Little Birdie

Tonight I wanted to share a beautiful little painting I bought from Valori Wells a little while ago.

It's only small (6in) but when I saw it on her blog, I couldn't get it out of my head. So after an email conversation with her, I bought the painting, and simply had to buy several yards of one of her Della owl flannels to protect it in its voyage - and conveniently use in the snuggle quilts I'm working on.

Some very similar little birdies feature in her gorgeous new fabric range Nest, which is due out soon.

Fast and slow

This evening I finished, sandwiched and quilted the baby quilt. It really didn't take long; basically because I didn't have to deal with stopping for skipped stitches or needle or thread breakages.

I feathered the sections of coins between the minkee using a beautiful variegated King Tut thread - but I must learn when to use variegated threads for feathers; it wasn't quite right here. The minkee may have been a pain to sew, but Eleanor simply loved stroking it and finding the soft parts, so I think it will be perfect for a baby.

I did consider feathering the sashing as well, but decided to take the fast option and stipple it, since it's 'just' a baby's quilt, and there's that mammoth to do list! I haven't added the binding yet, since I still have the machine set for FMQing, and am keeping it that way until the next quilt is all quilted - otherwise I might never start on it again...

...Because then I went back to the customer's quilt, and the problems all started again. I'm wondering if it's because that quilt was spray-basted, since every time I have a go on a practice sandwich, I have no problems,and that's the only difference I can think of. I did get a couple of blocks finished, and finally completed the stipple down one long border, but not without breaking another 6 or 7 needles and lots of other unplanned and unwelcome stops.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival is on again!

The 3rd Bloggers' Quilt Festival is coming soon. From the 21st to the 28th of May, hundreds of bloggers will be showcasing their quilts. Amy's blog will have links to all of the entries, which have photos and stories of the quilts. Start thinking about what quilt you're going to enter - and remember to set aside some lots of time that week to start looking through the virtual quilt show!

Click here for all the details

Too much!

I'm way behind on my quilts. To make matters worse, babies keep arriving, and 3 of the 5 I know which were born this week alone, need quilts making!

What to do when I'm behind? Start more, of course! I don't think I've ever had this many quilts actively on the go. Quite aside from any which I've no deadline for and haven't worked on recently, I have the following in progress...

First is the Owls and Squirrels quilt; it's single bed size, and just needs 4 simple blocks making to finish a border , then the final plain border adding, then it's ready to sandwich and quilt.

I put this aside to quilt a customer's top. That's about half-done, but I was having way too many skipped stitches and thread breakages, and put that aside for a day of two, in the hopes the machine will ebhave tiself when I get back to it - probably tomorrrow evening. The new Bottom Line threads I needed arrived yesterday. Despite ordering and paying for the 1420yd spools, they sent me toe 3000yd cones, which unfortunately don't fit in my machine, and I haven't found a set-up which works while FMQing, so I've been winding some of them by hand onto spare cotton reels in 'spare' moments. Fun!

The pile of flannels has been calling to me from its shelf in the new cupboards. I don't have many; I'm trying to be careful not to start a second stash. But I won some from Valori Wells, and bought a few more to go with them to make snuggly winter quilt for James and Eleanor. So I started on these when the quilting was driving me nuts. They're simply pieced, with large pieces to showcase Valori's beautiful large prints. James and Eleanor are especially taken with the owls, and call them Hoot, after the owl who co-hosts ABC Kids.

I cut enough pieces to make more than enough block for large quilts for both kids and myself. Each finished block is 9in, in about 10 piecing variations based on the 9-patch.This afternoon while Eleanor napped and James was at kindy, I laid out the blocks for James' and Eleanor's. One is now all joined, ready to sandwich and the other is ready to join. I still have to work out the layout of mine.

I bought some backings this morning; pale purple minkee for James' and Eleanor's, and some deep aqua flannel for mine. I decided to use a little of the minkee to give some texture in a quick chinese coins quilt for one of the new arrivals, but won't be doing that again in a rush. The pile on the minkee makes it a pain to piece accurately!

The stacks of coins shown here are now pieced and sashed and only need a few border pieces adding, then this quilt will be ready to sandwich as well. I'm so glad they had a girl - girls' quilts are much easier to design and select fabrics for!

So...what next?!

Belated

At long last, here are some decent photos of the beautiful quilt I received from the very talented Nanette (Nanotchka) in DQS8.

