More Sailing by

One of our Patchwork Group members hasn't been well so I offered to make her pair of blocks for the Group Quilt we are currently working on.

Finished them today:

 

I really like these blocks and I think we should have a lovely quilt to gift.

Creatures, Great and Small is completed

I accomplished what I intended to do yesterday and sewed on the binding for my latest baby quilt.

I didn't think of a title for this quilt straight away.  Because of the rows of elephants and rows of various creatures in the appliqued circles and Happy Blocks I originally decided to call it
 "Animals on Parade" but then didn't think that was quite accurate as there were caterpillars, butterflies, pukeko and hens included. I expect they are technically part of the Animal Kingdom but decided on "Creatures, Great and Small" instead.

Coincidentally I noticed Cathy's post yesterday (Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting) was called "All creatures great and small" but she is doing hexies.

A few photos:

The completed quilt

 

 

 Two close up of some of the "Creature" fabrics and Perle hand quilting:

The backing:

 

And a close up:

 

As I said yesterday nothing was bought specially for making this quilt, everything was in my stash.

The backing was a piece of fabric I bought at a reasonable price at the Festival of Quilts, maybe last year or perhaps the previous year - the time goes by so quickly! I wasn't sure whether it would be large enough, but it fitted just right, only strips to cut off when I trimmed the quilt. I have been very good and trimmed those strips and added them to the relevant bags of my Strings stash.  So they will someday appear in a future quilt!

There is a lot of work in this quilt: the fussy cut creature fabrics, the fusible webbing process, hand quilting and hand blanket stitching around the circles etc. I also spent quite a time designing the quilt and finding suitable fabrics from stash.
I am delighted with the result and now hope the new Mum who will receive it will enjoy using it for her baby and that it will get lots of use. It's a good size, 47" x 39" so it should be useful for a long time.

Almost there, we're almost there!

"Almost there, we're almost there"-  the Andy Williams' song from way, way back has been floating round my head all morning.

Almost a month ago I started making a quilt requested by my step granddaughter for one of her friends.  I have worked away at this, in between some baby knitting for a friend's baby.

This morning I sewed on the binding and this afternoon I will hand sew the back of the binding at my last Monday afternoon Group Patchwork meeting before we break up for the summer - which is HERE at last. We are having a heatwave at present.

A couple of quick photos of the quilt:

 

I love the backing, a piece I had in my stash.  In fact all the fabrics were from my stash, nothing had to be bought specially.

 

I have thought of a name for the quilt, to be revealed in my next post when the quilt is finished.  Baby was born last Tuesday, a few days early, so I want to finish it fast.

Busy knitting

My young friend Amy's baby is due in August.  She and her husband know if it's a boy or girl but are keeping that secret until baby is born. I wanted to knit a couple of cardigans/hoodies for her and asked for colours. Navy and grey were two of the colours mentioned so here is the cardigan I finished a couple of days ago.

I haven't knitted for a while and decided to buy some new baby patterns.  I have real problems with spacial awareness and found the knitting instructions hard to follow. I knitted the Left front OK but when it came to the Right front and the pattern just said "Reverse instruction of Left front" I got in a mess.  Fortunately one of my Patchwork friends who is an expert knitter came to my aid and I managed to finish it.  Don't think I'll be using this pattern again though!

However, I was pleased with how it turned out.  A hooded jacket is next - a different pattern - which I hope I can cope with.

Sailing by

The Patchwork Group I belong to often make quilts to commemorate members' significant birthdays.
Mary, a lovely lady who was a member of our group, sadly died three years ago.  Her husband John will shortly celebrate his 90th birthday so we are making him a quilt. As John still sails this was our pattern choice:
Sailing Boats Quilt from Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.

We are initially making one of each block but eventually a few extra blocks will be needed.

We have the same background fabric for the boats and a few 2.5" squares for the 16 Patch but are using our own fabric for the sails and the extra 16 Patch squares.  This is so there is continuity in the quilt but also a bit more variety.  We are using a few different brown fabrics for the boats.

I sewed mine this afternoon. Pictured with the book pattern.

Irish Blessing

I was ironing some tea towels I had brought back from church to wash.

This was one of them:

 

 

It looks like cross stitch - which I have never done - but I thought the words we appropriate for quilters too.

 

My hands have been sewing up some more stash blocks:

4 one colour 5" string blocks, 4 Spool blocks and 5 more Twinkler blocks.

I have sets kitted out ready to sew and I make a few when I feel like doing so. Sometimes I make the Spool blocks in Leader and Ender style but the other blocks I make as a proper project. Really because I like to lay out the Twinkler blocks in pairs and make two at a time (Bonnie Hunter style, chasing each other) so I can web each block. Of course this helps to line up the seams when sewing the rows together.

When I am making the String blocks I make my stitch length much smaller so taking off the paper foundation is not a problem. Not suitable for making Leader and Ender style or I would be forever altering the length of my stitch!

 

Here they are:

 

 

Must have a count up and see how many of each type of block I have.

 

A little gift for a blog friend

I love how quilting brings together people from different parts of the world.
Over the past few years I have followed many quilting blogs and feel attached to many quilters whom I know I will very probably not meet in person.  We do, however, have "conversations" via email and their blogs so, in a weird way, I feel I "know" them, am interested in their projects and what is going on in their worlds.

So, as a little "Thank you" to a lady whose work and zany humour I very much admire, I sent a little gift:

and the other side.................

 

I added a little hand stitching and pretty buttons for embellishment.

 

Inside I popped a few of my 3" 9 patches.