September Block Swaps Complete and I Spy Swap

Friday I received my lovely Quilting Block Swap Australia block from Kym in Bundaberg in Queensland. Its a beauty and fits my plan of a bright, multi-coloured star quilt to a tee:

It has a gorgeous green starry fabric in it which actually sparkles as the stars are a sort of iridiscent colour.  I took the photo outside to try and capture it.  You might recall I posted a photo of the other four blocks I already have so far and this will give a new element to the mix I think:

I sent Kym the purple and yellow log cabin she requested:

which she seemed happy with.  She hasn't had a good run with her swaps lately so hopefully she has better luck from here on!

Well, I've had a lovely lazy brekkie of bacon and eggs this morning cooked by my other half and now I better get on and get some quilting done (hopefully - unless I get waylaid by him to help him in his aviary!).

Itching to cut up some I-Spy fabrics for a swap I'm in with the Rainbow Charm Square Swap group on Facebook (an offshoot from the Quilt Club Australia group). Spotlight had some more markdowns yesterday so I managed to find some more to add to the very  few I already had. Yay! That means more fabrics back in the swap.

If you're in Australia and you'd like to get involved in some charm swaps, pop over and request to join the group and have a look. By joining the group you're not agreeing to join any particular swap but it will give you access to all the available swaps and you can chat to lots of lovely quilters at the same time!  We started off as a rainbow swap but we've had lots of others since, although we do love our rainbow colours!

Thanks for reading my blog today, enjoy your weekend!

Craftsy BOM and other Bits and Bobs!

I have been the queen of slackness lately as far as posting goes.  I did eventually finish my second Craftsy BOM for September but hadn't gotten around to posting a photo, so at very long last here it is:

And because its been so long I thought I'd better remind you what the first one in September looked like!

So only one month of blocks left to go.  That being said, I have another quilt to finish so that I will be ready to get the Craftsy one done by Christmas and as I finally remembered to buy thread this week I managed to get cracking on that one (my red, black and white quilt). However, said thread caused me some dramas as it was a little thicker than I usually use and decided to break a lot.  A bit of a tension adjustment and its mostly sorted but I may change up to a larger needle as well for my next session.  No photos to share as I have only done an 'in the ditch' grid so far but now I'm ready to give each block its own treatment.  Watch this space!

On an entirely unconnected with quilting topic, I noticed this moth on my laundry window on the weekend and just had to take a photo. Its quite a pretty moth, don't you think? Particularly if you ignore the disgusting state of my post-winter windows!

However, its even prettier on the underside!  I went inside and took this photo (unfortunately my windows don't look any better from that side!).

Aren't its antennae amazing?

While we're on the nature front, my husband is a keeper of birds, mostly native Australian finches but also some African ones as well, and at the moment he has a pair of Gouldians which are the friendliest birds he has ever had.  The male is particularly friendly and always comes up to say hello if you are standing outside the aviary. On the weekend I went in with him and took the camera and he and his lovely lady obliged by sitting right next to me for a photo:

Not sure what he was looking at but perhaps he didn't like my shoes! I'm hoping to get a family shot later as they have just had babies, we believe four in all but only two are out yet.  I wonder if they will be as friendly!

They're such colourful birds and with all that colour you would think they were from the tropical rainforest or somewhere when in fact they are from the grasslands in the Kymberleys.  Endangered in the wild but fighting back.

The young ones are real stickybeaks and get into mischief when they get to the awkward teenage stage and really get on the other birds' nerves sometimes!  Hilarious to watch though.

Anyway, a little off subject but just had to share.  Hope you're having a great week and that your windows are cleaner than mine - nearly time for their annual clean - any more than that and I must be trying to impress someone!

Cheers,

Craftsy BOM for September

Well, I have to say I was a bit apprehensive about September's blocks as I haven't tried curved piecing before.  I have one of the blocks finished and while it was quite time consuming, it did seem to work out quite well.  I did find the written instructions, particularly relating to preparing the fabric for the second block, a bit lacking this month.  I had to go back to the video tutorial again and get a better idea of what I needed.

I spent quite a while carefully cutting out all my pieces, a job that would have been easier had my rotary cutter blade been sharper!  I don't use my small rotary cutter very often but for this job it was essential, shame it was very blunt!  Never mind I got there in the end with all my fingers and templates intact!

This is the first block:

I haven't finished the second block yet as I was running out of sewing time and decided to work on my September Quilting Block Swap Australia block so I could post it while shopping yesterday.

My partner this month was Kym in Queensland and she asked for a log cabin in purple and yellow with an orange centre, shading from light in the centre to darker shades on the outside.  My only problem with this block was finding enough yellows as I seem to have used all mine somehow!  I did find a couple that would fit the bill at Spotlight and this is what I came up with:

I hope she likes it. Well that's it for me today, time to go catch up on all the Quilt Club Australia news!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fabric Happies!

As some of the online fabric stores had some great sales recently I succumbed and picked up some lovely new fabric. I do so love getting squishy parcels in the mail!

Firstly I bought these two pieces from equilter:

Then these lovelys from Pink Chalk Fabrics which I plan to use to make a bag for a friend for Christmas:

and these, well, just because!  I do seem to have bought a lot of pink and green lately so I'm pretty sure there will be a pink and green quilt coming somewhere down the line!

Then, lucky me, I won a $25 voucher for Wrapped in Fabric on Kristy's blog Quiet Play! Woo hoo! Thank you so much Kristy and Sandy at Wrapped in Fabric. What a great prize to win - guilt free fabric shopping (well nearly, I did go just a little over the $25, you know how it is!).  I went for some luscious colour there with these:

No idea what I'm going to use them for but I just loved them so now they live at my house!

Then the lovely Sally, one of the admins at the Rainbow Swaps and More Facebook page (a spin off of the Quilt Club Australia Facebook page), surprised me with these lovelies in the mail, wasn't that nice! The one on the right doesn't photograph well but its actually metallic gold print - its so pretty.

 I'm thinking those rainbow coloured reindeer might even make it into my rainbow quilt (if I ever get around to making it) using my rainbow charms from our swaps.  Sally has organised a competition for the best rainbow project so I have been bookmarking lots of ideas and inspirational photos but haven't got too involved in finalising my plans yet as I have too many other projects which MUST be finished for Christmas. Once they're out the way I'll be getting stuck into it!  Luckily I have until March so there's hope for me yet!

Thanks for reading my blog today,

Cheers,