Shortcake Quilt

Last year our little stitching group chose "Shortcake" as our quilt to make during the year.  This is another great Cluck Cluck Sew design and works well with jelly roll strips or strips and squares cut from stash or the scrap basket.

I made the queen size option and it fits very well on the bed - 88" x 96".

 

Karen quilted this one too and I really like this design. 

Social Butterfly

The silly season has hit with a bang - last week and this coming week are particularly busy at work, after hours and the weekends.  Lots of fun things happening, spending time with my little sweethearts (and my bigger sweethearts) and some sewing.

Mum and I went to see Schools Spectacular on Saturday afternoon - it's always a highlight of our year and once again was such a fabulous show.  Mum will be 88 on Friday.
 

After the show we visited the babies so I could give them each a package of goodies for December.  ChaCha's Christmas dress isn't quite finished - it will be soon.

Saturday night we were invited to an engagement party.  I was so happy to catch up with family I hadn't seen for ages especially for such a lovely occasion.

Machine embroidered a set of towels for Gabby and Mitch.

Another Stash and Dash bag is on its way to the new owner as a little surprise present.

Yesterday I was back in Sydney with The Schoolgirls - we went to see "Matilda" - loved it, and then had such a lovely time having dinner with my dearest friend Lynell - not often we can say we've been friends for over 55 years.

While I was out socialising Karen quilted two of my quilt tops:

Shortcake - photo borrowed from www.quiltingonthecoast.com.au

and

Off Track - photo borrowed from www.quiltingonthecoast.com.au

Off Track - photo borrowed from www.quiltingonthecoast.com.au

Having dinner with another dear frient tonight.  Wednesday night I'm going to see Hugh Jackman with friends from work.  I need to find some time to start decorating the house.  Everywhere else is looking very Christmassy - maybe tomorrow night as it will be 1 December.

Fresh

"Fresh" is a quilt pattern designed by Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms from her "Simply Retro" book and the fabric I've used is from a variety of Fig Tree & Company ranges with Moda Bella Solid 97 for the background.   It's a very large quilt (95-1/2" square).

I love this quilting design - it doesn't overwhelm the piecing but adds great texture.

I started stitching down the binding on Saturday night while the baby slept and finished it off yesterday afternoon when watching a movie with Mum.

Friday night I sewed on the last couple of  "Niner" rows

and last night added the last rows to "Shortcake", our stitching group's quilt for this year.

Next year some of us are hoping to make "Snippets".

Busy week coming up.

Long Weekend

Late last week I received a message from Sarah with a couple of photos of my Fresh quilt on her frame.  It's looking so wonderful - can't wait for it to arrive home (hopefully this week).

Last week I finally got around to finishing off the 9 patch blocks for Shortcake

and sewed half of the blocks into rows.

Shortcake is a fairly large quilt (88" x 96") and will easily fit on a queen-sized bed.

I needed a change from Shortcake over the weekend so decided to make a start on Niner - I cut out about half of the blocks in January and sewed most of them on Sunday then cut out the rest yesterday morning.

 

Another 24 nine patch blocks to go and I can start putting this one together.  The background is white with little red dots and I think it will look very cute.

Had a lovely day out in Sydney with Barbara on Saturday - we spent quite a few hours shopping and designing shoes at "Shoes of Prey" and visited both babies.  Sunday I cleaned out the spare room to set up the quilting frame (which has been dismantled in the garage for 18 months since the great flood) and met up with the stitching girls in the afternoon - it was such a hot day.  Yesterday morning, another hot day, I spent a bit of time setting up the quilting frame then Mum and I went to see "Oddball" - such a great Australian movie based on a true story, and afterwards I finished setting up the frame.

New Quilts Underway

Spent Thursday night in Sydney.  Caught up with Peta and Michael then had a lovely time with Elizabeth, Matt and Miss ChaCha - she is such a sweetheart and so entertaining.  4 months old yesterday.

There has been lots happening in the sewing room over the last couple of weeks - some new starts because I always procrastinate when it comes to block layout for my quilts.  All the Orange Swoon blocks are made

 

 

and this quilt has come to a standstill because the next step is to add sashing and then layout.  Orange Swoon will be ~106" sq when finished.

There are plenty of orange fabrics left over so I've cut out another orange quilt using Thimble Blossom's Red Letter Day pattern.  This time I'm adding scrappy stars instead of the large plain white squares.

