Bear's Paw

I am on vacation between Christmas and the new year, but I still have not got much quilting done, but I did manage to get down to my sewing room the last couple of evenings and managed to get the bears claw top together, I still have borders to add, but think this is turning out so nicely. This quilt is a kit from Quilter's Dream, I picked up after seeing it in "The Quilter Magazine" None of these fabrics are what I would pick out, but I just love how they look together.

Yesterday I when to Ikea and picked up some additional storage for my sewing room, and have been avoiding putting it together all day. I don't think its going to put itself together so think I should maybe at least get a start on it.

Wishing everyone all the best for the new year.
Floss

Christmas Presents

I wanted to share the great table runner I received from Pam, is just terrific. She had given me permission to open it early, but DH made me wait until Christmas. Its on my dinning table now, and will be there until the new year. I had such a hard time deciding what to make as a gift. I ended up deciding on these Christmas ornaments, I have made these a few times as gifts. I was a bit spoiled as I also received this quilt from my mother, we had seen the panel when she was here in the summer, she said she started the stitch work when she got home. I just love it.

Taz is already trying to claim both quilts as his.

Merry Christmas

Finished, just in time. This is my MIL Christmas gift. After seeing these on lots of blogs and made by a couple of girls at guild I decided that I wanted to make one for myself and one for my MIL. December is not the best time to try and get a quick project done. Well I finished one of these, so I guess that will be her and hopefully I will get mine done by next Christmas.

Hope every one has a wonderful Christmas.

More Round Robin

For my guild border round robin, there was two group, here are the finished tops for the other group. This was a group of 4.

What a lovely Santa.

I love the colours in this one

I love the center block on this one

What cute Dresden plates to finish off this quilt.

Overall I think all of the tops turned out so nice, and it was a lot if fun to do.

Very Pink

Last Monday at our Guild Christmas party we reviled our border round robin tops. When I open mine I said "Its Very pink". In my head it was green with a little pink. I think its very pretty, not sure where I am going to use it. I can hardly see where my center block is and where the borders start. Then corners from the block look like they are part of the first border.

There were four other people in my group, here are their tops. For this one I added the first zinger and the flying geese border, they seem so small on the finished top.

This next one changed so much after I added my border. I was the one to set it on point. This is so bright and cheerful.I really like this one, if I was going to steel one this would be it. These are not the colours I am normally draw too, but I really love this one.
This is the second time I have done a border round robin and this is the second time that for the last round the person before me has done a keyboard border, the only thing that I know that looks good after is a solid border.

This was really fun group project and I always look forward to seeing them all, the best thing is the top is finished when you get it back.

I will show you the other groups tops later.

Have a good weekend.

Christmas ornaments

Christmas ornaments are done, as you can see stitching is not my strong point, but that is why I made these. Up to now I had only done x-stitch where every thing was laid out for me. I thought this was a good project to start on. I can see improvement from the start to the finish. As my skill level still has room for improvement, these will be staying with me. I finished these last night and they are currently on my Christmas tree. At that distance they look nice.

Today I worked on the border for our border round robin, nothing like leaving it to the very end. Our guild Christmas party, were there will be revealed, is tomorrow evening. I am really looking forward to the Christmas party, I enjoy when these round robins are revealed, I like seeing everyone ans how much they have changed since the last time I saw them. I am also looking forward to getting my back to.

My SSCS gift arrived today, I was surprised that it was delivered on a Sunday. Its been hard not opening it, but I will be good and wait until Christmas.

Time of Year

Can not believe it has been a week since I did a post, must be the time of year. I have hardly been in my sewing room at all. I did manage to get my tulip blocks sew together, but that is all I have done on the sewing front. Haven't even managed to take a photo to share.

Received my first Christmas card and realised that I hadn’t done anything about sending out my international card. Normally I am more organized than this. I think since I send the present for my family back with Mum when she was here to visit I just had not thought about sending anything else.

I did get these cards in the mail yesterday, along with my SSCS gift. Once I wrapped the SSCS gift, it looked quite small, but hopefully the person receiving it will like it.

