WIP - one finish, one start and one in between!

Hi everyone!

I can't believe it's Wednesday again. Selling a house and buying another (but not in that order) is exhausting.
And we've hardly done any packing yet!

So I was very happy to sit down and hand stitch the back of the binding on the Flower Fairyland quilt. I know there are methods to do it all by machine, but I find it soothing to do that bit by hand. Well, more than just a bit - it's a long way around all my quilts, since they all turn out large!!

Now the quilt is completely finished and can take up a whole suitcase or carryon when I have time to fly to see my family on Vancouver Island, BC.

Here's a closeup of some of the quilting

and my little joke of a signature, to be found hiding somewhere on every quilt back:

I love skulls, humorous more than sinister! I know, I know, my daughter says "you're just wierd Mom"!

Here's another finish, and a start at the same time. This square is left over from Elizabeth's Red and White Challenge. I ran out of red , so decided to add this dot, left over from the binding of Flower Fairyland. I think it looks good. It's more than red and white though, it's red and white and blue and green and brown and gold now :)  I'm thinking I'll take my orphan squares and put them together, with nothing more in common than that. Wonder how it'll look. I'd like this square set on point.

I needed a project for a day's quilting on Saturday, so I picked up my Laurel Burch project, called Sunshine Daydream, and tried to decide how to finish the quilting. Luckily the ladies at the quilting retreat are all very experienced, and I got some good advice. Which I didn't take, (typical), but it got me moving again. All the squares were already stitched in the ditch, so I've got the centers of the blocks started. They are all different, so the outline quilting is all different too. There are still the setting squares and the border to finish after that. Quite a few more hours to go. I'm happy with how it's going now, I won't be unpicking this quilting!

It's hard to see the quilting in this square, but it goes around the flower and the moon, the sun, and quite a few of the sun's rays.

Here's the quilt back, pale blue batik. You can see the quilting that goes round the squares, and on the left is some of the outline quilting I'm doing.






The new project I'm thinking about will be in my next post. This one is pretty long already.


Take a look at all the great WIPs people are working on. There's so much creativity to be seen.

 Here's the link , thanks Lee!!

  

Until next time

Sue

Fresh Sewing Day

                                                       

Today is the first day of June, and a chance to look back at the projects I worked on in May. This is an idea from Lily's Quilts, I love it! It's a chance to admire what other quilters have been making, and to reflect on my own quilting projects.

If there is a word to describe this month's quilting it would be "stalled", as in run out of gas during rush hour traffic!

My Flower Fairland quilt is still waiting for a half yd of fabric to finish the last 3 squares. The missing fabric is on the way, but if it doesn't come today or tomorrow it may get caught up in the threatened postal strike, oh dear. It could be stalled for a while. I've sashed about half of it, and that's as far as I can get.
Here's a picture of a few rows, as you see the centers of the blocks are 2 different shapes, so the sashing will deliberately not line up. I hope it looks OK when all put together, it's my own creation!

                                       These are pictures of some of my favourite blocks:

                                      Central Park is stalled too. Here's a picture of it so far:

        I've run out of the ivory background fabric, the quilt to date is 11 squares wide and 8 squares long. I calculate it should be 11 x 13, so lots more to do.

I'm also collecting fabric for an I Spy quilt, that should be a lot of fun to do! Here's a pic of one I saw at the Quilt Festival:

                           doesn't it look great?   Makes you want to play I Spy right away!

Until next time,

Sue