I'm a WINNER!!!! (fantastic friday anyone?)

I received a very exciting email from Amy (the Bloggers Quilt Festival) to tell me that my linky number was randomly picked for a PRIZE - so my Jewelled Promise (I won't bore you again with another picture - but here's a link JUST IN CASE you want another look) has delivered a Promised Jewel (or it will, when the Postal Services of 2 countries have done their thing).

I won 12 - yes, 12 - fat quarters of Kate Spain's 'Terrain' from the very generous Ronnie of The Quilted Garden

I pinched this picture from Ronnie's shop

I am absolutely stoked - I have seen this range all over the place and have been secretly coveting it - and now it's coming to ME - yay team!!

Ronnie sent me an email straight after I confirmed my email address and has been so helpful, so I'll have to work out how to add Ronnie's shop on my sidebar because I said I would.....I have absolutely no issue promoting fantastic service - having been in the service industry for most of my career and being a receiver of service as a consumer, it's soooo refreshing to get great service - and I didn't even buy the fabric! 

Well, winners are grinners and that's exactly what I've been doing since that email arrived....hope you have a fantastic friday.

WIP Wednesday #10

It's that time of the week again and although I don't always make it, I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced - it's her 1 year anniversary of WIP Linky posts - thanks Lee - a sterling job!!

We have had the mother of electrical and rain storms today - flash flooding, hail and lightning all over the place - it flooded the local community centre where I teach patchwork on wednesday evenings, so those who braved the rain came to my house to sew instead - it's still raining and the pool looks like it's about to overflow - and given the pool pump has seized (the man is coming out on Friday to either fix or replace it), we may be swimming in our beds!!  I'm also just a little concerned about my vegie patch - I was very happy about how things are growing out there, but the hail may have decimated it - I'll have a look tomorrow.

But, onwards and upwards....since the last time I reported on a WIP Wednesday, there has been some progress:

I made more hexies and cut out some 'plain' ones, so now I have 26 - I think another 14 or so and I can start putting them together with sashing - then a couple of borders and the top will be ready.  The hexies are hand pieced, but everything else will be done by machine.

I started and completely finished a quilt that will go into my shop (either at Etsy or Madeit)

Made a few more FWQA blocks (blogged about here)

I'm now over half way on these so that feels pretty good.

I finished a UFO (now in my Etsy shop)

I lined some pouches with my hand dyed fabric, and listed those in my Etsy shop

...and on the Long-arm side, I've quilted one very large charity quilt, a lap size client quilt and loaded a queen size client quilt ready for quuilting tomorrow.

Phew!!

To summarise:

Finished:

Whirleygig II quilt
Nest quilt
3 pouches

Quilts in Progress:

Blanket Box Hexies - total made, 26

4 FWQA - total made, 56

No action at all:

Class Sampler quilt - all blocks completed

UFOUFN's:

Psychedelic tartan - who knows??
Double diamonds - still needs something......
Which way to go - needs quilting
Dancing with the stars - needs quilting
Kimono mini - needs binding
Sashiko qayg - needs finishing!
Red and white challenge - needs properly starting

Please click on Lee's "Freshley Pieced WIP wednesday" button on the right to see what others are up to .....

On days like this....

So last night I loaded a commission quilt on the beast and given my son and his girlfriend now sleep next to the room I have the beast in, I thought to myself that I'd get it quilted in the morning - so as not to disturb them, you understand - and then I can be a bit domesticated in the afternoon - maybe hoover up the dust wombats (they're waaaaaay past bunnies).

My client wanted an all over meander, avoiding the appliqued train - so, started quilting this morning and it's going really well....I'm meandering like a good thing and avoiding the applique...then I thought I could maybe quilt a line about 1/4" from the train to really make it pop......so started to do that and unfortunately my 1/4" line became anywhere between 1/8" - 1" from the train....oh oh, stop doing that, unpick.  Start meandering again.....

I finished a pass and noticed that the top thread was running really well, a bit too well really, and when I went to cut the threads, I put my hand underneath the quilt and it didn't feel right - felt a bit fuzzy - so eased off the tension on the quilt so I could take a good look underneath......and here's what I saw..

OMG -  the correct terms for this sort of happening is 'eyelashes' - and these eyelashes belong on the main characters in 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert', not on the back of my clients' quilt.  When I was unpicking my sort of 1/4" line, I must have inadvertently knocked the top thread out of the tension spring - aaaagh.

It was pretty easy to unpick, thank goodness, and it left a nice little pile of thread

Retensioned the top thread and off I went again - without incident this time...

gordon bennett i take a rotten photo!

here's the back - plain red and while it's not obvious, the thread i've used is variegated blues, through purple to red

 - but it totally put me off hoovering those wombats.  Instead, I gave the beast a thorough clean and oil, put in a new needle and loaded another quilt - this one is going in my Etsy shop.  Once this one's done, I have another commission quilting job, so looks like those wombats may become cows before I get to them.

Top and backing loaded and just waiting for me to attach the batting before I can pull the top up and start quilting.

I'll blog about this quilt once I've got it quilted.

All packed up

I love crossing things off my To Do list and tomorrow, when this parcel is handed over to the shenanigans of Australia Post, a big line will be ceremoniously drawn through the task that culminated in sticking down the flap of this very parcel...

names have been deleted to protect the innocent...

