Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt Swap

This is the quilt I made for the Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt Swap which I joined earlier in the year.

This picture does not do the quilt justice, the orange square in the middle of the flower does not show a dark colour behind it, there isn't a dark colour behind it. I couldn't get a really good picture of it and as time was running out I have to be satisfied with this!

The quilt is machine pieced and quilted from an adapted version of this pattern 'Ladybug Playground' from Seattle Bay Fabrics, scroll down the page it is at the bottom.

It measures about 12" x 20" I cannot remember the exact measurements, I didn't write them down...

It was touch and go whether it would get finished in time, but a little burning of the 'midnight oil' and it was finished packed and mailed on Monday afternoon. Monday being the deadline for posting. Phew! I hope the recipient will like it, I cannot put a link to her blog yet as it is a mystery swap, but as soon as she receives the quilt I will.

I haven't taken part in a quilt swap before so this was a little scary, isn't anything new?! But it was good fun, so.... flushed with my success I have just joined the In the Good Ol’ Summertime Mini Quilt Swap also organised by Michele. Details for joining here.

Sunday - My Day!

On Sundays I try, whenever possible, to spend as much time as I can stitching or doing stitching related things. Today I decided to tackle the fabric waiting to be washed. Later, I will put up an embarrassing roll call, of just what I had stuffed it into 2 carrier bags.

Here's the coloured stuff, the white is already in the washer.

Now I have a confession to make..... after banging on about being frugal in an earlier post, last weekend I caved and bought more fabric! Obviously with very good reason!! :D

To cut a long story short, and having designed a quilt which I want to make in hand dyed silk. Back in April, the lovely Pat and Peter of Just Sew in Penrith gave me a bag of silk fabric to look through to decide if it was suitable. It was well past time I returned what I didn't want so I went to the shop! No point in wasting a journey, so I bought 8 metres of fabric for dyeing, I'd run out! I'd also run out of white on white fabric so I bought some of that too, 5 metres in fact! Oh yes and the 6.5 metres silk! eek!!

See, I need to stay out of fabric shops..... I've recently seen some fabulous fabrics on the web........

More Panda Fun

I have had very little time to sew this last week! But I have been sneaking to my machine in the odd 15 minutes I have managed to 'steal' and have been busy making the turnstile blocks for the Panda quilt. This is where I was at lunchtime today........

And finally this evening I have finished the turnstile border yee haa!

I have used a slightly different layout to AJ that's because I am using fabric from my stash, and didn't have enough of either the green or the turquoise fabrics! Now I just need to add the final borders and quilt it Yah!

Scrap and stash busting

I am in a very frugal mode at present, and am trying to use only fabric from my stash and/or scrap box.

This is partly because of the credit crunch, the wish to be greener, and also because I can barely move in my studio for the amount of fabric I have, this last is what I am convinced is stifling my creativity. My frugal self is objecting strongly to me buying yet more when I cannot accommodate or have yet to use what I already have, and is drowning out my creative spontaneous and spendthrift self.

So whilst Ms Frugal reigns supreme I am working with what I already have. When I ran out of cream fabric this afternoon (see earlier post) Ms Spendthrift was all for running off the the local fabric shop to buy more, and to be honest at one time that is exactly what I would have done. But Ms Frugal said 'No, lets have a look and see if there is something else we can use', and sure enough I found a different but similar fabric to complete my project. So I saved some money, now lets be honest here too, a lot of money was saved coz once inside the fabric shop it would have been more that the 'needed' amount that would have been bought!! I also saved on a car journey helping to keep my carbon footprint down too!

The fight with the Panda continues!

Week 5 (in my case day 2) Turnstile Borders

The saga of cutting out pieces the wrong size continues! Last night I foolishly decided to cut out the fabric for the turnstile border, even though I was tired.

Consequently I cut the first set of cream/white triangles too big and have to trim them all, cut out only half the required number of the second set of cream/white triangles, and have now run out of that fabric. A bit of jiggery pokery was called for and fortunately I found I have a very similar fabric which I am adding.

On a more positive note I have successfully sewn 5 of the turnstile blocks here are two of them!

And here's pic of week 4 adding the top and bottom border, this was one area I managed to do successfully without any foul ups!

Panda quilt along

Am now up to week 3, AJ has just posted the 6th and final week here so I'm half way there!