On Saturday the Stitching Girls had a sewing day to work on our Shortcake quilts - designed by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew - I love her patterns. Mine is being made from a large variety of Fig Tree fabrics.  Our only rule is that we must use stash fabric.

I need a couple of cot quilts as some of my friends are having grandbabies.  I've wanted to make a Kaleodoscope quilt for ages and babies are a great reason to try a new pattern. This one is excellent -  another design from Allison Harris and she always provides instructions for a variety of quilt sizes in each pattern.  The stitching girls and I went to Kiama on Sunday to visit the Modern Quilt Guild Show and I picked up some Peter Rabbit fabric for the kaleidoscope centres.  The grey blades are light grey with a tiny white pin dot.

For a few weeks I've been keen to start the Thimble Blossoms Scrappy Sampler Quiltalong and yesterday I received the pattern for "Lollies" (I have the other patterns) so I could start last night.  Not 100% sure about the aqua background but it does make a nice change from white/off-white/cream.

It's great to be using up so much of the fabric in my cupboards.

Easter Sewing

Had a lot of sewing time over Easter as the weather was yukky on Good Friday so with "Gilmore Girls" Series 4 in the dvd player, I spent all day in the sewing room.  First up was putting the small Whitewashed Cottage quilt together - it's lap size.  Some of these fabrics are so pretty but very pale.

Our stitching group is making "Shortcake" this year.  Mine is being made out of loads of Fig Tree fabrics and, of course, I decided to make the extra large version - 122 blocks.  The first blocks were finished later in the weekend

and I made a start on the second blocks.  The background fabric is a Moda Bella Solid called "Butter" - it's a lovely soft yellow, even though it looks cream in the photo above.

Saturday afternoon was spent with the stitching girls - always lovely to catch up and see what they're making.  We also were able to see a quilt being quilted on Karen's longarm.  At night I've been stitching some chickens - very appropriate for Easter.

They are for the bottom row of "Little Chicken Feather" - prefer the chickens to the little piggies in the original quilt.  Stitching the last block now.

Easter Sunday was spent with the family - we had a great time at the cafe in Centennial Park - such a magnificent day.  Perfect early autumn weather.  And on Monday, after some gardening and other jobs, was Fireworks day.  About time I got back to this quilt and made a couple more blocks.  This will a very bright quilt.

Best Friends Forever

In my quilting life I've been able to make quilts, wallhanging, tabletoppers etc for special friends but this quilt is the most special one I've made so far.

On Sunday morning I became a Nanna for the first time to the sweetest baby girl - we've called her ChaCha since we knew she was a baby girl and that will be her name on my blog.

I started making "Best Friends Forever" designed by Rosalie Quinlan in July 2013 - stitching the blocks during lunchtime at work.  Early in September last year I had the idea to make the quilt as ChaCha's cot quilt because Elizabeth likes lots of colour and I thought some of the stitcheries were so pretty for a little girl. 11 of the stitcheries are in the quilt and we chose mainly aqua, grey, green, pink and some red for the hexagon blocks.

The quilt was machine sewn together rather than hand-stitched.  Vicki helped me sort this out when she visited in September and it went together quite easily.  Great thing is that it's pretty much quilt-as-you-go.  Binding was stitched down last Thursday night and the quilt was put on the baby's cot on Monday afternoon when she came home from hospital.

A friend I've made on Instagram and I are going to make "Fireworks" designed by Camille Roskelley - I've had the blocks cut out for a while and a couple of weeks ago made a sample block.

I think it's going to look great in these lovely, bright Holly Holderman fabrics.

This year our Tuesday stitching group is making Cluck Cluck Sew's "Shortcake" quilt.  It's a great jelly roll or scrap design.  I'm using lots of Fig Tree fabrics and I was able to add some new colour to the stash swapping fabrics with Leanne - first time I've swapped through the post - such a great idea.

 

Over the weekend some other sewing happened while waiting for baby news.  "Marmalade" (also designed by Camille Roskelley) is now a quilt top - great design to use up lots of favourite left-over fabrics,

 

and all the orange fabrics for my "Orange Swoon" (another design from Camille Roskelley) have been cut.  Looks like I've cut one too many blocks so it can be a label for the back of the quilt.

So much sewing to look forward to.