Border Options

So I have 2 border options for Stars In Court and I think I know which one I prefer but though I’d post both options here to see what you guys think.

I will be binding it in a pink that is close to the background of the yellow stars.

I’ll let you know on the weekend which one I went with

Option A – Butterflies

Option B – Turtles

I was going to use the turtles for the backing but looking  at the pattern I see that it wants 2.2m which I know I don’t have.

What I have would have been enough if I had of stuck to my original plan of making it square and smaller than the pattern but at the last minute I went “what the heck! I’ll make it the same size as what they say…..”

However, I saw at Spotlight last weekend that they have it again but a shade darker so I might (ha! who am I kidding?) will mosey on down on the weekend with my current turtles and see how different they are.

I’ll also look in my sewing room to see if I have something suitable regardless, so that potentially I don’t have to buy any more fabric.

So votes please

Option A or Option B?

P.S – I didn’t buy the Jelly Roll ’cause it was going to cost $12 in shipping which I didn’t think was worth paying for.  And I could have bought more fabric to make it worth it but I couldn’t find anything else that ”talked” to me.

Good thing too cause I hit Target after work for some new jeans and ended up buying way more than I intended

Pretties

I’m planning on getting Stars in Court hopefully all pieced together by the end of this week and with that in mind I knew that I would also have to get some wadding so that I could at least get it to the layered stage by the end of the weekend.

So whilst I was wandering around after my chiro appointment tonight I thought I’d drop into Quiltaholics to pick up some wadding.

Despite walking in with the best of intentions I ended up coming home with these pretties:

I first spied the black fabric and decided immediately that it would have to come home with me to go into my Butterfly Garden.

And then we all know that if you buy the black you have to buy the matching white fabric so that had to come home too 

As Cheryl was busy cutting flannel (lots and lots of flannel) for another quilter I found the red fabric which is one of my favourites in the reduced fabric bin as it is an off cut.

Right, now, I’m off to try and talk myself out of buying an Oh Cherry Oh Jelly Roll for USD$21.

I don’t think I’m going to have much luck though!

2009: Finish #5.3

H is for Harry;

R is for Riley;

O is for Ollie;

My Mum had her partner’s eldest daughter, her husband and two children down (in Mt Gambier) at her house a few months ago.

And apparently they all sat down for dinner and the adults had their placemats but there weren’t any for the little ones – Harry and Riley.

Harry is 2 and Riley is nearly 1.

Ollie is their cousin and is a few months younger than Riley.

Of course, Riley has no idea about placemats and the like but Harry does and he asked where his placemat was.

-The thing this child says and does is funny as but that is an entirely different story altogether!-

Anyways, Mum told me the story and I was thinking about it and decided that it wouldn’t be all that hard to make him his own placemat.

So along with an extra 4 for Mum incase she has more visitors than placemats in the future I also made a H for Harry.

Apparently it was a real hit when he went down next.

The R and the O?  Well, we all know that you can’t make one child a placemat without making one for the others!

2009 list

1. Blue Ladybirds – done 2/3/09
2. Memories of Spring – done 23/3/09
   
3. Blue Pinwheels – done 19/4/09
4. Green Pineapple Blossoms – done 24/4/09
5. 19 Placemats (4 Mum – done 13/5/09, 2 Xmas – done 29/6/09, 3 Boys – done 5/7/09, 8 Spare – done 6/6/09)
6. Dorothy’s Quilt – done 9/6/09
7. Berries for Breakfast
8. Snail’s Trails
9. Chelsea Steps
10. It’s Puzzling
11. Asian Hearts
12. Galaxy of Scraps
13. 9 Patch Medley
14. Thousand Triangles
15. Bento Box
16. Stars in Court
17. Kokeshi Dolls
18. Choc Coconut Ice
19. 12 placemats

2009: Finish #5.2

I made Grandma 6 of these Xmas placemats in December 2007.

