Just slap me (gently) across the face with a fat quarter*

…if I ever again start whining about not being much of a finisher.

Admittedly my big quilt finishes are so rare it’s been rumored there are small principalities where a national holiday’s declared when Di comes to the end of stitching a binding down. But when I trawled back through this year’s photos I couldn’t suppress a tiny “Hooray” of my own.

Hey, small projects count as finishes too – don’t they?

I’ve made sock monkeys (“Stella” for Toni’s Auction for Queensland Flood Relief, and “Blossom” for the St Luke’s Hospital fundraiser).  Along with my friends Di B and Gail I made origami bags for the Gumtree Designers’ New Beginnings appeal after the QLD floods.

In addition, for the St Luke’s Hospital (Potts Point) fundraising event mid-year I crocheted and knitted baby bootees and beanies, sewed pincushions and pink origami bags embroidered with grub roses, and created a ‘parliament’ of cute little sock owls.

I sent off two cosy knitted cowls to Sarah, shivering with the approach of winter in the USA – they arrived there just a day before she left for tropical Botswana (but that’s another story!). My dear friends Moo and Margaret scored mug mats for their birthdays this year, and there were baby singlets appliqueed with an elephant, a teddy bear and a ladybug for our new grandson, Jack.

And there were just enough quilt finishes to keep those principalities happy . I had great fun making the red, white and navy hippo quilt for Jack, and tried my hand at a quilt-as-you-go scrappy quilt that went, along with others from St Mark’s Quilters, to help victims of the Christchurch (NZ) earthquake.

I managed to complete several Blankets of Love for RPA Newborn Care, and put the finishing touches on my Scrappy Hexagons quilt which hung in the Victorian Quilters’ Fabric of Society Challenge at the Melbourne Craft and Quilt Fair in July.

Then there were the projects Di B and I worked on together, though when I think back to our stitching days throughout the year I’m amazed we were so productive with all the fun and laughter going on.

We delved deep into our scrap bins for the most colourful and girly fabrics we could find and made a large hourglass-patterned bed quilt for our friend Alicia’s 60th birthday. This was extra-sneaky of us since we’d only just completed a bowtie quilt Alicia had asked us to make for her to give her friend Ian, and she certainly wasn’t expecting to be presented with a quilt of her own at her birthday party in January.

Our St Mark’s Quilters made individual blocks with appliqueed teddy bears which Di and I sewed together into a quilt for the arrival of our Assistant Minister’s new baby boy in the middle of the year.

We quilted and bound a large cheater cloth in time to cover the table in the entrance to St Mark’s for the Advent and Christmas season, and Di helped me sew and machine quilt all the “healing hearts” blocks sent to my mother by Southern Cross Quilters when my father passed away last year. This was a real labour of love.

Finally, there were the cupcake potholders we made as Christmas gifts for our lovely St Mark’s Quilters. Let’s just say the question “Whose bright idea was this, anyway?” might have been uttered a few times, as we tried to wrangle several thicknesses of fabric and batting beneath our sewing machine feet and machine needles constantly broke under the pressure of stitching through Insulbrite. We expended quite a bit of blood, sweat and … laughter on that project .

* Non-quilters, be assured this isn’t some kind of masochistic plea. A fat quarter is just a small piece of fabric (18” x 22”) whose uses include small projects, piecing … and silly hyperbole such as this. 

I have a little more to add to this story about baby Morgan:

One of our St Mark’s Quilters, Ruth, has moved out of town but still makes Blankets of Love for us and keeps up with our doings via this blog. 

I was so excited when, after reading about Morgan, she emailed me this - “You’re not going to believe this! The couple featured were in the cabin next to us on that cruise.” Ruth and her DH shared the same dinner table with Paul and Leanne a couple of times, but Ruth had no idea of the drama that eventually unfolded and was very happy to hear the positive outcome.

What a small world it is – and what an uplifting ending to 2011!

Happy New Year, everyone. God bless you and thank you for reading my ramblings.

Di

Di + Di + Linda + Linda = The Bowtie Quilt

[We didn’t plan it this way. Really!]

Just as there were two Di’s involved in the making of Ian’s ‘hands across the Pacific’ Bowtie Quilt, there were two Linda’s as well – Linda Hungerford in Des Moines, Iowa, and another Linda closer to home here at West Pennant Hills in Sydney.

Every quiltmaker knows ‘it’s not a quilt until it’s quilted’ – and here’s Di B with our very talented friend Linda Billett of Artisan Quilting, in whose hands our humble quilt top became a work of art.

She machine quilted it beautifully with a deep blue thread which became a jaunty feature against the white-on-white background.

 

Since Ian is a musician, choosing a quilting design was super-simple once we spotted this music pattern in Linda’s catalogue.

 

  I can almost hear the tune these notes are playing – and it’s definitely a light and bouncy one!

 

Thanks a million, Linda B.

I think we have a winning formula here!

The Bowtie Quilt ~ all wrapped up!

 

Regular readers will remember that last year our friend Alicia asked Di B and me if we would make a quilt for her partner (and our friend)Ian who is currently separated from us all working in another city.

She chose scrappy bowties after seeing this photo, on my blog, of a quilt I had made for my father.

 

But Ian’s were to be totally different!

 

Alicia, Di and I were like kids in a candy store as we went shopping for FQs that illustrated Ian’s hobbies, his professional life, travels and loves.

We raided our stashes for bright, fun “just because” fabrics as well, and Linda was even in on the fun. Once we’d sent her the white-on-white background fabric she wasted no time in whipping up 18 blocks for us. Clever girl that she is, she even found fabric with a map of North Carolina (where Ian spent time as an exchange student) and Des Moines (where she lives).

Four months and 150 bowtie blocks later we gave the quilt to Ian.

 

I think he liked loved it, don’t you?

  It was a joy to make, from start to finish!

Bowtie Quilt

When a friend recently asked Di B and me if we’d make a quilt for a Very Loved Person we couldn’t have been happier.  After all, about the only thing more fun than creating a gift quilt is doing it in collaboration with a good buddy. 

Wait, I’m wrong. Having a treasured friend halfway across the world joining in makes it even better! Take a look at this blog post by Linda.  Di, Linda and I together made 150 fun and fabulous bow tie blocks on the same white-on-white starry background, and today Di and I started to assemble them (Linda, we missed you!). 

These were Linda’s blocks.

After initially laying all 150 bowties any-which-way on the floor, we stood back, and surveyed our blocks.

  We looked at them through the camera view-finder, and even tried the equally effective but less scientific method of screwing up our eyes and squinting to see the overall distribution of lights and darks and different colours.

There followed quite a bit of this… And a lot of this… …before we were finally satisfied with our layout and were ready to stitch the blocks together.

Oh, did I tell you we set up our machines overlooking this view? It’s been a tough day :-))