Denyse Schmidt Picnic and Fairgrounds Doll Swap Starting Soon!

Denyse Schmidt Picnic and Fairground, a photo by heidigoneaussie on Flickr.

If you like Denyse Schmidt's Picnic and Fairgrounds fabrics and you like swaps there is a new doll swap starting.  If you are interested in signing up you can check it out here 

This will be a fun swap.  I'm very much looking forward to it.  Hope you can join us:)

Still Plugging Away at Japanese + and X Quilt

Just in case you think that I've put my Japanese + and X quilt on the back burner, that has hardly been the case.  In fact, I love making this quilt so much that I actually force myself to go slow at it.  I want time to think about what I am doing and where I will go with it in the end.  These are the latest nine blocks.  I've lost count as to how many I've made already, but I think I have over 90 now.  I'm still thinking of a 12 X 12 layout, so I have a few more blocks yet to enjoy making...  Seriously, this has been the most fun I've ever had making a quilt!

August Sew Australia Blocks for Kelly

I finally got around to sewing my August blocks for Kelly for the Sew Australia Bee that I am in.  She requested two different blocks for her month.  The first, Lynnebobsquarepants, you can find the tutorial for here.  The second block, a dresden plate you find the tutorial for here.  The second block was a lot of fun since I've never made anything like this before.  I might have a go at trying to make a quilt with these blocks in the future.

Joel Dewberry Heirloom Quilt Top

I have been busy sewing this week, but not posting much on the computer due to headaches and tiredness this last week.  I think I went to bed at 8 o'clock three days in a row now.  The boys, starting up at tennis again and the warm weather has been wearing me out.  Oh well, it's all good.  I'm looking forward to warmer weather and swimming in the river again soon:)  That will really wear me out in a good way...

Last week I was chatting with a fellow blogger Mamaspark about what to do with our Prince Charming fabric.  She came up with all kinds of great ideas!!!  One of the ideas was to make a disappearing nine patch.  I've never been interested in a disappearing nine-patch previously, but somehow setting it on point makes me suddenly love it as a pattern!  Ok, I was considering doing this quilt with the Prince Charming fabrics, but I was cutting up the Heirloom for my Etsy shop.  It was already cut into neat 5 inch squares and somehow these Heirloom fabrics seemed more fitting for this design.  So, I paired them with Kona Snow and Kona Stone and voila, here is the quilt top.  I did find that I didn't like the technique of cutting the nine patch in half. I found that the pieces were too imprecise so I trimmed each one down to 6.5" blocks and it worked perfectly that way.  Oh, and by the way, there has been a lot of talk on Flickr about the lesser quality feeling of this Heirloom fabric.  I would agree.  But, for those of you familiar with the quality of Kona cottons--they feel just about the same as them.  It really is a shame that we are not getting the beautiful smooth quality fabrics that we once did.  Will we ever get anything as wonderful as Heather Ross's Lightning Bugs line or similar again?  Probably not for the price we once paid anyway:(

For the Love of Solids -- Storm at Sea

I ordered my solids for the Solids Swap on Flickr but they still haven't arrived yet.  It sort of makes it difficult to make what I had been planning to make.  So, luckily I had a few solids in colors my partner said she liked. It's only a small variety and I was hoping for a much bigger variety. I want to work with solids much more in the future too, so I do would to have them in my stash as well.

I have had a Storm at Sea template set for years that I had not used previously.  Today it was staring at me in the face saying, "use me, use me".  This block is what I came up with--it's about 14 inches.  I don't know what to do with it though.  Do I keep on building this larger?  Do I stop and make this into a hot pad.  What should I do?  I'm not very happy with my piecing skills either, but I am keen to keep on and see if I can improve as I go along.  My partner asked for something to hang in the window....  I could do that, but I have no idea how people finish a piece that hangs in the window.  She also asked for a table runner, placemats, bag, etc...  What to do???

Sometimes It Takes Me a While to Get With the Program!

Ok, a couple weeks ago Fat Quarter Shop was having a half off some of their fabrics and I decided I would jump in on the deal.  Wow, I'm glad I did!  I don't live near any decent quilt shops so I mostly rely on the internet for my fabric resources, which works out well sometimes and other times not so much.  There are definitely occasions when I see fabric online that I think I would love only to feel lukewarm about it in person.  Then, there are times when the opposite is true. I had seen Tammis Keefe's fabrics online and was amazed how everyone was excited (in blogland) when the fabrics were reprinted.  I just didn't get it.  But now I do!  They are so lovely in person.  I also somehow missed out on the Bon Vivant and was able to get a fat quarter bundle at the same time.  These are also amazing in person--the maps and the poodles are my favorites. 
And there is my little OllieBear playing with the fabrics as I photograph them.  This is his last day as a baby:(  Tomorrow he turns one.  We can't imagine what life was like before him!!!  He has been a sweet little treasure to add to our family. 

