In the Pink baby quilt

My second finish for 2016. Another Scrap quilt alternating Crumb blocks with scrap squares, all cut at 4" square.

Close up showing the alternating Crumb blocks

 

The bright pink homespun border and candy striped pink and white binding finished the quilt nicely.

The quilt measures 40" square and is all hand quilted.

This quilt will go back to the UK with me and go into my stash of baby Girl quilts. I know of a couple of babies due this year, one may be a girl!

All ready for our special vistors!

Our very special visitors arrive tomorrow: our daughter, SIL and lovely 6 year old granddaughter fly in from Heathrow.  We have been following their progress and know they landed in Los Angeles about half and hour ago. Isn't the Internet wonderful - amazing to think you can track their flight all the way to Auckland.  We will be collecting them mid morning tomorrow from Nelson Airport, an hour's journey from our NZ house.

I have borrowed a camp bed for Annalise and it's now made up ready for a tired little girl.  I have put on the camp bed the only quilt I keep here in NZ, a green and yellow quilt made many years ago.  It was a Group Challenge with my UK quilting group so there are fabrics in there that remind me of some very special friends, two of whom have sadly since died.  Lovely memories.

 

 

 

More QAYG blocks for Jan

I sewed like a demon at my MQC Group meeting on Wednesday and just managed to sew the last strip as it was time to pack up. As soon as I got home I trimmed them down to size (10.5"), took a quick photo and then parcelled them up. Off they went in the mail yesterday, so look out Jan, a few more blocks heading your way across The Tasman.

I am now completely out of leftover bits of batting and strings.  The few strings I had leftover went in the parcel to Jan. Really nice to know I have tidied my small NZ stash and finished up some of the bits and pieces that have been here for a while.

 

Linking to More QAYG Love

 

 

First quilt finish for 2016!

Wow, I feel as though I should hang the flags out................... I have finished my first quilt in 2016!
I have been making two baby quilts side by side, one in pink for a girl and one with blues, greens and oranges for a baby boy. Baby boy Josselin arrived a few days ago so the blue quilt has a home to go to, back in the UK.

Here it is:

 

The quilt top is made entirely from scraps, fabric leftover from a baby quilt I made last year for Max. 

The crumb blocks were also made from those scraps augmented with a few other scraps in the same colours which I thought added extra interest and variety.

 

I hand quilted in the ditch, very simply as I thought the quilt was 'busy' enough.

I bought the backing fabric at Spotlight, a cute elephant design ( I love elephants!), a soft silky feeling Japanese fabric. I know elephants don't really go with the On the Farm theme of the quilt, but I couldn't resist it and the colours were a perfect match for the colours in the quilt top.

I chose a lime and white striped fabric for the binding, again purchased at Spotlight.

Striped bindings are my favourite choice, somehow I think it gives the quilt a smart, finished look. And this lime and white is very crisp, like a Granny Smith's apple! 

 

Quilt details: Blocks 4.5" unfinished,

Alternate fabric block and crumb block.

Border cut at 3".

Measures 41" square

 

I have two more Quilt Groups to attend this week, the last for each Group before we go back to the UK.

 The MQC meets tomorrow and I will be making some more QAYG blocks for Jan in Australia.

I have got 9 prepared, backings cut to size and batting pinned on so all I have to do is sew on the strips - all ready too. I managed to find enough batting scraps to make 9 more blocks which, when trimmed, will finish at 10.5" square.  They will be mailed later in the week.

On Saturday it is the Vintage Quilters Group meeting when I will hand sew the binding on the pink baby girl quilt and hand embroider a label for Josselin's quilt.

 

Then no more sewing for me until I am back home in the UK.

Our family arrives on Sunday so we are all very excited. First visit for our SIL and beautiful granddaughter. Our daughter has been here once before, back in 2007!

 

But I will blog about the baby girl quilt once I've sewn the binding.  And that will make TWO finishes for 2016!

I don't seem to have done as much sewing as in other years but we have had a lot of visitors so lots of cooking and washing and changing bed linens!  But that's all good too. We love to see people here.

At last, some sewing!

It's been ages since I did any sewing, so ages since I wrote a blog post.  We have been very busy with a succession of visitors followed by a week's trip away to NZ's West Coast.  All great, but no chance to sew one stitch!

I am part of a Siblings Together Bee block - we call ourselves the Wee Bees and each month one of us is Queen Bee and chooses the block design.  Jo's turn for March and she chose a Pinwheel block, each containing 4 pinwheels, half solids and half printed fabrics in each pinwheel. Each of us makes 2 blocks.
I started my blocks yesterday and completed them this morning.  Bright and colourful as those were the colours I had here in my limited NZ stash.

 

 

 

 

These will be posted when I am in town on Monday.

 

I am finishing off two baby quilts I have been making over the past few weeks.  The pink girl's quilt needs its binding hand stitched and the boy's one has to be trimmed and the binding made and attached.  The boy's quilt now has a recipient, baby Josselin who was born a few days ago to one of my daughter's friends. 

 

Just off to trim and make the binding. Then this evening I can hand stitch it whilst I watch the Final of Australian Masterchef. It's going to be a long programme - 7.30 - 10pm - so I will have plenty of time to finish the quilt.