I went to my first Christmas party last weekend it just seemed so early in the year. I am noticing that I am getting invited to a lot of Christmas party in the fist 10 days of December, but nothing after that.

Don’t think I will get much sewing done this week; we are going out tomorrow night for my birthday, which is not until Sunday, but it is more fun to go out on a Friday night than on a Sunday. On Saturday we have my company Christmas party. So will see how tired I am over the weekend.

Have a great week

Green and Purple

I had been asked by the girls at quild to do a demo on the bucket bag I made early this year. Andrea had posted the instruction on her blog. The easy way to demo this was to make a new bag. I think I was in a green mode when I was picking out fabrics from my stash. I just love how quickly this bag goes together.

And for the purple, I finished my tulip blocks yesterday. Laying out the blocks was a bit of a struggle. Every time I move back and looked the dark tulips were in a row, I think I manage to get it to work. I have been sewing some of these together this evening. I so pleased with how this is coming together.

For my neighbours to the south, hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Quick Post

Here is the table topper that I made for myself, it actually going to live on top of my check freezer, so muck nicer to look at than the freezer. The freezer is in one corner of my sewing room, so I see it quite often.I just had to share the photo of Taz and Max, they were just being too cute. This is both their favorite chair, and they don't always share.

Retreat photos

Here are some photo, of what the other girls were working on at retreat. I just love the variety. One girl was even working on a disappearing 9 patch after seeing my bag.

Back from Retreat

The retreat was a lot of fun, we had lots of laughs, and I got lots done too. I have been quite tired today. I think that's normal after retreat. Fond it hard to stay focus at work.

On Friday I started the weekend with making PJ bottoms, and although they went together easy and quite quickly, I didn't enjoy making them, so I will stick to sewing quilts. I made all the bears paw for my SIL quilt. I think these are turning out great. I also did some hand work, and quilted the last table topper. Of course we had a shopping break on Saturday.Here is what I picked up. The flower fabric is to go with my purple tulips. I just love that I could find all the colours in one fabric. The only thing that could be better is if it had tulips into it. I guess it will be "Purple tulips in a flower garden", but I think that name would be too long. The pattern and batiks just wanted to come home with me.

I will share more retreat photos later in the week.

Heading out for Retreat.

I am going to a weekend retreat starting tomorrow, and ending Sunday. It just an hour out of town. I have taken tomorrow off work so should get there at a decent time. Some of the girls are planning on getting there first thing in the morning, I will be happy if I get there around lunch time.
I just finished packing my projects to work on. I planning on spending most of the time working on my sister-in -laws wedding gift. I have lots of time, but want to get a start on it. As you can see these are not the colours that I normally work with, but I think she will like them. Thought doing this at retreat would be a good idea, as I would be less tempted to work on other projects.

Now I need to go pack some clothes, nothing like leaving it to the last minute.

Dye fabric

Last night was my guild meeting, it was a really fun meeting. We had a show and tell night, everyone show five projects. These project could be at any stage, so we got to see quilts that were finished years ago, all the way to fabric that had been picked out for a soon to start project. At the last meeting we had a guess come in to show us hand dying fabric,so one of the best things last night was that we got our dye fabric. Its so pretty, I just have to come up with an idea of how to use it. The dark spot in the picture is where the cat was drooling on it:-)

Then when I got home, I had a pattern in the mail, that I had won on Quilting is My Passion blog. What a nice evening.

This evening I did some work on my tulip blocks, they are coming together nicely. I want to have enough put together so I can hopefully pick up the rest of the fabric I need for this quilt this weekend.

I think the kitties are trying to tell me to stop what I'm doing and pay them a bit of attention.

Purple Tulips

Started work on my tulip quilt. This was the first time I used the Angler to do the HST. I was surprised how quickly the HST when together, it took longer to cut the fabric than to make the triangles. I am really like working with these purple fabrics. I haven't worked with purple for a while, and it is my favorite colour. I really like this mix of all these different purples.

I am planning on having tulip blocks in the center, then a purple and green border. Then all this sent on point with another green border. Not sure what fabric I will use to set this on point. and who knows I may change my mind. LOL

I will need to make sure I can use the Angler in my feather weight as I am going to retreat next weekend and want to start on a Bear claw quilt for my sister-in law wedding gift. There are a few HST in that quilt.

