Little update

Quilts For Boston first block, will get onto the second on Monday. 8 year old wants a pillow with the foxes on, very adamant about it, so I will oblige. The chevrons are actually navy, although they look black.

And these 6 blocks are my newest quilt along *sigh*, I know, but I just can't help myself!!
It's called the "St Louis 16 patch". It all started here on 'Sew with Sass', great blog name,  and has steam rollered into twitter at #stlouis16patch and has it's own Flickr group here!

Such a fab stash buster, I'm making a Queen *gulp*, my first quilt at that size. Which means 42 fat 1/4's, so I pulled and paired from my Amy Butler bin. Some of these fat quarters go back to the original 'Gypsy Caravan' line. I've tried to cut into this stash before and failed miserably, ie I put them all back and cut into less loved fabric! This time is different, just feels like the right time. Feels really good actually :D

Anywho, that's that!

I'm off to the Springwood Quilt Show tomorrow pm, looking forward to that. I put a couple of small quilts in, it's a non judged show so I feel very comfortable in doing that. I love the quilts that I make but am not at all comfortable with putting them up for judgement. I might feel differently one day, who knows!

Thanks for popping by
x Mandy

a Little Trip finished

I loved making my little scrappy trip along quilt!

It finished up at 42" square after I added a 3 1/2" border, quite perfect for a cot quilt or a floor mat for little ones or to cover your knees or for the car, perfectly versatile! It took quite some time to find the right fabric for the border, but as soon as I tried the Lotta Jansdotter cross hatch, there was no going back. Similar story for the binding, which surprisingly is Tula Pink's 'Turtle Bay' from her 'Prince Charming' line. I did some chevron quilting, three deep, on every other row, worked a charm!

 I figured making lap quilts was the only way I was

a) going to be able to join in on all the fab quilt alongs 
and b) actually going to finish quilts this year!

 

I really love joining in on quilt alongs, for all the chatter, and to see so many versions of the same quilt!  I really, really love that aspect. But I also love finishing a quilt! Plus, I can't really quilt a big quilt on my little machine or afford to have one quilted either. So I feel really happy with this plan for the year. 

So much so that I've already started another, oops! *giggle* I was really captivated by this block called 'Grandmother's Frame' by the Gen X Quilters. There will be 10 blocks throughout the year, I'm assuming that, as it's the 1st block for the Sisters' Ten Modern BOM.

There are quite a few ways to interpret this block. I chose to use my 'Habitat' from Jay McCarroll. I thought that the dropsheet fabric would look cool as a biggish piece in the block, the large square is 7 3/4", when you make the 12" (finished) blocks. I'm going to put two more borders on, to extend and complete the outside pinwheels in the diamonds. Then I'll see how big it is before deciding whether to extend it any more. 

Love it so far!

And just for the hell of it, here's our cat Marble Marmalade, in classic pin up pose!

Thanks for visiting, hope you enjoy all the links!

cheerio for now

x Mandy

Scrappy Trip Along

1st quilt along for the year started today! Good job I never made any resolutions this year, like finishing wip's before starting a new project!! hee, hee

This is a very fast one, Katy of I'm A Ginger Monkey made her top in 3 days! But then she is a machine, a very inspirational machine, and super lovely to boot!

So, you can read all about the construction of the block here at Quiltville. See fabulous pics in the quiltalong flickr group here, you could also follow along with Twitter at #scrappytripalong.

Here are my strips, I'm starting off with 9 blocks. It might go to 16 though as I'm not sure if I'll be happy with overall pattern with just 9.

my 1st block

2nd

3rd

and 4th

All made this afternoon.

See I told you they were quick.

All you need to start are (6) 2.5 x 16 " strips.

Don't they look fab! I'm using all scraps for these 1st 9 blocks, ooooh idea, I wonder what a border of black and white blocks around the 9 scrappy blocks would look like? I wonder how many black and white prints I have? 

Anywho, that's what I'm up to, how about you? What craft project have you got on the go?

Cheerio for now,
x Mandy

I have been sewing, some!

Fresh Modern Bee block for Lynne of Lily's Quilts.

Plus a little pressie for her from the left over scraps.