I then for whatever reason decided that she needed another 4 and so kept the fabric aside to do so.

I kept on meaning to make them last year and they hung over my head like a bad smell until finally I decided enough was enough and I would get them done this year or else!

So one Friday night in May I thought I’d just get them over and done with so I pulled all the fabric out of the box that I kept them in and got to cutting and sewing.

It was at this point that I realised I didn’t have enough of the cream fabric to make a further 4 so it just became 2.

And really, there won’t ever be more than 8 coming over for Xmas dinner anyways so we don’t really need the extra 2.  If for whatever reason in the future we do, well then I guess I’ll make another matching set of 4 or something like that and we can mix and match

I finally finished sewing the binding on these 2 very early Monday 29th June whilst I was waiting for Grandma to be taken in for her Carpal tunnel surgery.

2009 list

1. Blue Ladybirds – done 2/3/09
2. Memories of Spring – done 23/3/09
   
3. Blue Pinwheels – done 19/4/09
4. Green Pineapple Blossoms – done 24/4/09
5. 19 Placemats (4 Mum – done 13/5/09, 2 Xmas – done 29/6/09, 3 Boys, 8 Spare – done 6/6/09)
6. Dorothy’s Quilt – done 9/6/09
7. Berries for Breakfast
8. Snail’s Trails
9. Chelsea Steps
10. It’s Puzzling
11. Asian Hearts
12. Galaxy of Scraps
13. 9 Patch Medley
14. Thousand Triangles
15. Bento Box
16. Stars in Court
17. Kokeshi Dolls
18. Choc Coconut Ice

I Did It!

I’ve been a bit blah lately and haven’t seem to be motivated enough to do anything quilty.

That and I’ve had Snails Trails on the sewing machine for the past 3 weeks trying to get it finished.

However, I decided that I would actually finish the quilting and sew the binding onto the front this weekend no matter what!

Sure, I didn’t actually get anything else done; like washing my car or tidying the study but I did finish Snails Trails like I set out to do

My trouble is is that I easily get distracted when I’m quilting so it does tend to take me a bit longer to finish things than I plan!

Whilst I was quilting I was also tidying up and have now picked out some fabric for Stars & Pinwheels…

Don’t those colours look yummy?  I can’t wait to start on this quilt….

I also found 9 pieces of wadding already cut out for some placemats *groan*

Obviously at some point I cut these bits out for my next lot of placemats and have then convienently forgotten that I did that so when I did my last lot I cut the wadding out from my big bits again.

I’m now thinking that to get rid of the wadding, more placemats are in my future unfortunately :’(

So, that was my weekend.  How was yours?  Good I hope

Bound & Determined

I’m still working on finishing the quilting for Snails Trails.

Looking at it I don’t think I have all that much to do so I’m making it my weekend goal to have the quilting finished with the binding sewn onto the front by the end of the weekend.

After that I’m going to finish the placemats that I started oh so long ago.

I’m also going to start appliquing the stars that I’ve prepared for my Stars in Court quilt.

I want to also get that one finished by the end of July.

I have plans for it which don’t include sitting in my sewing room half finished!

Pottering Around

Grandma had Carpal Tunnel surgery yesterday so I’ve taken the Monday and Tuesday off so that I can look after her.

So I’ve been doing the little things around the house that she normally does and having to make sure that I do it exactly how she likes it.  Or else!

I’ve also been working on finishing the last of my placemats and have nearly finished them.  I’ll post some pics when they are finally done.

And then I’ve also decided to just quilt a few quilts to get them 1. off my list and 2. just done already

This one is called Snails Trails and I’m finding it hard to quilt as it is so big and chunky.

I’m very tempted to quit and bundle it up and ask someone else toquilt it however, I have  few more at this size and so really need to learn how to do it myself.

The size of  it makes me not want to sit there and do it purely on how long I know it will take to quilt so for the past week I’ve been doing a half hour here and a half hour there on it.

