Shaggy !

Or raggy, depending on who you are! I prefer shaggy myself. This one is flannelette and the second shaggy one I made. The first one was cotton. I like it but it isn't anywhere as snuggly and warm as a flannelette one. It is for The Princess and made for her first winter in 2004. It went everywhere with her. I guess that means she has more quilts than I thought she did!!

UnFinished Object

A 'UFO'. I started this one about 2 years ago, when I had nothing else to do and plenty of time to do appliqué. It isn't a quilt, it is a wall hanging and I have a wall for it out in the back room where it is always cold and echo'y. This will help cut down the echo'yness if and when I get it finished! All it needs is some appliqué around a few of the outer flowers, a middle and a backing.. some quilting, then a binding - not much at all.

Pockets

A wall-hanging for The Princess. I don't think she has enough wall space for all the hangings I have made and half made !!! This one has pockets for all her 'Princess Stuff' and when I find a 'landlord friendly' way to hang it, I will !! (does anyone have any ideas.. please?)

The background has calico on the back and the pockets are backed with calico too.. the were all bagged. All the pockets have beads or buttons sewn on them and some stitching too.

The Princess is checking to make sure all the beads and buttons are sewn on properly :)

Scraps Only!

This is called Harry's Zoo. I don't remember who the pattern is by, sorry. I made it only with fabric I had in my stash, I didn't buy anything for the top.. I did buy the backing, but it was on special!!

I didn't add wadding to it so I guess it isn't really a quilt. I wanted to use it as a summer-weight cover for those warm-but-not-hot-enough-for-no-covers night for The Princess. I never did use it for that because of all the work that went into it so I will one day stitch a hanging sleeve on the back and use it as a wall hanging.

Cushion

Today I made this cushion for my mum. I love the poem on it though I have no idea who wrote it. I went to the craft market held once a month at the local leisure centre and happened to stumble across the red hat fabric. I couldn't find any on eBay and had no idea where else to buy some. Lucky I went to the craft market!

I hope it washes ok, the ink is water proof apparently, but I don't have my bubble jet set yet so I don't know how it will hold up!.. or even if it would work any better with it.. I have some dyes coming - sometime - so I can dye my own purple fabric to go with the saying on the cushion!!

Nine Patch Blocks

I love nine patch blocks, they are useful to make a quick quilt when imagination leaves for a holiday. I didn't make all of the blocks in this quilt, they are the result of a 'swap'.

It is 'sort-of' hand-quilted. I did a running stitch around the borders and stitched in the centre of each square, using a DMC Perle cotton.

I tried to make it look scrappier by doing two colours sashings around the blocks and most of the time, people don't even notice they are different colours!!

I still have dozens of nine patch blocks left and each month or so I get 20 more. I used some on the back too.. just for something different. I was going for a pattern on the back but I didn't measure anything. When I laid them out to see how they fit, none of them seemed to fit so I mixed them up and sewed them together randomly. I could see after I did this, that they would have fit together in the pattern I wanted to do but I wasn't going to unsew them and resew them!!!

Bow Ties

I enjoyed making the first 4 blocks of this quilt. I then hated making the other 200 or however many there are. They are bow tie blocks with a '3D' centre, like a little pocket. It was fiddly and time-consuming and I made it in summer during a hot spell back in 2003 I think.
The blocks are black background with colourful music note fabric for the bow ties., and is quilted with neon green thread.
It looks a lot better in real life !!

Another One Of THOSE Quilts..

This is the one I made for my first Granddaughter but I wasn't happy with it, so she didn't get it.

I love the colours and the fact it looks like a totally different quilt to the other 2 because I did it 'scrappy'. I don't like the fact that I ran out of pink gingham and had to put blue gingham in two of the blocks instead. Maybe I was being too picky about it. The Princess loves it though, she lays it out on the floor and looks at all the different blocks, finding all the different pictures. When she isn't well, she lays on the lounge, snuggled under this quilt.

There is one more quilt version of this pattern.... !