Some Scrap Vomit blocks for Katy of I'm a ginger monkey, she gave me some Far Far Away II in exchange, too easy! Shhhh, there's a little pressie in the works for her. I love making stuff for pals. I must get back to another, not so little, pressie I'm making too.

Playing around with an idea for my Scrap Vomit quilt, please excuse the disgusting ironing board cover. I'm quite taken with the idea of a black outer diamond, black & white middle diamond and single colour centre cross. Yup, there are two black squares there that should be red, I was just quickly snapping to catch my idea before it flew away. The outers and other block will be utterly and totally scrappy.

Totally lovin this block! I've been wanting to try it for a while. It's the block I'm going to be making for my hive buddies in the 2nd quarter of the 3 x 6 bee on Flickr. They are also the colours I've asked for. The idea was to receive little Spring parcels over the Winter!

I first saw this block in a pic from the Tokyo 2011 Quilt Show on Flickr. I loved it then and thought I'd like to try and replicate it, my way of course! Then, can you believe, Amy from Badskirt had had the same thought. She'd decided to ask her Bee members to make it for her, and posted pics of how to construct it. If that wasn't exciting enough for me, a quilt along group has also started up. My first test block is a little wonky, but I had to have a go. I'm thinking of trying to make the block bigger too, cause I'm a slow sewer that likes fast results!!


This is how I decided to use my Sherbet Pips charm pack. This way I only lose a 1/2" strip off one side of the charm. Another block I've been eyeing off for a while, the Whirligig! I have to say, I really like the results so far. I'll put a aqua border on and pink binding.

And yet another idea I've been wanting to try. I might ask my bee pals to make me some words in July, cute huh!

Lastly, this is my idea for my partner in the Down Under DollQuilt Swap. I've just gathered together a few recent faves from Flickr. I'll be using my Sandy Klop fabric.

Okay, that's yer lot!

Thanks for visiting.

x Mandy

my list of WIP quilt shame....

I do not have a quilt in my home that I have finished!! There, it's out!

True, my ORBC big pinwheels quilt just requires binding, and I will finish that before my Mum arrives, so it can go on her bed while she's here. But the rest on the list over on the right, are ALL uncompleted!!

So, this is what I've decided to do to remedy it. The 1st 6 months of next year I am going to concentrate on getting them finished. I WILL not be starting a new top until from Jan 1 throught to July 1 2011, oh, except for Dee's ORBC quilt-along, I can't miss a quilt-along by a flickr mate. Plus, it was originally going to start this year. BUT, that's the only one. I cannot truly call myself a quilter, until I have done more quilting!! I want to quilt them, I want quilts I have made scattered throughout my home...

Join me if you'd like, I know I'm not the only one with quilt tops hanging around, I'm just the one with the most!!!

Some photo's of the quilts in waiting....











Cheerio for now,
x Mandy

Lots on the go!

I seem to have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies at present. It's not really bothering me, but I wonder if it should? I kinda like having several (okay, 6) projects in progress. No, their not on the wip shelf, they are actually ALL being worked on at once! Well, no, not literally!

Pork Chop Swap Hexagons
Made from the 5" charms, received from the gals in the Flickr ORBC group.

Ah! My DQS9 inspiration mosaic for my partner.
I've an idea on paper, and fabrics pulled for the one I'm making for my partner.
But no sneak peeks, just yet.

Bee Crazy Block for Curtinqueen.
I'm working on an adaption of this, no sneak peeks for this just yet either.

This is my first Asterisk block. This one is only 3.5", I'm hoping we'll be doing a swap of these on the Itty Bitty Block Swap Flickr group. Can you imagine receiving 12 or 15 of these little beauties from all over the world? I get excited when I think about it.

But, for now I'm making bigger Asterisks for a Quilt along. I'm starting with 7" squares, all tone on tone, in mauve's~purples~amber's~oranges~greens~blues. The strips are 5 different shades of cool grey. I've only done 2 so far, so will post pictures when I've done at least 9.

Off to watch 'Little Dorrit' on the ABC now. Love a good period drama me, especially one I'm not familiar with.

Cheerio for now, be back soon!
x Mandy