First Day of Spring

Well for us here in New Zealand today is the first day of spring and we woke to pouring rain, news of flooding and road closures and then by lunchtime the sun was out. Typical of our unpredictable spring weather. I am truly a summer girl so we are heading in the right direction.

I am happy to say it may now be time to fall in love with my longarm machine after having a love/hate relationship with it since I purchased it five years ago. I have struggled with the tension. the stitch regulator had issues, and basically it never ran smoothly but now!! It has a new motor, new hook assembly, stitch regulator and laser beam. Once it was set up again on it's return it took a little bit to get it's tension right, but I quickly put together this Strippy Baby Quilt and gave it a test run. What a different machine and one I had always thought it should be. So I think it needs a name - maybe Rocco due to it's rocky start and maybe it's future of sewing like a rocket!!

After my last post with having trouble with loading pictures I put this one into  Picasa Web Album and uploaded it from there and it looks better. Yes, that is my car in the background-I quilt in the garage, usually with the door open, and the car lives on the driveway!!

Help Needed-If anyone who may read this uses blogger and has tags/folders just under you title page how do you create them?? I have tried but am obviously a bit challenged inthis as I can't work it out. Thank you in anticipation.

Wiggle Time Quilt

That was a longer break from blogging than I intended but sometimes things in life just go that way. Let's get back into it again.
While I was making this quilt for my sister last year-

my neighbour, who I share a driveway with, and who keeps his eye out to make sure I am ok, kept asking when I was going to make him a 'blanket'!! He is a large man and so said it had to be really big!! No problem I said over and over as he kept asking,  then decided I better get sewing.
I used all the left over green fabrics from my sister's quilt quilt and some plain black Kona and a pattern called Wiggle Time by Cynthia Brunz of Quilting is More Fun than Housework blog.
This turned out to be approx. 115inches by 118 inches. (colours in this photo are a lot lighter than in real life)
                           
This is an easy pattern to sew and I can see more to come, but maybe not this big!!!
When I loaded it on my longarm I wasn't paying attention and whoops-a rip on both the top and bottom from a broken needle, but I wasn't looking and kept sewing!!! I did wonder why the noise wasn't quite right and then I looked. Luckily it was the edge of the quilt so was able to cut the width by about 4 inches.

Oops!!

I am having trouble with loading photos and they all look out of focus. This is the first time I have posted since loading Windows 10 so wonder if Picasa and Windows 10 don't like each other???

Think I will give up showing more until I can work this out-maybe have to go back to the old laptop for blogging.

After a non-love affair with my longarm machine since indeed I purchased it, it has been diagnosed as needing a new motor and so is away getting attended to and I hope to have it back tomorrow and I can't wait. Fingers crossed it will finally run smoothly.

Will be back soon if I can get this blogger to work properly.

Happy Quilting

Finished

Well the evil one moved and the binding is now sewn down. I had a teal shot cotton in my stash that matched perfectly.

Not the best of photos with the wind blowing and the colours are a bit washed out.
I am going to take the plunge and show a close up of the quilting-I know it's not perfect but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

And the backing fabric-

I forgot to take a picture of the finished Plus quilt that I showed in the last post but it was well received by my sister and I got to sleep under it during my visit. Melbourne had the coldest start to June in 38 years and it chose my visit for that record!!
One of the sights used in publicity about Melbourne are these very colourful beach huts that are walking distance from where my sister is living so there were a few visits to take photos-along with all the other tourists!! They were amazing and I can see some Beach Hut blocks in the future.



 

Loved this photo I managed to capture of a Pelican on the walk-

Also impressive were these birds that we saw on a bush walk- Crimson Rosellas

Tomorrow it's off to Wellington for 5 days to attend two separate conferences so the winter woollies are packed.

So Island chain is off the machine, binding is machine stitched on and this is where it is up to now-

Anyone who has met Bella knows it is in the best interest of saving your limbs if you let her be!! That look in her eyes is for real-don't mess with me! So I will just leave that as her sleeping place until she chooses another.
Meanwhile another quilt has been loaded and in fact now finished, except for hand sewing the binding-todays project.
This Plus Quilt used up fabric from my stash, bought probably five years ago just because I liked the colours! I backed it with some flannel and minky that was also hiding in the stash and was the perfect match. This is coming with me to Melbourne, Australia, next week and will live with my sister and brother in law. It will keep them warm in what they tell me is a cold house they have just moved into.

I quilted the pantograph Spiral Squares by Kerryn Emmerson that has given it nice texture. It was the first pantograph I ever quilted so is rather a favourite. Hand guided without a stitch regulator and Glide Thread in Teal on top and Magna Glide bobbin in light grey.

The back

On to that hand sewing the binding.

Happy stitching

Island Chain

So in 2011 I made a quilt using the Island Chain pattern.


It took me quite awhile to find a fabric for the border, and then a backing fabric. However once purchased it has been a UFO for all that time and why-who knows!!!!
I decided it was finally time it got finished so this is now on the longarm -

 

I couldn't decide how to quilt it but looked on MQ Resource and got the idea for the straight lines in the coloured sections and then out came the books and the rest of the inspiration was from Angela Walters. I need to practice my wishbone quilting and none of this is perfect but it is a good quilt to use new to me designs on. Am liking the look so far.

Even though I thought I had measured correctly for the borders I do have some fullness that I will have to deal with-oh well!

 

A Finish

I am so happy with the way my wall hanging has turned out and it is now on my sewing room wall. That's a much better place than having the stitcheries 'hanging out' in a plastic bag.

