2012 Report Card on Di

Quilting

Three words describe Di’s quilt-making efforts this year: Can do better.

In the entire year she has finished just six quilts.

These were the Whirligig quilt, Daisy a Day, Ben and Sunny’s Wedding Quilt, two Blankets of Love for RPA Newborn Care and one child-sized quilt for the Marcia Burgess Kindy for autistic little ones. The seventh “quilt” here is really just a cushion top, her entry in the Dots on Dots blog hop in September, and as such doesn’t really count – it’s just there to complete the collage.

Perhaps if she were to spend less time reading blogs, pinning to Pinterest and playing Words with Friends she might be able to turn more of those quilts floating round in her imagination into reality. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s going to happen since Di loves keeping in touch with her cyber-friends all over the world and gathering quilt-making inspiration from the blogs she follows.

She could also benefit from not setting such unrealistic goals for herself. Just a thought.

Smaller Items

Di has scored better in this area, with around 40 finishes.

The friends who helped Ben and Sunny’s wedding day in August go smoothly were very happy with their “thank you” gifts of cathedral windows pincushions.

In June Di’s efforts were boosted by an extremely productive collaboration with Di B. She made sock monkeys and owls, crocheted teddy bears, travel trays, luggage labels, applique baby singlets, tea towels, golfers’ hand towels, baby shoes and a growth chart. Together Team Di, along with others on the Rose Bay Committee, were able to raise $3,500 from craft table sales for St Luke’s Hospital.

In a strong finish to the year Team Di (and a friend) knitted seven fat googly-eyed sheep for their neighbouring church, St John’s Darlinghurst, to use in their Messy Christmas Nativity Trail.

The observation must be made that without Di B urging and encouraging her Di would not be nearly so generous and outward-focused and could easily spend far too much time navel-gazing.

Final Comments

The last four months have not been easy for Di J, and she has lost the plot somewhat, as far as her handwork is concerned.

However she has received so much love and support from her family, friends and fellow bloggers that we are hoping to see her finding renewed joy in her all her creative endeavours over the coming year.

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May God bless you all in 2013!

I finished THREE queen-sized quilts in a month!

So, how was your July quilt-wise? I finished three queen-sized quilts.

Oooh, I love saying this. THREE!!!!

Quilting with me is like waiting for the #10 Bus. You wait for ever, hopping from one foot to the other, and then three of the darned things come along together.

Confession time – I might have finished my quilts in a month, but I sure didn’t start them just last month. To be completely honest, two of them have been bubbling away for well over a year, so it was high time for a reveal. Or two. Or three.

Today I’ll show you my first finish, the Whirligig quilt by Australian designer and teacher Sue Ross, who also designs those scrumptious co-ordinates from A Day in the Country.

Apart from machining the background squares together, my Whirligig is entirely hand pieced, hand appliqueed and hand quilted. Now you know why my quilt journeys are more like leisurely meanders than sprints. I’m what you might call a plodder!

Sue came along to Paddington Patchworkers early in 2010 and over three x monthly classes taught us the finer points of making her quilt. Up to this time I had pretty much been a reproduction girl, a lover of muted, dusty tones.

The Whirligig quilt marked a radical departure, for me, from my soft colour-washed florals, and though I still dip into them from time I prefer my florals on the modern side, teamed with clear, crisp backgrounds and co-ordinating hues that make them pop. 

For my Whirligig quilt I delved deep into my growing collection of glorious Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I pieced the whirligigs after cutting the shapes from plastic templates, and then each finished whirligig was appliqueed to its background, either a fine black dot-on-white or a plain white.

When I started I wasn’t so keen on the floral applique border Sue had designed, but it grew on me and her advice, to use a black and white stripe for the bias vines, paid off, I think you’ll agree. When I took this photo I hadn’t yet quilted the border.

I echo quilted around the flowers and vine in the border, and quilted 1/4 inch inside the seams on the whirligigs, and I made plastic templates from one of the flower motifs and used this to hand quilt the background of the large blocks.

 

I love the look of a striped binding, and this one picked up on the narrow inner border and the many fresh greens, pinks and yellows in the quilt.

It could probably have been a tad stronger in colour, but I think it works well enough. You live and learn.

I’ll try not to leave you waiting too long for the next bus quilt.

I wish I could show you what I’m working on…

More secret squirrel stitching going on here today.  All will be revealed quite soon though
For now I’m just surfacing to share with you some more cleverness by my non-blogging quilting friends.
Like Sue’s version of Kaffe’s Bordered Diamonds.
The pattern is in his book “Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts” – see my Amazon widget on the right.
 See the pretty pink hexy quilt in this Good Housekeeping article?

Rae made it for her daughter Jane, the former Fashion Director of GH, who proudly showed it off as part of her very stylish – chic and cheerful -  London apartment.
It’s entirely hand pieced and quilted, as is Rae’s latest finished quilt, Whirligig (from a Sue Ross pattern).  Just stunning!

                              
                                          
Back to work for me now!

That just tops it off!

