7th April Breakaways

I thought I had better put these pics up before I forgot!  Christine was ill so hopefully when she feels better she will be able to have a look at this and see what she missed.  From the week before -

Wilma has been quietly beavering away and this is one of her lovely dresden plates - she has lots more blades tucked away but this is the one I was allowed to take a picture of!

These are a couple more of Kim's sunbonnets - she has currently stopped making any more and is busy sewing them down. This will be a gorgeous quilt when it's done.

And from this week........

Chris J's utterly gorgeous Antique Flower Garden quilt being ably held up by Norma on the left and Linda on the right.  She is thinking about sending it out to be quilted, if she can afford it.  It is such a beautifully stitched piece of work and looks beautiful.

 My version, Taupe Flower Garden is not so well made and has more borders.  My flowers go in different directions as well I think - ah well, never mind....the other pic is of the bottom where the applique is.  Neither of us liked the original positioning much, Chris had one idea and I had another but in my case you wouldn't really have seen the applique so I went for the bottom, as did Chris but we positioned them differently.  An odd thing about these two quilts - we found them very depressing at one stage and decided it was the colours but when the blocks were finally put together they looked so much better and brighter, we just couldn't believe it.  Mostly we sewed these two quilt tops together once a week.  It worked very well and we have another pair of quilts to make, also from Antique Angel.  So perhaps by next year there will be another pair to show....

This is the main top I have been working on for a bit.  It's probably big enough so maybe just a thin border and then a slightly wider one.  I will have to have a think.  All furnishing fabric samples and made up of half square triangles flipped around though it took me a while to get the pattern right!

Now these are two of Linda's hearts.  I could have sworn I had taken pics of more but my camera card got corrupted at one point and I lost some data.  Of course, it could be that I have forgotten to take any pics in the first place.  Linda is making these hearts with a backing on so that you just turn them right side out and applique them onto a backing square.  There are no problems with that little vee at the top of the heart and they turn out beautifully every time.  I think I might have a bash at them sometime.

Anyway Linda has made loads and loads of these and her daughter is going to take them away and work out a layout.  I can't wait - it will look Gorgeous!!!!

No more pics - Lesley is making a bag for her mat and ruler - something I ought to do one day (gosh my to do list gets longer by the minute - has anyone noticed?) and Libby is appliqueing an extraordinarily complicated block for her Patricia McLaughlin course.  Norma wont let me take any more pics of her pyramids for the time being, but it is growing and looking spectacular and ChrisJ is hand stitching a border onto her pyramids.

I have been dyeing with mixed results.  I am not sure I like the cloth I used so will try something else for the next batch.  I tried dyeing with frozen fabric and parfait dyeing. I wrote down what I did but need to number the pieces next time as some of them were a bit of guesswork after the wash out.  A single colour is wasted on frozen fabric, I think. I couldn't see much difference between that and a parfait dyed top layer, but then turquoise is such an in-your-face colour, there may be subtleties I haven't noticed LOL

Some chickens.................

Lesley sent a flock of chickens to New Zealand and made me promise not to post a pic until they had been received.   So here they are - aren't they great?


And on a related note, I once made a quilt for a friend who keeps chickens - there's a pic  here, although I seem to have done a good job in ensuring I can't even copy my own pics and the original is on a back up somewhere ...

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/73521675@N00/1115973868/in/set-72157601431845900/

It was very easy to make!

Burying threads

Another  blog I enjoy reading -  Redbarn Studios .  Grace Howes  has made a video http://www.redbarn-studios.com/blog/2010/02/new-video-tutorial/ about burying threads and she got the idea from Robbi Eklow , though it’s not a new idea.

 

I bury mine in a similar fashion but I thread the loop through the needle eye and I don’t knot.  I haven‘t had anything unravel yet, but perhaps if I was making quilts to sell or they were someone else’s, I might do the knot…..

 

Anyhow, a good little tutorial if you want to know how to do it

24th March Breakaways

Ah well I guess I will catch up eventually.......

Chris Joiner's Antique Flower Garden just needs the flowers appliqueing in the border

and this is her pyramid quilt which  needs a border

Someone pointing out Jane's exquisite quilting - this is the back of her Dresden Plates.

Christine's quilt top - you don't see one of the patterns as easily when it's lying on a table - this is lovely, isn't it?

Lesley is up to something oriental...........

The Sunbonnets are all Kim's - she is making them for her niece - lucky girl!