Morris Magic

I just realised that I have not yet mentioned my Morris Magic quilt!

On one of our quilt group outings 2 years ago I came across a William Morris quilt book and fell in love with the Morris Magic quilt design.

I decided to make this one for our queen sized bed - the only problem being that the pattern only makes up to 56" square. Then I found a wonderful Morris border print, and after much scribbling and working out, came up with a layout that will work.

I decided to hand applique all the pieces using 1 strand of DMC stranded cotton. Obviously, this is going to take me a l-o-o-o-ng time to finish! I used a new (to me) re-positional product to fuse the pieces onto the quilt, Floriani Appli-kay Wonder. You iron it onto your fabric as usual, but when you peel the paper backing off, it is sticky! So you can stick it down and re-position as much as you like until you are happy with the layout... THEN you iron it on to make it permanent.

Perfect thought I!! :) 

I was wrong. :(

While it was a total dream to position my pieces nicely, I found that the edges of the pieces began to fray. Maybe the Morris-type fabrics are a looser weave than usual? I dunno. All I know is that I had a major problem. Also, some of the flowers have 3 levels of applique, and the Appli-kay Wonder is far stiffer than Vliesofix.. Not happy Jan!

Solution? I bought some muslin gauze and sandwiched it on top of the ironed on pieces.  I then stitched it in place with rough cross hatching basting stitches. That majorly limited the fuzzing and fraying of the pieces. So what I do now is cut away the muslin over the piece that I want to applique next and then blanket stitch the piece down.

It's still not as neat and crisp as I would like and is really stiff in places, but there's nothing I can do about that at this stage. I really regret using the Appli-kay Wonder, but have gone too far to re-do it all again. *sigh*

This is not the best pic as I was balancing on a ladder to take it!!  You can see that I still have a long way to go.

Now for some closeups. :)

I work on this one now and then when the mood takes me. I'll often work on it every evening for a week, and then not touch it again for 3 months, I'll get there in the end tho!

Confessions of a Lazy Blogger!

Well it appears that now I'm a lazy blogger as well as a guilty quilter!!!!   I've not posted anything since the 27th November last year.

But that does NOT mean that I've not been busy... I've been up to all sorts of quilty fun. Here's what I've been up to in the last 8 weeks.

SASHIKO TABLE RUNNER - finished!

FLANNEL HEXIE QAYG QUILT - finished!

MY SIMPLY SIXTEEN HAS ARRIVED!

We bought my machine from Handcrafters House in Midland and I just cannot speak highly enough of them and their service. I have a couple of friends who bought machines elsewhere, and to be honest, the service and follow-up that they received for their machines was abysmal.

So if you are in Perth and looking for a quilting machine go to Handcrafters House!!!

Now let the quilting begin...... !

I SPY FLOOR QUILT - finished!

Now this quilt is special for several reasons. Firstly, it's for my twin grandsons to play on when they come to visit. :) :)

But more importantly, this one is in memory of my sister-in-law Maureen who passed away several years ago. I inherited some of her patchwork stash, and amongst the fabric I found 19 I Spy blocks already made up. Hmm... almost a quilt! So I made one more block to make 20. Maureen had already cut out enough sashing strips for half of the quilt, so I dug thru my stash and found the same colour, but one shade darker, and voila! A gorgeous I Spy quilt for Adam and Justin.

I think that Maureen would approve! :D

 

 

Now this quilt is also special for another reason! It's the very first quilt to be quilted using my Simply Sixteen long arm quilting machine. I have never done free motion quilting before, and I have to say, it was so simple on the Simply Sixteen. I just did big meanderings in the blocks and had a go at ruler work with small scallops in the sashings. It's a bit dodgy in places, but for a first go I am absolutely thrilled to bits!!!

DELFT DELIGHT MYSTERY Block of the Month

I have also started Delft Delight Mystery block of the month from Modern Welsh. Now, I can't show you my progress as it's a mystery and the designer wants us to keep it secret until the BOM program is finished. :) But here is one block that she is willing to share, as a teaser!

I am using the same fabric range - Shibori by Moda and I am really keen to see how it turns out. :)

PEACE AND HEALING Block of the Week

I've also started on a block of the week program from Piecing the Past Quilts. This one is called "Peace and Healing". For the most part, I've pulled fabrics from my stash, but also bought a few FQ's from Textile Traders that had a civil war type of vibe.

This Block of the Week started on the 5th December, and so far I am keeping up to date!  Here's the first 6 blocks.

And this one, week 7,  I finished an hour or so ago. :) It's supposed to be called "Darting Birds" but I reckon it looks more like Space Invaders!!!

GARDEN TEA PARTY Block of the Month

This is a block of the month program that I could not wait to sign up for! I love it! But for some reason I did not even begin it. So, I decided to make this my project for my BOM's Away! challenge. I'm supposed to have the first block done by the end of January, and I'm delighted to say that I finished it a week ago.

There's one extra heart that is not supposed to be there - it's covering up an oopsie spot from my iron.

SCRAPPY STRING QUILT

I am still working on my scrappy string quilt at patchwork each week. I've nearly done enough blocks for a single quilt top. Yaay!

BOARD BASTING - where have you been all my life?

There have always been two quilting "bogeymen" that I had trouble with - one was machine quilting, and the other was making the quilt sandwich. Grovelling around on floors is no fun. So I used to wait until our weekly quilt club and then make the sandwich there. The plus side being that there's always a helping hand with the pinning out.

But the other week I found a totally AMAZING alternative. Board Basting!!! Essentially you wind each layer of your quilt - backing, batting and quilt top - onto separate boards, and then gradually unroll them to simply, easily and neatly make your sandwich. Here's a couple of great links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyaLsMafElo http://colormequilty.blogspot.com.au/…/04/board-basting.html

I gave it a go and am hooked. No more pin pricks, no  sore thumbs from doing up the safety pins, no bending and stretching. Just sit quietly and comfortably at any table and baste away. You can pin baste, spray baste or hand baste. I actually found that the whole process of making the sandwich was SO easy, neat and precise that I ended up hand basting it. And will do so for all of my quilts from now on. Love it!!

Here's my 3 boards all loaded up and ready.

Basted! (next time tho I'll make my basting stitches smaller)

HANDMADE/LUCKY QUILTALONG

I've finished my second quilt using my Simply Sixteen! I'd finished the flimsy months ago, but waited until the Simply Sixteen arrived to quilt it. This time I tried a loopy daisy design, and while it's far from perfect, I totally love it!!! 

This quilt is going to be for Foster Kids W.A. I actually have another one exactly the same which I am going to quilt using hi-loft batting and a different quilting design. It will be interesting to see how different they look.

FAMILIAR FACES

Two years ago, my hubby and I took a cruise from Melbourne back to Freo. One of the ports of call was Port Lincoln. They had a beachside market on and I picked up bundle of 20 quilting magazines to keep me entertained on board the boat.

Imagine my surprise when I found this article inside

It's the Bay Quilters! My quilting group!!!!

So why am I telling you this now? Well.... 2 weeks ago I went to the Canning Vale markets and picked up another bundle of patchwork magazines. You guessed it.... there they were again!

Same magazine picked up in 2 different states, 2 years apart. Hehehe... what a coincidence.