Quilt Block a Day - Guest Tutor - Me!

I just had to share some exciting news - well, exciting to me!

You may not be aware of a Facebook group now being run by Marti (from 52quilts.com) called A Quilt Block A Day.  The idea is to make just one block a day so that you have all the blocks you need for a quilt in next to no time.

Each season Marti picks a new block and this time she chose my tutorial for my recent finish "Rainbow Lattice". How exciting to think that people all over the world might be making their own versions of my little quilt!

If you're interested in taking part, here is a link to Marti's post and also to the Facebook group.

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

What a week that was!

Phew, what a busy week! First it was a long weekend so no work on Monday - tough right? Back to work on Tuesday for me and as I was taking Friday off to head off to a sewing weekend, Tuesday was my whole working week (I have it so hard working three days a week!).  Downside of that is that I had to squeeze 3 days of work into one day but I got there.

Wednesday saw me zooming about tidying up, washing clothes etc and cleaning so the house would hopefully still look respectable when I came back from my weekend away (despite being inhabited by my hubby and two grown sons). Then I managed to fit in some sewing time trying to ditch stitch the sashings on my QBSA star quilt when things came to a screaming halt. One minute we're stitching along like best friends and the next my machine threw a hissy fit and started loopy sewing underneath - what happened? I tried everything to fix it - rethreaded, different thread, bobbin clean (even though it was clearly a top thread issue), change from walking foot to standard foot, check the feed dogs were still up and no improvement. Rats!  Clearly this machine did not care to go away for a weekend with 6 lovely ladies and a sea view - hard to please.

First thing the next  morning off I went to Homecraft on North East Road, Windsor Gardens and explained my issue. Turns out it definitely wasn't my blunder but a tension issue, as in there was none at all.  I left it with the lovely Frank who told me he might be able to get it fixed the same day so I could still take it away the next day. I could have kissed him!

Off to do the grocery shopping - get there and discover the list and my husband's prescriptions are back home, so back home I go.  Take two - back to the shops and groceries sorted, home to put away and eat lunch (at 2.30!). More washing and then off to the library and home again. Pack my clothes for the weekend and dither about wondering if I will have a machine so what will I take? Then, yay the phone call telling me my machine is all fixed and ready to go. Back in the car to pick her up and promise eternal devotion to Frank! Back home again to sort out what I will take now that I definitely have my machine again - wait a minute we haven't had tea yet or walked the dog - off to get takeaways and sorry Livvie, now its dark!

Friday dawns and its a gorgeous, perfect day to head to the seaside for a weekend of sewing, laughs, chit chat, food and fun and it was all those things! Here we have the lovely Doreen, Pauline and Kerrie (my sister-in-law) hard at work:

and Gaye (my other sister in law) making dolls clothes using a pattern (which she hates doing apparently):

We hadn't been in the place more than 5 minutes and this guy showed up. He turns up every time we come here and of course its the same seagull every time, we can tell!

My bestie and I made bags to hold our travelling irons which also open out to be pressing mats using this tutorial.  Mine is the blue one and Kerry's has the butterflies.

Then I put these blocks together. These came from my various swap partners in the Quilt Block Swaps Australia group and were made using this tutorial.  When its finished I plan to donate the quilt to Mary Potter Hospice here in Adelaide. 

This was a quilt Kerry was working on for her niece. Just needs to pop the border on and its ready to quilt:

Doreen was working on a quilt of all purple appliqued blocks using shapes she cut using her Accuquilt Go! cutter.

Doreen was also the chef for our Saturday lunch which was really brekkie but who's interested in labels? After a discussion about them last time we went away she made us some oatcakes along with a lovely warm tomato sauce and some crispy bacon and eggs, yum!

Sunset on Saturday:

Kerry and I had a crack at making fabric baskets but while they turned out well the instructions left a bit to be desired so we're going to make more but try a different method. Any suggestions for a user friendly tutorial/pattern? Here is mine:

and here is Kerry's:

Here's all my weekend's achievements. Some string blocks on the left (9 in all), one of my scrappy blocks, iron bag/pressing mat, fabric bag, fabric bowl, and quilt top. I did also make one crumb quilt block out of my tiny scrappy pieces but I can't find it for the life of me. I have no idea where it went but I'm sure I made one!

Kerry and I both felt we had a really productive weekend - can't wait to do it again, this time in late August.

And the icing on the cake was when I got home and a parcel of lovely Aurifil threads was waiting for me so now I'm ready to finish quilting my March project................after I recover from the week that was!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my blog!

This Month's UFO and Other Bits and Bobs!

This month my UFO is to finish and quilt my quilt made from my Quilt Block Swap Australia star blocks. Some time ago (and without checking I'm not sure if it was last year or the one before!) I added some coloured sashing to each block and put them together on point with black sashing. I finished up with a quilt with the corners missing and I couldn't decide if I wanted to leave it that way or not and it got pushed to the side. Its number did come up last year but I was in the middle of finishing my brother's birthday quilt and so it got pushed to the side again.

No more excuses, a decision needed to be made!  Not exactly helped by my dog who insisted on parking herself on the quilt when I tried to spread it out for a look.  No quilt is complete without her input!

Okay so lets try that again but without the dog model! So as you can see no corners but I kind of like it that way. In the end I decided it was an awkward shape for a bed and this quilt is really a double bed size or a generous king single. 

I liked the way it worked at the foot of the bed (sorry I don't have a photo on the bed) but it didn't look right at the top so I decided to add black corners to the top only, a relatively easy fix. I plan to quilt some star shapes into the black to add interest as I had thought I might add half stars to the corners but I think adding interest in the quilting will be the way to go.

I managed to get it sandwiched and ready to quilt (having just exactly the right amount of wadding left from my last purchase), only to find I don't have any black quilting thread....sigh! I'm happy to get some colour happening on the stars but I do want to stabilise it by ditch stitching the black sashing so looks like I'll need to order some.

As luck would have it I received a lovely Aurifil colour chart in the mail last week which I ordered from Ms Midge. 

 I might have to try some of these lovely variegated threads!

Thanks for visiting my blog today,

My very first tutorial - Rainbow Lattice

Exciting news - well for me anyway!

I've written my first tutorial! And after much fiddling about I've finally figured out how to link it to my blog.

You might have noticed before that I have a separate page tab at the top for Tutorials however it has been empty since I put it there - but no longer!  My Rainbow Lattice quilt now has its very own tutorial.

I must thank the lovely Catherine who kindly tested my tutorial for me and made this great quilt top:

Didn't it turn out well?!

If you use my tutorial I'd love to see a photo of what you make and I welcome any feedback you may have.

Thanks for visiting and thanks again Catherine!