April Finishes or Cats and Quilts!

The Maple Leaf quilt is bound and finsihed!

I quilted it on the Longarm

with a panto called 'Tangles'.

Quite a fun panto,

and I think it goes well with the maple leaves

as it's quite an angular design,

yet sort of leafy :)

I hung the quilt over our garden gate

for a few quick snaps

of the front...

And the back...

Hopefully this photo shows

the pantograph a bit better...

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Our resident quilty cat thought

she had found the perfect place to hide

in one of my 'work' bags...

Even though, I didn't see her,

Miss-Kalico spotted her!!!

And laughed and laughed and laughed!

Abby just ignores her now :)

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I wanted to quilt my Simple Pleasure House block,

but still hadn't quilted the Christmas House Block

I made when Kate came to visit...

So to ease my guilt, I did

and now that's done, I can guiltlessly

quilt my 'new' house block LOL.

This Christmas one just needs binding.

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And my 'Jelly Beans' quilt is loaded up

on the longarm.

I'm still deciding on the pantograph,

as I want to try something new,

but I also like the feathers

which I have done already....

Simple House Pleasures

It's not often that I buy a book

and then immediatley feel compelled

 to make something out of it :)

But I had the 3 'spare' Ocean Wave blocks...

(and I quickly made another one out of the scraps)

And this book as inspiration...

Well, I needed a small handwork project!

**

More to follow as it gets sewn down.

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I have finished quilting the Maple Leave quilt

on my Longarm!

I went for a sort of abstract swirly pattern...

I used pale pink thread and thankfully

the tension was spot on so it looks good on the back too.

(If I say so myself LOL)

Another case of the quilting makes the quilt! -

I was not that keen on the top,

but I think it looks lovely now that it's quilted.

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As soon as I finish one quilt,

I just want to get another on the machine...

so I whacked some borders on my

'Jelly Bean' quilt...

I wasn't sure I liked the borders,

but the quilt-inspector approves

so we're going with these borders :)

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In my previous post, my neighbour

photographed me holding a quilt up in the wind.

We chatted for a bit and he expressed 'grass-envy'...

So we have garden visitors at the moment!

2 sheep and their lambs

are 'mowing' the lawn for us at present!

The boys and I keep joking

about all the 'chocolate peanuts' they leave us LOL.

We're hoping Miss-Kalico doesn't try eating them! :)

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On the weekend we had sun!!!!!

We even had our first BBQ of the year!

Sadly, it's gone again! :(

A day in the life...

What day would be complete (for a little boy) without a trip to the local tractor shop? We made a diversion on our way to Grandma's just see it and 'we' were not disappointed.



Just to keep this blog on it's sewing track, here is a bag I made DS1 a few months back for taking his bucket, spade, tractors etc to the beach or park.

The front is an applique pattern by Four Twin Sister’s. That link will take you straight to the tractor pattern and you can see one of my red tractors there. I love this pattern! DS1 has a pillow case and a cushion made with it LOL.

The back side of the bag is 'official' John Deere fabric bought from my friend Angela.

The other sewing I've been up to is finishing my August Purple Maple Leaves - these I hope to post tomorrow!

Oh... um, yes well, I couldn't resist this little 'special offer' that arrived in my post box today. Fossil Ferns are one of my favourites...

How could I say no?

I get so distracted...

I was meant to be working on my brown strips.. They are going to be Bento Boxes or something. I can't decide, I guess that's why I'm not working on them...

Then I started working on these..

(Note the little person who kept grabbing them!) They are from Bonnie's wonderful Quiltville site and are called Pineapple Blossom
Lots of people have done wonderful versions of these and it's a fun block to make plus it's using up almost all of my butterfly fabrics that were just sitting in my stash making me feel quilty.

But then I signed up to make Maple Leaves for a BlockBuddy Swap. These are already cut and in rows ready to be put together so no pictures yet.

But while I was doing those I wanted to make someone special a block...


But then I realised the reason I can't focus is because of all my mess and clutter in my life, so I started tidying my spaces. Why does it always look so much worse before it looks better???