Welcome to 2016.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Well we are nearly at the end of the first week now so it is time to finish this post and publish it.. I worked both New Years Eve day and New Years Day so not really a lot of celebrating went on-except of course the excitement of welcoming new babies into the world.

This photo and quote was shared to my facebook page and I just love it so thought I would it for my words for this year!! We say at work we are all a bit crazy and if we didn't laugh we would cry so I think this fits.

                                                                 AARP Illinois's Photo

So I know I haven't been here much, but I am hoping that 2016 sees me get motivated to blog on a regular basis.

Today I finished and loaded a baby quilt on the longarm- good practice and I have a few to make for colleagues at work.

                                                               Swirls in the orange strips

                                                             Figure eights in the blue strips

Liking the look of this so far.

In my absence I have been dipping my feet into quilting for others and am hopefully going to continue to do so.
First up were two quilts that Lynda made-she is a fairly new piecer and has a pile of tops at home waiting to be quilted.

She cannot remember the name of this quilt but thinks it came from a book she got out from the library.

She chose the Panto Square Spiral by Kerryn Emmerson and has a polyester batting that really gave it the puff she likes.

Quilted with Glide German Granit

Her second quilt was very different and made in a Craftsy Class. She said I could quilt this how I wanted so I angst over what I would do then went for it with a lot of ruler work. In the border I used a design from a tutorial on Kathy's blog-Tamarack Shack

                                                               (Not a good photo I know)

Again Glide thread in Aqua, purple and black.

Lynda was pleased with both quilts so that was a relief.

The next one I did I did not meet the lady but was given the quilt by a third person and I do not have permission to post any photos.

However Jenny was quite happy for me to share photos of her first quilt she has made-she made placemats for her grandchildren for Christmas but is a new quilter.
She chose the Ripple Panto by Lorien and a light blue thread.

A lot of the seams are not straight so it did pose a bit of a challenge but in the end it worked out ok.

The batting she bought felt like a cotton and was very thin so gave the quilt a flat look which Jenny did not really like the finished look of but liked the quilting I had done.
So that's it for now until the next post.

I don't know why the grey has appeared as a background on some of the writing????

Happy Quilting

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.