Sunday Stash

This week's incoming:
More beach prints with the boy's quilt in mind... Potentials for the girl's quilt...

And the obligatory 'just because' slecetion to fill the envelope:

Stash = 1.208km - and plenty due in this week, too!

Celebration

Today we had Eleanor's 2nd birthday party. Here she is in her new dress and jewels:
The slide was intended to keep her hair out of her eyes, but lasted all of about 3 minutes!

The dress looks very dark and heavy and too old in the photos, but it is actually a soft, light, slightly shimmery stretch-velvet - she kept stroking it and saying. "nice and soft". It came with a large pale pink satin bow and diamante trim which I unpicked last night.

I tok a few quick snaps as soon as she was dressed. I'll have to wait for other peoples' photos for more, I didn't get behind the camera much! Self-portrait:

James on Eleanor's new climbing frame - finally replacing his which was smashed when the tree fell late last year!

Eleanor's cake - much simpler than last year's quilt cake; a lady bird pretty much straight out of the AWW Party Animals cake book:

Simon's parents got her a scooter like James'. I think it was the biggest hit. Until now she's used James' scooter on occasion, and mostly walks astride it. But with one of her own and some time after the guests loeft tonight, she's proud of herself for figuring out how to actually scoot. It might be very slowly so far -but it's a lot more fun than walking the thing around!

Medallion

It's done! Well, the quilting, at least. I still have to trim, bind and label it. Here are a few photos of the quilting from the back.
The square above is just over 24in; the feathered heart is 10.5in across at its widest point. It's far from perfect, but the imperfections are less obvious from the front, where the fabric

is busier. I marked the heart's spine, and the inner and outer hit-lines in a blue clover water-soluble pen. It went on well, and after taking these photos, I pressed a wet cloth over ther heart, and it seems to have come out well - though it's still wet now. I varied a little from what I could remember we decided to do, because when I tested out some of the ideas on scraps, they looked wrong. The leaves worked well, though.

So far I've spent about 9 hours on it. I'll show the whole thing once the binding is on.

Expansion

There's room to swing a cat through my new machine!
Or at least, a toy poodle, with the assistance of a treat! Thanks, Shadow.

That's the full width of a large king-size quilt slipped (yes, slipped) through there. I didn't roll or squash it, and there's still plenty of room to move. Ahhhhh.

Expression

James 'butterflying' for Nanny last night (note the 'antlers'!):

It was quite a routine, complete with singing (and a lot of giggles and shrieks!).

Action

Sometime over summer, my brother-in-law's mother-in-law (who I do know quite well) asked me if I'd take on a quilting job; her neighbour (I think) had pieced a queen-size top years ago, and just wanted it finished. I agreed, and they brought it up one night to discuss options (and consume Baileys and chocolate!). She already had the backing, and I got the batting immediately.

From the start I knew to would be a while before I got around to it; I already had several looming deadlines. Then I ordered my new machine, and it seemed silly to tackle such a big quilt on my old machine when I had one with so much more space on the way. Then there were the frustrations with the machine, and some smaller projects. Now I feel I'd better get on with this.
In three hours tonight, I've pieced the back (you can see a little of it folded over at the top right) pressed the lot, and sandwiched and pinned it all. And discovered that it is really a large king-size quilt!

Completion

I finished Obsession, complete with its finnicky flange/binding combination over the weekend, and took it and another 3 quilts outside to photograph properly.
I'm still undecided about its final destination. I had thought about it being my contribution to the ALQS3 Art Quilt Swap but am not sure it's arty enough and may make something else.

Above is a close-up of the centre quilting, and below is the a corner of the binding and peeper border/flange - which worked so well I'm nearly finished adding the same to my other quilt.

And here are a couple of details of the McTavishing - click on any image for a closer look. I've just ordered a couple of Karen's books (and a few children's titles) from the Book Deposoitory.

Obsession

Here's the next McTavished applique wallhanging. I've decided an appropriate name for it is Obsession!
These photos were again taken inside, in the wee hours of the morning. I might get outside tomorrow with a stack of quilts and photograph them properly if the weather stays fine. After machine appliqueing using clear monofilament, I first quilted closely around all the applique, something I should have done on the last one. Then I got stuck into the McTavishing. Lots of good practice. I prefer the way the quliting radiates out with the design of the first quilt, but I'm happy with this, too.

And I'm happy to report almost no skipped stitches. I had stocked up on quilting needles, but am going to have to go and get the embroidery ones (with the larger eye) as that's the one that seems the most effective. There was one in the selection that came with the machine, and it's not going to last long at this rate!

I'm preparing the binding for these two. I have what would appear to be the perfect stripe (in terms of colours) for this one, but it just doesn't work, so I'm going with one of the fairy frosts. I'm also taking Simon's comments on board, and am adding a narrow flange peeper border of another fairy frost as I go - I hope I can keep it even. I'm suspicious that fairy frosts mightn't be the easiest to handsew down on the back, but I hope I don't have too much trouble, as the other is being bound in another colour of the same!

Continuation

This is what's currently under the needle; a new mini applique project to McTavish.
Margaret was spot-on with her suggestion of ivory over white for this one, but I'm still dithering between this and the black and white stripes in the post below.
Meanwhile, I have something to work on!

Indecision

I've settled on a layout (this was my favourite, and it seemed a popular choice, though they all got votes) but a comment from Margaret prompted me to audition several backgrounds other than white-on-white. I want to use white-on-white because I'm desperate to do more McTavishing...
... but this is awfully effective:

So I'm putting it aside while I consider a) how I might quilt the second option and b) another design I can McTavish! What do you think?