Gum blossoms and an oops!

We're enjoying the long Easter weekend at Port Hughes with Simon's parents as usual. And as usual, I've brought a selection of quilt projects and my sewing machine. Below are some gum blossoms cut from red fabric pre-fused to lite Steam-a-seam2. I cut rough ovals to start with, then snipped into them.

After positioning them, I free-motion appliqued them in place, using a zigzag pattern, roughly going up and down each spike in a variegated pink thread, than filling in a few of the gaps. Then I swapped to a lightly-variegated yellow thread to colour the centre. All this was done prior to sandwiching, then at the quilting stage, I free-motioned a zigzag around the outside again, using red BottomLine.

The photo above is before quilting.

After the applique was done, I trimmed the centre to size and added the border - 4in (finished) squares cut from the four gumnut babies fabrics.

I'm well through the quilting now; I've accentuated the tree by quilting closely around it in a perfectly-matching, but slightly darker King Tut thread, then filled around it with a swirl pattern. Below is what happened while I was stippling the border! Obviously, it was only through the glove. I don't let my fingers quite that close, but the side of the glove was being pushed away from my finger by the direction I was moving the quilt. Luckily, I caught it on the first stitch, and (after calling for the camera and having a good laugh) was able to slide my hand out, then use the handwheel the wind it backwards and 'undo' the stitch, then resume stitching without breaking thread!

While I've been working on my quilt, James has made a start on sewing his. I decided it was time to challenge him a bit and incorporate some half-square triangles into this design. He pinned the triangles together at home last week, and has started sewing them together.

I actually ended up bringing both sewing machines with us for the long weekend; here he is set up by the powerpoint next to the kitchen island. He's limited in his sewing time, as he doesn't want Eleanor to see (it's going to be a present for her birthday), so I'm staggering their naps when I can.