quilt-along with Oh, Fransson!

This should be A LOT of fun. I love the visual simplicity of Elizabeth's quilts. She has a great eye for colour. Join in, I'm sure there will be a Flickr group to show off our creations. It's always fascinating to see somebody else's take on a pattern. But, we have to wait until Tuesday. What do you say Jane, shall we do this together? Especially since I bought 3m of white muslin today!

Giveaways!

Hey, I won day 5, the charm squares. YAHOO.
Just under 100 7" squares and a very decent amount of 5".Thank you so much Kylie, I'll be sure to post what I make with them. I've taken photo's, but can't find my card reader to download them. Ho hum, too much time spent blogging and not enough time spent tidying up.
If you pop over to here, you'll find seven days worth of giveaways.

Kylie's Stitch 'n Sew is having a giveaway fest, to celebrate her 100th post. Each giveaway has a small task, which I found fun. If I win something, I'll make up some more toys or a quilt to donate for Victoria. Seems only fair to pass on any good luck I receive. Well, what are you waiting for, off you go!

Oh before you go, these guys are off to The Toy Society tomorrow.

I've joined a Swap!

International Women's Day Swap

So, my first ever blog swap. I've wanted to do a swap ever since I entered Blogland. I always felt unsure though, as not only am I a novice blogger, I am also a novice sewer. So this fat 1/4 swap was very much within my comfort zone, and such a fab reason for doing one. Here are the details.

1. People can join the swap until 20 Feb.

2. We'll each purchase, or dig out of our stash - 4 FQs - these will be purple, green &/or white, or a combination of these colours - these colours have been chosen in honour of the suffragettes.

3. I'll draw swap partners on 21 Feb and let you know who is with who.

4. We'll all mail our parcels by 23/24 Feb - this should ensure that our swap partner receives their parcel on or before 8 March.

5. If we receive our parcel before 8 March, we'll put it aside and wait patiently until 8 March to open it. [I'll struggle with this one].

6. On 8 March, we'll open our parcels and put a post up on our blogs with a photo of our lovely purple, green & white fabrics.

GO HERE to register

Seems pretty straight forward to me! And who doesn't like getting fabric surprises in the mail, come on, join in. Here's my example of green and purple (not that I have anymore of this fabric available for this swap, it's all spoken for). Oh I'm looking forward to this. Thanks for hosting Kelly. Now all I have to do is work out how to put the button on my blog. Mmm, gonna have to ask for help.

Make & Donate a Toy for Victoria's children

If you've been wondering about donating to bushfire victims, take a look at this blog, The Toy Society. It could be what you've been looking for.

I'm going to do a 'toy gather' within my community. Something handmade.
My heart sinks to think of all those children who have lost all that they have loved so dearly.
Do what you can.

ALSO

Jump across to the Melly & Me blog.
For your chance to Bid on items hand made by Melly and Rosalie. All monies raised will go to the Bushfire appeal.


AND

Maree at On My Verandah is also holding some auctions, lots in fact. There are patterns, Dolly quilts and fabric. Your sure to find something you need! Again all monies will be donated to the Bushfire appeal.

My Heather Bailey Quilt

This is one of the projects I did for a Christmas present and couldn't show as I didn't want the recipient's Mum to see it too early. I made this quilt for my new niece, Amie Grace. She was born at 4.24 am on Saturday 10 th January. I feel so privileged to have been there at her birth, and to have cut her cord. It is something I shall remember with awe, for the rest of my life.
My admiration for my Sister sky rocketed to new heights.

When I decided to do this quilt I knew I couldn't use pink. Not because Amie's sex wasn't known, but because I'm just not that comfortable with pink. I know, shock horror, but I'm just not a pink girl. Anyhow, when I saw the talented Heather Bailey's Pop Garden, I knew I'd found my fabric. So feminine but bold, and clear, and the shapes of the flowers shout opulent. And of course there's Aqua in there, and a most beautiful and fancy paisley. These are the 3 piece's I chose (I mean, of course, fell in love with).



I didn't want to cut up the big flower print, so decided to do big squares and the placement of the other squares just fell into place. It had to be red sashing, and I found the exact colour and quantity in my stash. I also found some beautiful, soft, small red and white gingham, so these are the final fabrics. I was toying with the larger gingham for the binding, but thankfully decided against it in the end.



This then is the top finished, I decided to do the squares as diamonds, so that they form (loosely I'll admit) a kiss. Never ending love from her Aunty Mandy. The quilt is half quilted in this picture. I decided to stitch in the ditch, then worried it wouldn't be enough quilting. I can't afford professional quilting and so had to do it myself.


I don't think I can explain how I quilted within the squares so here's a picture. I hope you can make out the stitching lines. Basically it ended up looking like a fancy star in the larger square of the quilt. It's not finished in the picture, I kept stitching the squares and triangles and did circles (eek, so tricky) in the centre of all the large daisy's.



I don't have a picture of the finished quilt as I had to finish it in England and forgot to take this all important picture. The binding I eventually used was a tone on tone floral, which was a light old goldly nearly but not quite orange colour. There is a small amount of this colour in the paisley print, first picture of post, middle fabric top left.

I really like how this quilt turned out, I haven't made many (like 3), but, as with most fabric lovers, have plans for many, many more. Hopefully the first one I make for my bed I'll be able to have quilted professionally.

My Aqua Stash

A post I composed in December! But didn't post as I thought I had more fabric to add. I still think I do, but I haven't managed to get around to it as yet. Must get back into the swing of things. Anyhow enjoy pics of my favourite colour. Tell me what yours is and which fabric range you think best shows that colour.

Surf and Sand - Michelle D'Amore

Joel Dewberry

Midwest Modern & Daisy Chain - Amy Butler

Bleeker Street - Michelle D'Amore

Bits and pieces

And there might be more!

I didn't quite get to the bottom of the drawers.
I also haven't looked through my rescued/donated/upholstery/samples/op shop baskets.

I'm not sure what it is about this colour that I like.
I only know it makes me feel happy when I look at it.