Catching up on...

...sleep and craft. We are just back from a one month family holiday in the UK. We visited the mister's family in south-west England and took some time out to visit a remote island off the west coast of Scotland - South Uist. It was a marvellous, action packed and emotional time. It may be obvious but England is very, very, very far from Australia. I did the flight on my own a few years ago. Completely different with a super active almost 2 year old. Sheesh, that 30 hours traveling time seemed a lifetime!We all coped quite well with the jetlag on arrival, adjusting within a few days.

Not so on the return. My little monkey's body clock was completely out of whack. Day time at night time.He really wasn't in any time zone that we could work out. We had a week of nocturnal play time. As hubby returned to work this week I was flying solo. Finally, after a week of minuscule sleep and a sick toddler we seem to be getting on top of things once more.

One upside to being awake all hours is I got the chance to catch up on my QAL blocks albeit in a piecemeal fashion. Despite not really gaining any momentum I managed to get all 4 of the blocks done AND design and execute a baby quilt for the newest addition to our island community. Without further ado, here is my weeks work.

SBS QAL block #33 - mini lone star, This was an exercise in itty bitty diamonds and inset seams. I really love it and it wasn't all that hard. I started this at about 4am one morning I was up with my monkey. Note - it DOES matter which way you cut the strips once they're sewn together. It took me AGES to work out what I had done wrong. Being sleepy turned what should have been a relatively simple block into a headache that I had to keep coming back to. A lone star quilt just might go on my LIST.

SBS QAL block #34 - Feathered star. I made this block BEFORE Leila posted the paper piecing option. Doh!! It took me days and days. I just couldn't get going with this block and ended up unpicking many, many tiny seams. The even ittier bittier diamonds in this block were my greatest challenge. I was amazed (happily) that this block turned out as well as it did. Phew! If i was to consider (crazy lady!!!) making more of these blocks I would be sorely tempted to english paper piece them to achieve the precision this block requires.

Oh, curves, how I've missed thee. Perhaps I'm just weird but I enjoy piecing curves, something hugely satisfying in the pinning and the 3Dness of it all, then et volia! It all lays flat and looks...curvy. This is the makings of my NY beauty block.

SBS QAL block #35 - New York Beauty. We had a few options to choose from this week. I chose to do this mainly because I can't remember my PayPal password and the Surveyors Compass templates had to be purchased through PayPal. So, NY beauty it was. I used Jeni's tutorial from In Color Order - another favourite blog. I love this block! It looks impossible but was really quite simple - more reason to love this block. The only teensy tiny drawback is that it finishes at 8.5" soooooooo....do I make 3 more and have a mega-NY Beauty OR just add a border and bring it up to size OR leave as is and incorporate it into the quilt back? I think I'll decide after laying out all my blocks.

HST QAL - June block. I'm not going to say any more than that.

HST QAL - Januray - June blocks together. Looking good.

In all the jet lag fug of this last week I managed to get myself to my local quilt shop to stock up on some bright and cheerful fabrics to make a quilt for a new little boy in our community - Caleb. He is the son of one of the mister's closest mates and it was super fun to come up with this little quilt. I designed (hehehehe, designed a strip quilt), cut out, stitched, basted and quilted this puppy all in the dark hours while I kept my mischievous monkey company.

Here is a sneaky peek. It is now bound, washed and drying beneath our air con. I will take more pics today before gifting it tomorrow.

I have almost finished hand quilting the shirt quilt too. I unpicked - took 5 hours in the wee hours - all of the machine quilting as I was very unhappy with it. Pics to come.

Now to block #36 of the SBS QAL. The last one. My Mum is still quilting along too. I will try and get some photos of her quilt to post as well.

Have a super weekend. x x

Beaches, quilt alongs and some serious progress

There are some pretty unglamorous, but humorous, photos here. This is what it takes to baste a king sized quilt.



This is the ginormous secret. I'm pretty sure this is a safe place to spill the beans as the recipient a) has no idea abut it, and b) is blissfully ignorant to this blog. I managed to clear our deck and baste this baby one Saturday morning in July (9th to be precise). It was pretty chilly which is why I'm all dressed up in uggies and beanie.


I was a little bit concerned that the gaps between the decking would cause some issues but there really haven't been any. It was a big job, requiring much crawling around.
I used 100% merino wool batting (Heirloom) which came all squished and rolled up in a bag. There were kinks and funny creases all over it despite me taking it out of the bag about a week before to try and "relax" it. There was a lot of discussion on the web as to how to get these kinks out but all methods involved far too much effort and time and I went with the 'she'll be right' attitude. I did my best to smooth the batting as I basted but right up until I was stretching it in the hoop to quilt the kinks remained. It looks like it was the right attitude to take, as far as I can see all the lumps have smoothed out. I'm sure after a wash it'll settle even more.
Don't I look pleased with myself/overwhelmed?

I was cursing the fact that I was using wool for this as it was tricky to baste due to the lumps and bumps. I knew however that it would needle well, breathe beautifully and be perfect for the climate where this quilt will end up.
This morning I made the binding. It's a Lecien check that I picked up on special. Of course I didn't measure anything and just chopped and sewed away happily until I realised there was no way I had enough (I had made 10m!!!!) and had to add another length to an already lengthy tape.



I think it'll look pretty cute.
I have attached the binding and am looking forward to a few loooong evenings of hand stitching the back down. I zig zagged the quilt sandwich edges ( I don't usually do this) to ensure I didn't get any puckers or other mishaps. The backing fabric is a loosely woven, and very fine cotton that is prone to fraying so I thought a bit of reinforcement wouldn't go astray.

It goes without saying that I am looking forward to this project being finished. My hands are sore from holding needle and fabric. I am looking forward to doing something a bit different. I think I will feel pretty proud once it's all done....as long as it survives it's first wash. Always a bit nerve wracking. I started this quilt on 11 June with the first Dresden Plate block and have pretty much worked on it solidly every day since. More photos and background in my next post.




QAL Block #9 - Double star. I played with the layout a bit, and went nuts with the fabric choices. I really like it, although the real design seems a bit lost in all the busy-ness. I just adore the Amy Butler fabrics. I'm partial to many prints from across her lines. Love the colours, prints, spots and especially the large scale florals. I am late on this bus but have my eyes on some awesome bundles online for my birthday in a few weeks. I find I am especially drawn to the navy and aqua/turquoise colourways.





Lastly a few pics from yesterdays adventure. We had a scheduled power outage on the island and the forecast was brilliant so we went to Patonga Beach for a lovely walk and play, some lunch and then to nearby Pearl Beach for an ice cream. It was such a warm Spring day, and the first time my little J-bug dipped his toes in the great big ocean. A great family day out.