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!

Two Finishes & The Village Show

Maybe the heading should read:

2 Finishes in time for the Village Show!

I quilted and bound my House Wall hanging!

I started

and finished a doll for Miss Kalico

from a pattern kindly given to me 

by Patti (Thank you Patti!)

I entered 6 items in the show

2 bags, 2 soft toys

and 2 in the needlework section

You can see 4 of my entries in the picture below:

And here is my house wall hanging at the show:

Here are my son's 'Rock cakes'

And here are our dust collectors trophies:

My eldest son won a trophy 

for the most points in the children's section

and I won a trophy 

for the most points in the Handicraft section.

But the best prize?

Being able to buy some of the 'exotic' 

and wild flowers displayed at the show!:

Now that the show is over,

I need to get back to quilting

and get something on the longarm

so I have been putting borders on my

Purple Oceans quilt.

Now to piece the backing!!

A Start, A Finish and a Few 'Bits' Inbetween

The problem with blogging infrequently

is that when you do come to write about

your projects, you have too much to say...

So lots of (words and) photos in this post.

Recently a school friend passed away.

I've not seen her since school,

but thanks to connecting again through

social media I had a chance to catch up wth her

over the last few months... so I felt particularily sad

that she has passed leaving such a large hole

in all the lives she touched with her music

and her fighting spirit...

Her passing coincided with a week (or 2!)

of nothing seeming to go right.

Troubles with the longarm,

the opressivemess of my general clutter,

teething babies, sleepless nights,

the list goes on of many many small things

that I just couldn't control

or direct in a positive direction.

So what do you do when the world

weighs heavy on your shoulders?

Why, start a new quilt of course!!!

Mindless cutting and sewing IS the cure for all that ails you!

So a new Bonnie Hunter quilt it is:

Kate you'll know which one it is!!!

(especially as you are largely responsible

for reminding me of what a great quilt it is!!)

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And a finish:

Although I longarmed this top,

I didn't piece it.

It's a Kate special and I just love the colours and design.

Thanks Kate! Hope you like what I've done ;)

The panto was from Plum

(Thanks Plum!)

I think it's called Peacock Meander,

but to be 100% sure I'd have to go to the studio to check...

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Then here are the WIP'S

(works in Progress for the unquilty):

First borders are on my Purple and Green Oceans...

Outer borders to follow...

Nearly a 'cat-astrophe' here!!

The ground was so muddy

from all the recent rain we've had

and Abby decided it would be a nice place to

keep her paws dry

so the photo shoot ended rather promptly after this shot

of her walking the quilt top into the mud:

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I love Tonya's wonky letters

and I have her 'Word Play' book,

BUT I've never tried any until now.

Only thing is I didn't have the book next to me

when I tried these...

They're probably not wonky enough just yet.

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This little table runner is on the longarm...

Just to practise on...

There is only a tiny bit left to do,

but of course the bobbin ran out

just before the end.

(this was after I'd had a few tussles with the machine anyway

so a break was needed!

I'm sure now that I've had a little Longarm holiday

and 'sorted' most of the issues that

work will commence with vigour.)

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And finally, here's my house block with the sheep added.

I just freehand drew them and like how they turned out...

Hopefully no more additions before I quilt it!

Because I had thought of adding our cat...

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And a parting shot of all the seagulls on the fields.

they are grub-hunting after the fields have been sprayed.

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Phew! that was hard work,

I really will try not to leave it so long between posts,

but life does seem to get in the way lol.

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!