The Other Baby Quilt

The other baby quilt I used gingham on, except it was blue this time.. This one was for my one and only (so far) grandson. Apparently he loves it to bits! I washed it before I gave it to his dad to give to him, that is why it looks lumpy - it is still wet! It looked a lot better when it was dry..

If I had the opportunity to make these quilts again, I would use something other than gingham on the back. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I was very much a beginner. With the 'stitch-in-the-ditch' quilting, it didn't line up with the stripes on the back. The recipients of these quilts don't know anything about quilting so I guess it isn't really important.

As long as the 'Quilt Police' never see them !!!

Second Quilt

The second quilt I made. It was for the girlfriend of the M.O.T.H.'s mate. It isn't a good picture because it was a 'real' photo that I scanned!

It comes from the book Patchwork Basics 1 and the pattern is by Bev Darby. Hers has teddies in it, but like most quilters, I liked the pattern but not the colours! I use this pattern for all the new babies in my circle of acquaintances, just changing the colour to either suit the babies gender or the amount of one particular colour fabric I have!! It is such a quick and easy pattern to do. I backed it with pink gingham for some reason. Never again !!!! It looks crooked and was quite difficult to get anywhere near straight.

But I did it again on another quilt! and that is another story.

Second Charity Quilt

This is the second charity quilt I have done. This one I quilted and bound. I just did 'stitch-in-the-ditch' quilting. I need to learn 'proper' machine quilting!! I did a class to learn the Thimblelady's Handquilting Technique, but I failed - horribly. I only know of one other person that failed.. and that is my friend J !!

No, I'm not that good, the last one was done 4 months ago!! This one was finished today. I wanted to have it finished by last Thursday Night (Guild night) but it didn't happen. I was hoping to do one a month but I missed last months Guild meeting because my babysitter had a family emergency, and I am slack so this sat in a corner while I thought about it for a while..

First Charity Quilt..

This is the very first Charity Quilt I put together. The Quilters Guild of South Australia has a charity sewing group called Southern Comforters. They take peoples orphan blocks or donated fabrics, unfinished tops and blocks and create something from it. I was (un)fortunate enough to get this one to finish piecing together. It is so very bright and garish, and the block colours are so similar in value, the pattern of the block can hardly be picked out. The colours are NOT colours I would use together. I only hope the person that gets this is blind or really, really likes these colours!!

Hearts

I am making a Healing Heart quilt for my daughter. After an unfortunate incident with her then boyfriend, she found herself in hospital with no knowledge of how she got there. All the lovely people at QDU made her hearts and I have finally sewn them together into a very large top. It will have a cotton batting and flannelette for the backing. I am considering having it professionally quilted because it is so large. But then I will have my new Janome 6600p sewing machine soon so maybe I will give it a go after all !!

I find it very interesting that when hearts are called for in a certain colour, there is always someone that doesn't read that bit or just refuses to send in the right colour. Her hearts were supposed to be light blue but there were pink ones and white ones. I know she loves them and I am very grateful to the people that put in the effort to send her one too.. Thank you all.

Orange !

I have made an orange quilt! I made it about 2 or so years ago. My youngest son (now aged 20 !) likes the colour orange. He says it is a bright and happy colour. This quilt is shades of orange and brown, done in 'stack and slash' pattern. It has a dark brown homespun backing and is quilted in bright, fluro orange polyester thread (in the days before I found Rasant). It has the same orange binding as the borders around each block and to bring out the colour of the orange, I used black sashing between each block. He uses the quilt all the time and just loves it.

Another sort of Patchwork..

I made this for my parents to take as they travel around the Eastern states with their caravan. It is quite cold over there during the winter months apparently. I have heard it snows too..

They are back in South Australia at the moment so I was able to give it to them - just as well as it would have cost quite a few dollars to post as it is heavy. They have been using it regularly as winter has arrived here recently and they say it is very warm!!

It took about 8 months to make from start to finish, working on it for about 3 - 4 hours a day. I really started it about 2 years ago but then my quilting got in the way and it got put to the side. Mum gave me a deadline to have it finished by, but I missed it by 3 days!! Ah well.. they have it now and are very happy with it..