I'm embarrassingly late blogging it; first I was away, then the first photos weren't as sharp as I wanted... and then I realised I was putting it off simply because it had been so long - a bad habit!

Its is a beatiful little quilt, just perfectly made.

I love the effect of the quilting.

Thank you again Nanette, and apologies for taking so long to get it up here!

PIF gifts received

A while ago I signed up for a friend's Pay it Forward. Juni and I were friends well before we started blogging, although now we live in different cities we see each other rarely. I sent out the quilts I made late last year, and this week I received my gifts - although James and Eleanor were quick to claim them.

First up was a gorgeous pair of monkey finger puppets.

Special thanks for making two the same to eliminate any arguments!!!

I'm not sure how many times since they arrived I've heard, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" - but it's a lot! James thought it fun to wobble precariously on the step-ladder as he sang - presumably to increase the risk of falling and bumping his head???

Next there was this pretty tissue-holder, which I had to wrestle back into my posession...

There was also a lovely purse, which I would rather like myself, but Eleanor thinks it's hers - and she spent ages playing hide-and-seek with her monkey in it.

Thank you!

May Giveaway Day

I've decided to participate in Sew Mama Sew's May Giveaway Day this year - come back on the 17th for giveaway details!

Customer quilting

I started quilting a customer's top this week. Here's a peek at the first block - from the back, so you can actually see what I've done! I created a filler from a leaf shape - fairly simple to look at, but more time-consuming than I'd expected.

I'm using Bottom Line threads (and have ordered a few more colours) which are giving lovely texture without detracting from the beautiful applique. In most places I'm using matching threads, but there are a few random plain filler blocks in the pattern, which I plan to quilt in contrast colours for a bit of fun.

Seeing Stars

Believe it or not, I haven't stopped working on the owls and squirrels quilt - but the next border has taken quite some time.

It consists of 28 of these stars - each with 32 pieces! I haven't yet done the four corner blocks, which are slightly different - and thankfully have rather fewer pieces!

Lilac Soda in AP&Q

I didn't properly blog this quilt when I finished it, and decided to save the detail photos for when it came out in Australian Patchwork & Quilting vol 19 no 2, so here you go. Unfortunately they were taken with the old camera, so aren't as sharp as I'd like.

This was one of my early quilts on my new machine, and I was still playing with settings.

One of the main reasons I wanted to make this quilt were to feather the white parts of the swirls as I did on Breaking Surf.

For some reason I found this shape really easy to feather.

And then it was fun adding in little swirls and scrolls on the rest of the quilt. This quilt has absolutely no quilting in-the-ditch!

I used more of my favourite purple leaf print in this quilt - then got help from my friendly blog readers to find more and stocked-up! Thanks in particular to Annie for that!

I'm not yet sure what this quilt's final desination will be. As much as I love it, I don't really need more quilts in this size

I think perhaps if a certain new arrival turns out to be a girl, I may just be able to part with it for the right mother.

For now I'll get back to the owls and squirrels quilt.

But my next quilt is going to use this swirl block again - in a totally different way.

My quilts in AP&Q - some details

For those that are interested, below are photos of the quilts which were shown; most of the names are links which will take you to a full post about the quilt, and some detailed photos.

Starburst

Falling

(Part of my tree series, and for which there is a pattern available in my Etsy shop, under the name of an earlier version, Winter Harvest.)

No Pot of Gold (incorrectly labelled in the magazine) and another post about it here

Nurture also blogged here.

Rory's Rockets

Electric Quilt 7

The Electric Quilt company is shortly releasing EQ7, and I can't wait!

I bought EQ5 years ago, and use it to design most of my quilts. I love it! I lusted after the EQ6 upgrade a few years ago, but was still learning even more things EQ5 could do, and invested in further fabric instead. I don't mean to suggest it's hard to use - in fact the opposite is true - but every now and then I think of something else I want to try, and look it up. But only a few months ago I was thinking I really was ready to upgrade, and decided it probably wouldn't be too long until EQ7, and I'd wait. It seems that was a smart move!

Even though I'm still learning more of what EQ5 can do, I can see that EQ7 has some amazing new functionality to make quilt design easier, faster, and lots more fun.

Below is a selection of quilts I designed solely in EQ5:

Eleanor's Quilt

Reflections of Autumn

Twinkle, Twinkle

Swimming in the Sun

Daydreams

Rory's Rockets

Breaking Surf

Beachside Blossoms

Starburst

Nurture

Iced Chocolate

Snow Dance