These stitcheries are not mass produced so are 'quite rustic looking'. Please click on the photo to get a better look at them.When I loaded this top on the longarm I really didn't know how I was going to quilt it but then after reading so many posts about Quiltcon I decided to do straight lines, and once I started decided to mix up both horizontal and vertical lines. Initially I was using my ruler and trying to make the lines so straight but then decided that these stitcheries do not have a perfect look so decided to do the lines totally freehand. I wrote the name SAPA across the top, which is the place we were staying when I bought these stitcheries.
The bits of cotton hanging down are what those thin strips were tied around my wrist with, so I decided to leave them in. I did have problems with beading as I used a white batting and knew I should've used black, but I didn't have any at the time and thought it would be ok. You only notice it when up close so I'm not going to stress about it.
Some photos that shoe the stitcheries and quilting better-

A wonderful tribute to the Hmong women and their handwork. 

Top Completed

Well I kept finding more stitcheries so decided to combine them all into one piece.

The thin strips are wristbands that a women tied around your wrist and that was a signal to all the other women that you had been 'claimed' and they were not allowed to hassle you.
Again this photo has not loaded well but it is a good record for me as to how it looked before it's quilted. this is now on the longarm and I think I will keep the quilting simple as I want the stitcheries to be the focus.
 

Vietnam Memento

A few years ago my sister and brother in law lived in Vietnam for six months while he taught English. I went over for a holiday at the end of the contract and after a few days in Hanoi we went on the overnight train up to the mountain town of Sapa. As my sister was recovering from surgery on her leg and my brother in law from a severe bout of food poisoning, I wandered around town a lot on my own and spent most afternoons with the Hmong village women. These women would walk up to twelve kms a day to come to town to sell their needlework to the tourists. It was amazing to sit with them and watch them stitching-each design is one families traditional work. My sister used to say 'Are you off to see your friends?' and that is what it felt like.
Like a good tourist I managed to part with my money and purchase some of their items which have sat in a bag for a long time now so I thought it was time to do something with them.
These stitcheries are about to become a wallhanging-if you click on the photos you will see them clearly. Don't know why they look like they do here!!

They are stitched on hand dyed indigo fabric and are very intricately stitched. They would not stand up to a lot of washing so hence a wall hanging. I bought fabrics that I thought would suit-

and with this design-by Mary Metcalf and featured in the New Zealand Quilter magazine.

BUT NO-it didn't grab me once I started.
So now I have bordered all the stitcheries-with a Moda Cotton called Weave which is an exact match to the colour of the stitching Don't know why the solid has that pattern all over it in Blogger-in the camera it is solid!!

and am using the idea of Jacquie Gering called Variable framing featured in this book-

I am just having one frame around the stitcheries and using navy blue for the negative space.
One block is done and liking it so far-

Suggestions and Comments Welcome
 

Bound and Washed.

Oliver's quilt is now bound and washed and ready to be posted once his mum and dad get back from a holiday.

Not very good photography sorry but didn't notice that till now!!
And for a closer look at the quilting and a glimpse at the backing fabric-

I'm really pleased with how it all came together.
Have made these pretty Bowtie blocks today for one of the members of an online group I am part of-

So what next?? 

Next the Binding

This is where Maisie thinks her new sleeping place is. Whenever I have a quilt loaded on the longarm she is there-I have the machine set up in my garage which has internal access to the house and the door is always open. Luckily I do not quilt for others or the set up would have to change.

So here is the quilt ready for binding.

 

 I stitched in the ditch around the triangles and echoed this in the white triangles and then in the negative space, apart from Oliver's name I did double wavy organic lines. Enough that it will still cuddly when it is washed.

 

 This was a pattern in the Nov/Dec 2014 issue of Fons and Porters Quilty magazine and is by Christina Cameli who blogs at afewscraps.blogspot.com and she also has a Craftsy class on machine quilting.
Here is the photo from the magazine and you can see they look quite different just by changing the colours and the quilting..

I am pleased with how mine turned out and really like the lettering even though it is not perfect. I am sure when he gets it Oliver will not mind, and nor will his mum. This is a surprise quilt and will be posted off to a friend who lives in Australia.

SCRIBBLING!

WELCOME 2015

Belated Happy New Year to you all.
Here in New Zealand it is the day after New Year's day and a holiday day. I worked a 12 hour shift on New Year's Eve as well as on New Year's day and boy were they busy shifts, so there was no after work celebration-it was dinner and bed once I got home.
Today was a day off and a glorious summer day that saw me on the golf course this afternoon.

This was one of the views I had-a Pohutukawa tree-known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree in glorious flower still. And then this little one was sitting on a little bridge that goes over a pond on the course-

It is a New Zealand Kingfisher bird and has bright orange under his wings. How beautiful is he!

So here is my last quilting finish for 2014- a quick strippie quilt pattern from maryquilts.com. I have made this pattern before and it is a great pattern if you need a quick quilt made. This one I made 'just because'  and it is now in the pile of awaiting a home-

Oops this has loaded upside down but you get the idea.

Closer look at the quilting=stipple in the novelty fabric, wave in the red and l's and e's in the blue.

So what is ahead for 2015-
I am not a list maker and certainly not when it comes to making quilts. I would rather respond to where inspiration takes me and boy there is so much of it in blogland. Saying that my aim for 2015 is to deplete my stash, even if by a little, and I have already started with these string blocks-

and to blog more, as well as comment more on others blogs. We all love comments and I have a long list of blogs I peruse frequently but do not take enough time to comment so I aim to remedy that.
Who knows where life will take me this year but it would be nice to lower my golf handicap, take an overseas holiday (further than Australia this year) and on the job front-that is watch this space-it may remain the same but there may be new doors opening.
So I hope to see you around in this coming year. Wishing you all health and happiness and lots of quilting fun in 2015.