Very clever quilt designer and teacher, Chris Jurd of Patchwork Fundamentals, has sent me an award – and it’s PINK!
Her blog is full of simply beautiful quilts created by her and by the quilters she nurtures and encourages in her classes, so I’m humbled (and happy) that she sees my blog as a beautiful one with ‘that little bit extra’.
The rules of the Cherry on Top Award are that I must tell you three things I like, and then share the love by awarding this badge to three blogs i like.
Just to be different (did you say ‘difficult’?) I’ll nominate the blogs first.
Linda’s Flourishing Palms blog is chock full of quilty inspiration, clever tutorials and family updates. Even if you don’t know her as well as I do you’ll be firm friends in no time. Linda just loves to share her talents, and her enthusiasm for Stitchin’ Mission, the quiltmaking course she teaches to church groups, is infectious . I caught the bug!
Rita’s Red Pepper Quilts blog is always one of the first I open. She designs and makes quilts that are fresh, crisp and zingy, using lots of white backgrounds to make her simple designs just POP! Just quietly, I don’t think she sleeps - she seems to have a new quilt to share on her blog almost every week, most  of them destined for her Etsy shop.
Then there’s retromummy Corrie, a quilter whose total honesty, sense of humor and heartfelt faith make her blog about bringing up four little children (including twins and the cutest newborn you’ve ever seen) a joy to read.
[Rita and Corrie are both taking part in a very special auction to raise funds to help victims of the disastrous floods in Australia right now. The Queensland Flood Appeal Auction is being organised by Toni of Make it Perfect (see my button). Currently 9 dead and 66 folk missing. To think that this time 2 years ago we were praying for the victims of fierce bushfires that ravaged central Victoria. Floods or fires, summer in Australia can often bring natural disasters on a huge scale, and again we are united in our efforts to help as best we can.]
What else do I like?
I like hand quilting, watching the pattern and texture appear as I make my stitches, and I’m finding enormous satisfaction and relaxation when I have time to work on my latest quilt, Whirligig.
 
I like love cuddles with the Princess! (my little granddaughter)  
Lastly I like blogging (can’t you just tell?). When I see something beautiful that one of my friends has made, or get the giggles about something a bit silly, find myself in awe of God’s wonderful creation, or even surprise myself when a project turns out just the way I imagined it – I’m never without someone to whom I can say “Hey, take a look at this!”
But that’s just the beginning. Opening my Inbox and seeing comments from dear friends  around the world (most of whom I’ve never met face to face) gives me such a thrill!  It’s the ‘icing on the cake’.
So that makes Chris’s  generously bestowed award the ‘cherry on top’!

Beginning to hand quilt my Whirligig Quilt

Heartened by how quickly I managed to hand quilt Candied Hexagons once I put my mind to it, I’ve prepped and tacked my Whirligig quilt and have bravely embarked on another hand quilting journey.  It’s a bigger quilt (see below with applique almost completed), and I do have several other more pressing deadlines before Christmas, so don’t expect a finish anytime soon, folks. I love the colours in this quilt. They’re a complete departure from my usual style, and they make this quilt a delight to work on. 
I intend to relax, ‘smell the flowers’, and enjoy the journey :-))

… and Whirligig work in progress

Rae’s stunning Whirligig quilt centre is waiting for the naive floral applique borders she’s been working on. More fussy cutting here too, and Rae’s using our preferred method of preparing her applique pieces using a glue stick and Floriani Stitch and Wash. So now you’ve seen what my inspirational quilting buddies have been up to this month!

We’ve made a decision

When the English Quilt girls met this week for our regular monthly day of stitching at Gail’s there was lots of progress to be seen. 

Three of the four of us who had missed the June get-together because we were gallivanting around various parts of the globe (including our own wide brown land) were keen to prove our hands hadn’t been idle.

Rae has started on the hand applique borders for her Whirligig quilt in her signature mellow shades – she’s using plenty of terracotta, teal and sage, with some raspberry and a twist of lime as well.  You’re going to have to wait till Rae’s completed a border to see just how good this looks, but trust me it’s working a treat!

You can guess where Rae went on her holiday by this cute little souvenir she gave me.  It’s a sticky note pad with a design adapted from a patchwork coverlet in the grandmother’s garden design made in England between 1797 and 1852 hanging in the Victoria & Albert Museum.  Yes, our Rae has been to see the V & A special quilt exhibition! The colours in Jill’s kitchen chair cushions should give you a clue to her favourite landscape – red earth and gum trees, and a sky that goes on forever.  Jill’s been touring the outback of Australia, and I’m sure she was inspired by the terrain when she made these, the start of a bigger set.

As you know, I’ve been working on my Whirligig borders too.  I quickly laid out my 9 whirligig blocks on the floor (the order is absolutely random, so it will almost certainly not be the final lay-out) and plonked my unfinished borders alongside, just to get a feel for the colours. Our other wanderer, Lynne, is almost back home too and we’re looking forward to a little ‘show and tell’ soon.

You’ll recall that Anne’s been working away of a particularly gorgeous Candied Hexagon / Frederica Josephson quilt in mostly dusty pinks and blues.  It has the right amount of planned placement - with just a touch of randomness to make it interesting.     Robbie has been appliqueeing the blocks for this fresh floral scrappy quilt for months, it seems.  Suddenly it’s all together, and she’s well into the quilting.  Being a whizz at hand quilting, Robbie should have it finished quite soon. Gail is another one who doesn’t waste time, and her Prickly Pear quilt top is nearly complete.  She spent the day stitching on appliqueed leaves.  She was quite out of her comfort zone with these colours – deliberately so – but this quilt has lots of pizzazz and I think she should feel very pleased with the result. We had hoped to start another quilt together (not really together, but making the same quilt alongside each other, if you get what I mean) but we’ve decided to make this year a time to finish off our projects before starting a new quilt in the new year.   

Unusually sensible for a bunch of quilters, I know :-)) - but there you are!

And what about the Whirligig Quilt?

I haven’t been idle :-))  I’ve been stitching away on my borders at every opportunity, much to the amusement of fellow-passengers. 

In this hot climate, where day after day the sun has shone for us, the vivid colours of my Kaffe Fassett fabrics (and others like them) seem right at home, and I love the idea that this quilt will hold lots of happy memories of the places we’ve visited.

Perhaps this will give you a better idea of how I’m progressing with these two opposite borders.