Yellow Mosiac Block

So, I haven't been checking in as much these last few days as I am mostly doing lots of cleaning around the house.  I've got a lot to do and in particular I want to get my sewing room organized and finished in preparation for the arrival of the long arm machine.  That is still probably 2 months off or so, but it is on its way by now!  Exciting:)
Today I got a little distracted though as I was sorting through my scrap bin.  I'm trying to iron and organize scraps by color and it got me to thinking about a quilt technique that I've been wanting to try out for a long while now.  I've wanted to try making a mosaic scrap quilt.  What I really want is to make one with all the colors of the rainbow in it.  I thought I would start with yellow as it seemed to be one of the harder colors of which to get enough scraps .  I've decided to make each block 15 inches and then with at least 10 different colors make two of each block.  I wasn't quite prepared for how fiddly this block would be, but I think I'll get better at it as I make a few more...

Arty Wall Hanging Quilts

Each measure 20" X 20" and will hang together as such in my quilting room.

Sewing Bee Blocks for July

I'm a little late getting Danielle's blocks out for the Sewing Australia bee.  She asked us to make Japanese + and X blocks!!  So, I made a few extra (7) because I love this block so much.  I tried to use all the pieces that she sent out and mingled it with my own stash while trying to keep the color theme that she has going on in hers.  Notice that she uses all grey/neutral backgrounds...  I really really do love this block.

First Attempt

Yesterday some of the solids I ordered for the Solids swap came in the mail so I had a go last night trying to do some free form art quilty sewing.  This piece measures 20 inches by 20 inches.  I don't know.  It's fun to do, but I'm not sure what it takes to make free form look good.  I ordered the Jean Wells book, maybe once I have a chance to read it I'll learn something.  I only had a handful of colors to work with as well.  Hmmmm.... I was trying to go for less color, but I just kept adding to it, so maybe I should have held back a bit.  The quilting could add a bit of interest to it to, we'll see.

My Two Little Men

Waking Up on a Winter Morning

Dr. Seuss Quilt Wonky Quilt Top Finished

Do you remember way back when I posted about this quilt here?  I came up with this design for these fabrics.  Dr. Seuss + Wonky = Perfect.  Right?  Well, that part of it I think I got right, but when it came to what to sash around the blocks I got it totally wrong.  I chose the black and white striped fabric in the line to sash around each block.  My thinking was that I have often seen bright colorful quilts toned down by the simple addition of black and white.  But for this quilt it just made it crazy.  I didn't even bother to take a picture to show you all as it was just too yucky.  I completely miscalculated my fabric selection.  In the meantime I had many people ask about this quilt.  Seems that it inspired a few people to make wonky Dr. Seuss quilts, but I had yet to finish mine!  All that unpicking!  I finally pulled it out again this week and did the boring unpicking job and resashed it in something sensible this time--kona snow.  I added the black and white (where it belongs) and the Cat and the Hat blue border.   Voila!  I'm happy now and I will be able to quilt it soon (my machine is on it's way!) and the boys will get lots of use of it.  We read Dr. Seuss quite regularly around here, Alexander already starts reading along telling me what comes next, so hopefully he will have many happy memories in association with this quilt.  Of course, he'd like me to make a tractor quilt most of all...  I'll work on doing something about that soon.

A Rainbow of Japanese + and X Blocks?

My Japanese + and X quilt is gradually growing in size.  Here is my 9 X 9 layout.  At the moment, I'm thinking I will go for a 12 X 12 layout so I'm over half way done now.  I'm also playing around with this rainbow-ish layout.  I know when I polled last time whether or not to arrange this quilt randomly or arrange by color that I had more people chose the random look over arranged.  I especially liked one person's description that random looked like light coming in through the trees.  Still, I want to play around with the arrangement as the quilt grows and see how it evolves.  I also realize that as a bed quilt it might not look as interesting to have the rainbow effect as it might if it were a wall hanging instead.  Still, I have a long time to decide yet...

Winners of the British Patchwork and Quilting Magazine Giveaway

Yesterday I got my copy of British Patchwork and Quilting and immediately opened up to the page where my blog is listed under the "Wandering the Web" section.  So fun to see my little blog featured in print.  Also, I forgot to mention the winners of my magazine giveaway.  The two winners were:


Bluquilt  who said...
Congratulations! I'd love to win a copy! I live in Australia (Melbourne).

Lyn who said...I've just found your blog and will have to bookmark it so I can continue to visit and be inspired by your work. It must be exciting to be published in an international magazine. Congratulations from me in New Zealand.

Thank you so much for participating!