Christmas Quilting

Well I'm lucky enough to have a week off over Christmas.  Got into my sewing room ready to start a new quilt and got the urge to quilt.  So loaded a quilt my friends and I made last year (or was it the year before??)  So that is finished and ready to bind.  Next up is one I made a gazillion years ago and started to quilt it when I fitted the Statler Stitcher to my machine.  It's been hanging around waiting to be finished so I'll load that next.  Then I have two ready that I made I don't know how many years ago.  Don't know why I take so long to get things quilted but it's a nice way to finish off the year.  At this point it even feels better than starting a new quilt!!

So this is the one I quilted today.

Slow Finishing Frenzy

Well the frenzy has certainly slowed.  Only prepared backing for a quilt Nicky tested for me plus got the borders on Red & White quilt.  Life just gets in the way at times.  As well it's been rather warm this week and by the time I get home from work I'm drained and just want to flop with the air con on.  Mind you I'm chomping at the bit to get into some sewing.  Bought a pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew  - and found the last one I bought from her which I haven't made yet. Couldn't find it but finally did so tonight so printed it out and may pull some fabrics for it tomorrow.

 

The photo doesn't show the red very well.  Need to brush up on my photography skills.

A Tidy Sewing Room

For years I have wanted to get all the boxes off the floor and into cupboards.  So one morning I woke and decided to do it......took all day and part of the next but I got there.  Lots of labeling and sorting and it looks so clean and lovely I didn't want to mess it up.

And this is what it looked like when I finished.

What got me started were these quilt tops.....I had gone looking for something and found these two tops.....had completely forogtten I had made them.......so figured it really was time to have a tidy up.

The room was so clean and tidy I was reluctant to mess it up but in the end the love of sewing won.

Am I really joining this??????

Judy has issued a challenge to finish 12 quilts in 2011. So I have picked 12 that I may have a chance of finishing. They only need quilting so lets see if I can manage that this year. 2009 was a great year for finishing - I actually got 20 finished, but 2010 was a disaster and only finished 2- YES only TWO. It's been a very bad year for sewing and quilting so I'm hoping I can make 2011 a better year. Well, one thing - no sewing has also meant no fabric buying.....so my stash is still at the place it was many months ago.

I really am going to make time for myself in 2011 and get back into patchwork. So here are the 12 quilts I want to (definitely) finish in the next 12 months........should be a piece of cake :-)

Can't really believe I'm doing this - but as the saying goes nothing ventured nothing gained.

NUMBER ONE - CAMBRIDGE SQUARE

Cambridge Square

NUMBER TWO - COUNTRY STARS

Country Stars

NUMBER THREE - DOUBLE WEDDING RING

DWR

NUMBER FOUR - SKEWED STARS

Skewed Stars

NUMBER FIVE - NIGHT LILLIES

Night Lillies

NUMBER SIX - FLOATING STARS

Floating Stars

NUMBER SEVEN - BRIGHT SNOWBALL

Snowball

NUMBER EIGHT - BOM

Designer Mystery

NUMBER NINE - VINTAGE SNOWBALL

Snowball

NUMBER TEN- NINE PATCH SAMPLER

Nine Patch

NUMBER ELEVEN- COLOUR PLAY

Colour Play

NUMBER TWELVE - OLD CHAINS

Old Chains

First finish for the year

I designed and made this a couple of years ago. Didn't quite look as woven as I would have liked. Then ran out of black so couldn't do the borders. It's a really unusual blacky/blue so it sat forever in "wonder what to do" pile till I decided that it just wouldn't have a border. So finally got it quilted and finished the binding last night.

I did intend to get another quilted this weekend but when I went to the sewing room I had the overwhelming desire just to sew........................so I'm off to start / sew/ cut or something in that line.

Another one ready

Got another quilt ready for quilting today. It has been waiting around for me to get some borders on for more years than I care to remember. So today I got the borders on, prepared the backing and got the binding made. The borders aren't the best choice for the quilt but I'm sick of looking at it. And it's one bin emptied! Have a couple of little customer quilts to do and then onto the next quilt......another that has been waiting as long as this one.

An Oldie DONE

I got another finished this week. Two done for January. This quilt has been waiting for quilting for a very long time. It's not very big - around 49" x 53". I was going to custom quilt it but in the interest of actually finishing quilts this year I decided on a panto. I quilted in a mustard coloured thread and it looks great agains the black.

I lived in a remote town when I started quilting and we had a tutor visit and we did a mystery quilt (haven't quilted that yet either - but that's the one that got me hooked). After the class she did a trunk show and I loved this quilt (and another, but can't remember that one for the moment). Anyway, the tutor told me how to make it and I scribbled down some instructions. So off I zoomed and made this quilt. 1/4 inch seams - what are they - had no idea you had to do that. And as you can tell I had no idea how to do the sides either. Had never heard of set in triangles so pondering how to do the edges I figured just do a full block and I could just cut the edges straight later.

So it's now quilted and bound (no fabric left from way back then) with a brownish fabric from a few years ago and ties in with the quilting thread colour. The bias edges played up a little but not too much.

I made this either 1994 or 1995 so it's great to be finally done. Have a few others from the same era that are waiting patiently for their release also. Just wish life would stop getting in the way of my quilting.