Update After So Long!

Oh I have been a bad little blogger. Its been so long but things have been somewhat hectic here over the last few months.

First I had to pull back from everything to try to finish a charity challenge quilt for the Australian Machine Quilt Festival. Its the first time I've done something like that and I found it an interesting experience. It did teach me that I need time to think about my quilts at each stage so that I am happy with the final result. Fortunately the right idea for the quilting popped into my head in time and I got it finished and submitted. I will share a photo once they announce the results.

Around the same time my boss of 16 years told me that he was going to close our city office and work closer to his home in the southern suburbs. I wasn't really too surprised given that he will be 70 this year but it is a major change for me. I was only working 3 days a week but now I'm going to go back to working full time so that my other half can retire to rest his worn out knees and shoulders. He will be taking over all the domestic chores while I go back to work so that's a win for me!

Of course this has meant that I have been flat out putting in applications all over the place at the same time as trying to make sure I have all the loose ends tied up at work so the boss can run things himself from here on in. Anyway, something had to give so unfortunately it was the quilting and moreso the blogging.

The good news is that I have found a job (ended up getting 3 offers in one week!) and I start in two weeks, just after my son's 21st (something else I've been working on).  I'm now on two weeks holiday - yay!

So, what have I been up to? Mostly catching up on Splendid Sampler blocks really. I got a bit behind - about 16 or so blocks and have been slowly catching up. I am enjoying doing these blocks and seeing what pops up each week. Still catching up on the embroidered ones though. They seem to take so long compared to the pieced ones!

Here are my blocks so far in no particular order:

plus a couple more I finished after I took this photo. The one on the left took the longest of all of them so far. Lots of embroidery but I do love it. I have a few more with the embroidery to do and a couple of applique blocks to print out once I sort my printer out but I'm pretty well on track.

I'm thinking of using the same background fabric to sash them together with some silvery/grey fabric but haven't quite nailed the layout yet. I'd rather wait until I have them all together before I commit to a layout/border design.

I managed to finish a long outstanding UFO just in time for the end of the month. This quilt is one I made from blocks I received as part of Quilting Block Swaps Australia some time ago.

I added coloured borders to each block as I wanted something really colourful and laid them out on point. I don't think you can see it in these photos but the lower edge has the corners left off as I originally designed it to hang over a single bed, somewhat like a bedspread. Only flaw in that plan is that now we have no single beds in the house anymore! Not a real problem though as this is laid out on our queen bed and fits pretty well! Now that we have two retrievers I am discovering that my love of using black fabric is not such a great idea as everything in this place comes with a sprinkling of golden fur!

I quilted the blocks alternating between a spiral design:

 and a sort of flower design:

As it was on point I added some black corners and wedges at the top and sides and quilted a half star shape to match the blocks and then a wavy design similar to the design I used in the borders.

Overall I am very happy with it!

We have a 21st to get organised this week but I hope to do some quilting on my And Sew On quilt that I have had sandwiched waiting for some time now and get it up on my sewing room wall.

Hopefully I can find the time to pop in and blog now and again!

Cheers,
Sue