Disappearing 9 Patch Bag

After seeing the Disappearing 9 Patch Tutorial on Helen blogs, I decided that I wanted to give it a try and see how it turned out. I didn't want to start a new quilt so needed a small project that would be quick and easy. A simple bag, using scraps would be perfect. I had a few squares from our guild challenge that I am not using on the challenge project, and I always have a few other batiks in my scrap pile. I was a little worried about the how the colours would work together. It sure looks better together than it did part way through. I just did 4 blocks on each side of the bag, and black for the handles, sides and bottom. This went together quite quickly and I am quite happy with how it turned out.

Sew Day

Our guild had a sew day yesterday, it was a very enjoyable day. There was fewer people than expected, but those of us that could make it were glad that we did. I decided to work on my Australian Log cabin, as this project has been mostly done at sew days. I cut all the strips at a retreat in the Spring, I cut a lot, it surprising how many I have left over. I sewed most of the blocks at our guide spring sew day, and had finished the last few at home. So all I needed to do was put the blocks together and add the borders. How long could that take. Well as it turns out most of the day. I guess I was chatting too much, but that's the fun part of a sew day.

Table topper finished

Haven't done much quilting in the last couple of weeks. Its a bit frustrating, as I wasn't feeling great at the start of the month and the only quilting I got done was working on the border round robin, the only issue, as I said I wasn't feeling well and you could see it in the results, so last week I pulled it all out and quickly did a new border before having to switch boxes for the next and last round.

I needed to finish something, so here are two of the table toppers I started last month. I keeping the green on for myself, so that's the one not finished yet. I had been thinking about giving one of these as my Secret Santa gift but have changed my mind, so I need to get started on what I going to do instead. My guide is having a sew day tomorrow, so with a bit of luck I should be able to get a bit done. I still need to pack up what I am tacking, or I won't get anything done.

Quilt for the cure

For the last couple of weeks some of the quilts for a cure have been on display at one of the Lazy-Boy stores. I have seen the quilts online, but its not the same as going to see them. It seems a bit strange looking at quilts in a furniture store, but I think this gives them a bigger audience.

Here is just a couple of shots from around the store, you can see all the quilts online. These are all be auction off, with the funds raised going to breast cancer support
When one of the girls in my guide was diagnosed (she is doing well), we made and donated this Quilt "God's Eye", it is a pattern she picked out. This was put together quilt quickly to get it done in time, so it was the first time I had seen it finished. It was nice that it was facing out into the mall, to get people to come into the store to look at the other quilts.

Judy Morningstar

On Wednesday evening myself and a couple of girls from guild went to see Judy Morningstar trunk show. It was a treat, she was an excellent speaker and had so many idea. Best of all we got to touch everything.

The first quilt she show us was this sun set quilt. She said that the light square where landscapes, at a distance I thought it was a printed fabric, but as you can see in the close up that they are each pieced, and it looks like they were all different.

This quilt is off Christmas memories, each square is a mini quilt, that allows extra rows to be added over time. Here are some more of her quilts.

Lucky Girl

A while ago I was reading on someone blog that as a quilter no one ever thought to give them a quilt as a gift. Over the years I have been lucky to be given a few quilts from my Mum. This one was given to me when I was 22 and is well worn and love. DH would prefer something with a little less pink in it. Below is a small Wall hanging, that hangs in my sewing room.

When I was home I saw a redwork that my mum had made, it had very traditional scenes, I strongly hinted that I would like one but with Australian scenes. The following Christmas guess what I got. This is my favourite lap quilt, it likes in my living room and is my go to quilt on chilly evenings.

The next quilt came as a total surprise. I just love all the bead work in it. At our old house I had this on the bedroom wall, I am planning on putting it up in my sewing room.

This last quilt I saw when I was home, I had said I liked it and didn't think much more about it. The following Christmas this was my gift. This is hanging it the small guess bedroom.

I really like these quilt and just how different they are than the quilts I make. I am still in awe that all these are hand stitched and quilted.