A 'Harvest' of Finishes

Tomorrow is Harvest festival at school,

I was stupidly proud of our 'harvest'

considering how hard it has been to grow anything

the last few years!

This is our donation to the church:

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I have had quite a few finishes of late,

but the weather is seriously wet, rainy and GREY!!!

So no nice countryside pics of these!

The binding is on my Purple & Green Oceans:

I do love this colour scheme,

I'm not sure I'm ready to redecorate 

the living room to make it match, but we'll see :)

A close-up of the quilting:

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I've also finished another baby quilt...

I'm expecting (ha ha - no!! not me!)

 lots of babies to be born or else!!

The back:

I really enjoyed this floral pantograph,

it looked harder than it was and very relaxing to quilt.

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Here's another one 

that I'm sewing the binding down on:

Quilted with 'Stars & Loops'

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I've finished a doll from a magazine my mother gave me,

I'll try and come back and credit the designer...

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I've also got this huge top to ready to quilt stage

by adding borders:

And I pieced a humungous backing

for it, so it'll be the next one to quilt

once I've finished the top that's on the longarm at the moment....

So that's it as far as finishes 

(or almost finishes)

for now!

Quilted, But Not Bound

Finally, (after much singing and dancing

with thread running out on the bottom and then the top!)

I've managed to get this quilt off the Longarm...

A joy to quilt as I loved the pattern

(and the thread!),

now I just need to bind it...

I've backed it in purple

that I pieced...

And quilted it with 'Feather Curls'

by Timeless Quilting Designs...

I'm thinking to bind it in purple

(but then I am rather partial to purple! LOL)

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Miss Kalico continues to grow

Surprisingly so too do my vegetables!

I was rather slack this year,

but we're still managing to harvest a few beans...

Lots of radishes...

(hate them! LOL)

And quite a few prickly cucumbers...

So Summer has not been bad to us at all this year!

Getting 'On' With Things...

'On' the Longarm...

My Purple&Green Ocean blocks

being quilted with feathers...

Finally... a quilt and some of my threads...

 'on' the wall

I bought this quilt as an unfinished top

a few years back when I visited Birgit in Germany:

I brought it home and finished it

with hand quilting

and a 'Cheater's binding'

and it's finally been hung up.

Birgit, can you remember who made it???

An old 'printer's tray'

works well for those odd threads...

I see a design wall here, 

but I just need to convince DH!

And finally...

'on' the ironing board.

A new cover and a bigger board 

for ironing quilts and backings

Now to get 'on' with some housework!

School Holiday Sewing Slump

The title of this post doesn't sound great,

but school holidays generally, with 3 children,

mean that I get very little sewing (and housework) done.

And it's true!

the days are filled with kid stuff

and the occasional treat

which tends to be seriously hard work,

but hopefully full of memories...

like a tour of the Manchester United Stadium...

On the 'slumpy' sewing front...

I have managed to get borders 

on my purple Oceans quilt

and I have pieced a backing for this quilt too.

A purple one!

I have put together 3 new kids/baby quilts

as I am all out of baby quilts at the moment

Hopefully, there won't be another baby boom 

among friends too soon :)

While keeping my Mother company in the evenings

I have cut loads more Applesauce blocks

and there are now about 80-90 of them

in various stages...

Here are a few of the latest finished ones....

I've started keeping them in groups of ten 

and putting them away when done

so as not to lose them...

And I am hand appliqueing some felt on a bag

for Miss Kalico...

More to show on this when it's done...

Looking at all this, it may not look particularly 'slumpy',

but it certainly feels like it to me!

Where we are at, Quilt-Wise, in April

A windy and cloudy day,

but still dry enough to take some photos...

 All the berries are on my Carolina Lily!

 And the 'extra'/mistake berries have been taken off

(On reflection, I thought that actually

you can have too many berries!)

So this quilt is almost done -

I just need some white fabric

to add more borders as I want to scallop the edges

like I did for my hexagon quilt.

Scalloping edges turned out to be very rewarding!!

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Then, I have put all the blocks together

for my Purple Oceans

Borders next!!

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As I was taking photos my neighbour walked past...

I think he thinks I am nuttier than a fruitcake anyway,

but there I was in the wind trying to get my quilts to stay down!

 He kindly took this photo of me

looking very windswept :)

And I got to take a few snaps

of his gorgeous sheepdog!

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A Finish!

My first Longarm Finish too!

 Quilted with stars and loops

and bound with very cute carrot fabric

 It's ready to go to it's new home!

 For the backing I used some fish fabric

I had in my stash...

Yahoo! One of my UFO's longarmed

only a few more (!!) to go!

Spring has NOT Sprung here yet!

I laid out all my blocks for my Purple Oceans quilt...

And have pinned them together to sew.

Borders are cut and I'll do them

as soon as I've got these together.

How I continually fail at quilt maths is beyond me :)

3 extra blocks!!!

ALL in the purple/brown colourway!

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Spring sadly has not arrived...

The sheep still shiver and snow lies on the ground

where it just will not melt away

nevertheless, it was Easter
and eggs were to be found!!!

The boys still had their Easter baskets

I made them years ago,

and of course Miss-Kalico had to get one made too!

She got lots of help

and lots of loot :)

Happy Easter to All!