It is far from finished but I’m hoping that I will have a majority of it done before the end of today.

I hope you are all having a lovely day and are safe and warm out of this windy, chilly weather

Quilting Dilemma

I’ve been working on this quilt for quite some time.

The pinwheels have been made as leader enders for quite a few of my already finished tops.

The half square triangles are 1.5′ unfinished and it seems like there are millions of them!  I thought I’d never get this quilt done!

However, the past week or so, I have been working on it and concentrating solely on finishing the top.

Why?

I have no idea.  I just feel like I want it finished and done.

*Edit: Wait!  I remember now.  I needed the box that I was holding it’s bits in for the next quilt that I have my eye on starting.  It’s Mary’s Pinwheels and Stars*

I’ve just finished the last stitch to bring it to a flimsy and will go and layer it when I’ve finished this post but I thought I’d quickly show you what I’m up to.

I am also a bit stuck on how to quilt it though, it has a ginormous amount of seams and if I do my normal meander I know I’ll have to ’suffer’ through a lot of stunt quilting.

But I don’t have any other quilting methods up my sleeve to use.

Well, other than stitch in a ditch.

Which I have thought about and I was contemplating doing it on either side of the seams but then that leaves all the pinwheels without quilting and that won’t work either.

Hmmmm.

Do you guys have any ideas?

2009: Finish #6

I’ve been debating about whether I should put this one on my finished list but then I figured, if I’m going to put other placemats and wall hangings on the finished list then this can be put on there too!

This little quilt was a very quick and easy one from start to finish.

I made the top in one night in April, quilted the top yesterday and finished the binding on it at lunch today!

I’ve already found a place for it in my room too

So now it is onto the rest of the list….

BTW, have you guys seen Mary’s latest quilt pattern?  The pink and green looks just gorgeous and in a perfect coincidence I so happen to have some half square green and cream triangles left over from my Pinapple Blossom.

My fingers are itching to start it but I’ve now made myself a pact that I won’t.  Not until I finish a few more off my list below.

2009 list

1. Blue Ladybirds – done 2/3/09
2. Memories of Spring – done 23/3/09
   
3. Blue Pinwheels – done 19/4/09
4. Green Pineapple Blossoms – done 24/4/09
5. 19 Placemats (4 Mum – done 13/5/09, 2 Xmas, 3 Boys, 8 Spare – done 6/6/09)
6. Dorothy’s Quilt – done 9/6/09
7. Berries for Breakfast
8. Snail’s Trails
9. Chelsea Steps
10. It’s Puzzling
11. Asian Hearts
12. Galaxy of Scraps
13. 9 Patch Medley
14. Thousand Triangles
15. Bento Box
16. Stars in Court
17. Kokeshi Dolls
18. Choc Coconut Ice

Making Progress

Mum and her partner were down this weekend as it was a long weekend and it is my ‘baby’ brother’s birthday tomorrow.

It was nice to hang with them and spend some more time with my Mum.

Mum asked to go shopping on Saturday at West Lakes and somehow a new handbag made it’s way home with my but it is super cute and has bling on it so I just could not resist.

Saturday night we went out to dinner for my brother’s birthday.

Sunday was pretty much spent at home and this morning I convinced them to take me out to breakfast.

We went to Evida which is my most favouritist breakfast place.  Good food, great coffee & fantastic views; what more could a girl want?

After breakfast it was time for Mum and her partner to leave and I got down the serious (:P) business of spending time at the sewing machine.

I’ve finished the day with the quilting and the binding sewn onto Dorothy’s Quilt and the same again for one of my Xmas Placemats so I feel like I’ve made some progress on my UFO list.

I’ve also managed to handsew down the letters for the next 2 boy’s placemats so all I have to do with them now is quilt them and bind them.

Then once they are done it’s just 1 more Xmas placemat left and I’m out of my Placemat Hell.

I can’t wait

Hope you all had a good long weekend.

I just wish it wasn’t so long to the next one…….