This whole thing started when Susan, of Canadian Abroad, decided to host her very first swap - a Modern Christmas Tablerunner Swap (MCTS for short) - and I decided it'd be a good idea to join up, along with 50 or so more from across the globe.  

Susan, as swap mamma, provided a fabulous framework in which to participate and every one of this wonderful group of ladies (yep, all women, no blokes) embraced the spirit; providing support, adding suggestions and comments, and not all neccessarily to do with Christmas Runners either *smirk* !!

 This swap was just so much fun that my appetite is whetted to probably join another swap in the future - and I beleive Susan is planning another so I'll definately be on board for that.

So from being provided with my secret swap partners name, to checking out her likes and dislikes, to creating an inspiration mosaic for the one making a runner for me, to drawing, and practicing, and unpicking, and sewing, and quilting...

it's done - and it finished at about 14" x 50" (give or take an inch or 2)

The runner is quilters 100% cotton fabric, linen, perle thread, wool/cotton batting. 
The little ornaments are a felt birdy with perle thread stitching and sparkly eyes and a paper bauble

I really love how it came out and I really hope my partner does too - so now I get to stalk the postie til mine arrives......

Quilties v.1.2

Lucky for me that Sandie had a photo of my quilties...

The theme was buttons, so I had a think about their function and their form.

From the left:

"Boys will be boys" - this came from seeing the results of a wild night out - red wine, lipstick, unexplained tears and holes in the shirt - I obviously know some wild boys!  The front of this quiltie is an old business shirt and the back came from a suit.  The quiltie was raw-edge finished with lots of loose threads and general chaos.

"The Weed" - I had just come indoors from a day in my vegie patch, weeding - so weeds were definately on my mind.  I remembered that someone once told me that any plant can be deemed a weed if it grows unexpectedly, even the most beautiful of flowers - so after sewing  lots of flower shaped buttons and seed beads onto a 'crazy patch' green background, and filling in with straight stitching and rice stitch, I fashioned the big pink rosey shape from some ribbon (The weed).  This quiltie was zigzagged around the edge to finish.

"Snookered" - the noughts and crosses game became the focus here.  The background was hand pieced to create the 'board'.  A rusty washer, a found button and some bugle beads became the game pieces.  In this game, it's 'noughts' turn to play - but no matter where they place their piece, they can't win - they're effectively snookered.  I printed the definition of 'snooker' onto some tape and ironed it on the bottom left.

So that was my little bit of artistry..........and yesterday I received some artistry from other swappees:

The one on the left is from Sandy Rowe - she didn't give me details of a blog or an email address - but the 'Pink Ribbon' is definately dear to my heart, so thank you Sandy - the quilting on this little sweetie is beautifully done.

The one in the middle is by Marilou - the fun fabric is by Mary Englebreit and Marilou has added some special buttons which relate to the theme of "Well ain't you somethin'?"  She also added a crocheted border in red (my fave colour) - thank you Marilou, love it.

The one on the right is 'Flower Fairy' and was made by The Queen of Dreamsz.  This one incorporates a gorgeous ribbon flower with crocheted sparkly wings and lots of buttons - just spectacular.

All in all a very interesting exercise - and gives me plenty of material for my Diploma of Textiles starting next year.  Thanks Sandie for organising the swap - I had a lot of fun.

Quilties!

Back in September I took up a challenge by Sandie to make and trade 3 quilties with a button theme.  The teeny quilts are made to finish 4" x 6" and can incorporate many techniques - much like an Artist's Trading Card, they're miniature works of art that can be traded, swapped, displayed etc etc.   I'd never made anything like this before, so I thought to myself, "Why not?"

So, out came the journal and the colouring pencils and I faffed about with a couple of ideas.  Once I sought of knew what I wanted to do, I started making them - none came out as I originally planned - but that's the beauty of this sort of medium - you go where your quilties take you!

It was my intent to show you the ones I made to swap - but I can't find my photo's anywhere!  They're obviously a victim of my recent computer change over - aaagh.  I cleaned up all my photos prior to transferring all the files (which took over 16 hours using the 'easy transfer'  method) so it's quite possible I've deleted them in error - damn!!

So, I was then going to show you the ones I received yesterday - all of which are fantastic and so full of clever elements that I see something different each time I look at them.......and my camera is out of juice!

So, maybe I'll come back later in the day and try again........

I'm linking up with Lynn at Lily's Quilts at the Small Blog Meet - be sure to leave a comment so I can return the favour.  Cheers!!

Half time, 50.45%, downward slide, etc, etc

I have been doing a little farming this last week and made 4 blocks - which now means I am just over half way to becoming the ultimate Farmers Wife.  56 blocks are now completed, leaving 55 to go - half of me feels just a bit excited and the other half thinks, "meh, I've still got to make 55 blocks...."!!
So, in the bag are: jack-knife

loved how this came together - points met, right size finished - awesome!!

kitchen woodbox

looks fab-o on point

linoleum

obviously needs to be replaced with slate, or tiles...

maple leaf

in homage to my canadian friends

I still go to fabric shops and look at red fabric, thinking, "ooh, that'd be good for my farmers wife" - I think I need to wean myself off that now - I've got enough red fabric for 12 Farmer's Wives - maybe I should start a red Dear Jane quilt along (although I'm sure there's already one out there), or a 'better red than dead' quilt along - aaah, the possibilities.

Whatever, here's to no. 56 block and let's get on with no 57.

cheers