go along :-) Just one and half more sides to go... I had better start thinking about the binding!

Blocks, chocs and the pox

Yesterday was 'one of those days', I had meant to post, but got nothing done. The hightlight of my day was getting this block in the post from Kate as part of our one on one African Blockswap.


The lowlight was discovering that my little chicken has the pox! Jack (DS1) has picked up this lurgy from nursery. We're pleased to get it and then be done with it, but the nights are bad as he is itchy and doesn't want to sleep.

I was going to do more hand quilting on this


but decided it was more important to eat an entire tub of chocolate ice-cream to cheer myself up and didn't want any chocolate stains on it. The pics are not good, but show up the quilting better in this light...

Also received my baggie for the BlockBuddySwap Bag o' Stuff quilt challenge this week and have been thinking, thinking, thinking. Can't show you the baggie as it's meant to be a surprise. We only find out afterwards who's bag we had and who had our bag. Should be fun.

The race is on...

I've been laid up in bed (as much as possible with 2 small kids) the last few days with flu. Feel dreadful, can't remember when last I had such a bad cold so besides barely managing to make it to the post office to post my 'Bag o' Stuff' I've not done much except a bit of hand quilting on Toby's heart quilt.

I would have featured this as my UFO of the week except that it's really a WIP of the week... And I thought I would set myself the challenge of trying to finish it before I get my quilts back from being longarmed. I reckon I have about 3-4 weeks. Surely, I can manage that? We'll see. It's slow going as I'm making up the quilting designs as I go along (hope the pink pencil comes out!)

The hearts are from the BlockBuddySwaps heart swap which sadly is no longer running and in this quilt there are hearts from, Cobi, Ila, Teresa and Amanda (hope I haven't forgotten anyone) and of course lots from me.

Have a heart, it's cold outside

It was far too cold and rainy to go to my outside sewing room (which I share with the washing machine and tumble dryer) so I decided to work on another of my (many) UFO's while watching TV and listening to the rain falling on the roof. It's a baby quilt that was meant to be ready for Toby's arrival and I'm hand quilting it so with all the distractions it's a few (7!) months late. I used swap blocks from the Blockbuddies Heart swap that I joined in on and enjoyed for many months. I have a box full of heart blocks in a variety of colours and themes. I hope to use up more of these blocks soon (watch this space LOL!)
I'm enjoying the hand quilting on this and hope that the pink pencil rubs out.... Some blocks I'm just outlining, but others I'm trying to come up with my own (heart) quilting patterns and designs. Painstaking, but therapeutic.