Wednesday 27 June 2012

Yoko Saito Border Tatser

I have got my borders on my Yoko Saito Quilt and this is a taster. A bit more hand sewing to do before I launch into quilting it. 


I am going to release this as a Block of the Month at the Waikato Quilt and Craft Show in September, so you can see the whole quilt then - hopefully quilted - mostly by hand!

Friday 22 June 2012

Finished Quilt

I am back - finally - with a finished quilt. Since I last posted I have been busy hand quilting so there really hasn't been anything much to show - it is so hard to get a good photo of quilting!


On the blocks I did parallel lines running down the longest way - marking with masking 
tape to get them straight.


The borders had a cable which I marked on with a stencil and the Sewline new 
Duo Marking Pens. Sorry the colour is odd but taking a photo without he flash 
seemed to get the quilting showing up better.


I love these new pens - they mark with a grey line and the second pen takes away the 
line really easily - saves washing it off.


You can just see the marked lines in the photo below.


Next is finishing my Jo Morton quilt - it is about half way through the hand quilting.

Sunday 10 June 2012

Soft Curved Piecing Cushion

The weekend has seen a little bit of time spent in the sewing room - in between some 
gardening, some shopping for a new duvet cover and general household chores.

I did get the Yoko Saito quilt blocks all put together with their sashing. 
It is so good to have it all in one piece, even though one block had to be made 
smaller - whoops. The Clover Block was too big so a few applique pieces had to be 
either taken off all together or relocated - not a biggy  - at least it was too big rather 
than too small!

I made my last cushion for my Cushion Club Class. The technique for next month is
Soft Curved Piecing. It is a free rotary cutting technique where you cut without a ruler 
to make gentle curves. Piecing all those curves is so much easier than it looks.



A good resource for this technique is the Jean Wells book, "Intuitive Colour and Design".

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Embroider and Embellish

Oh what fun we had at the shop yesterday - it was the first day of the Embroider and Embellish class and I was a student so spent the afternoon sitting and stitching - how cool was that.


Missy cat interfering with my photo taking - she has too much energy and mischief 
for this time of night, but it gets worse!


OK get her out of the way so I can take some photos for you.

We have all chosen a piece of fabric to embroider and embellish. Mine is a 50cm piece
across the width of the fabric - the Needs List said a fat quarter but no mine had to be bigger!!!!! I am planning on it being a table runner eventually.


The first step was to outline some flowers - you will be surprised by the colours I 
am using - ha ha ha!!!!



I know  - more taupe - but I really do just love it. Now for some close ups.


Outlining with Stem Stitch and then a Running Stitch inside using Cosmo Embroidery Threads.


Chain Stitch with Cosmo Marbled Thread - I must get some of this for the shop. 
This was a card someone gave me a while ago, but I love the way it stitched up.


Whipped Backstitch.  Alison gave us so many new ideas for stitching. 

I am already so enjoying my new project - like I needed another one, but hey I have 
two quilts nearly finished.

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Quilting Quilting Quilting

I have been busy hand quilting over the last few weeks so there hasn't been much to show.
I have worked on my Jo Morton Quilt and I have put together by baby quilt that I showed you the pink blocks for a while ago. It is all in one piece and almost quilted. So if you have been wondering what I was up too that is it.


This is a variation on a pattern that we have at the shop - Days in Provence. As you can probably see from the photo there are still pins in it as I have to quilt the borders and around 
the animals in the stitcheries yet.

I spent the long weekend in Wellington with family and had lots of time to sit and quilt and chat, 
so this baby quilt made really good progress.

We also got to meet the baby the quilt is for. She was born early so is in the prem ward at the hospital for a wee while, so of course I had to send her one of our Little Quilts. Luckily I still had the one that I made for the Modern Quilt Guild Challenge so that got sent off to Wellington a few weeks ago. Go back to my 7 April Blog post to see the quilt. This is it on baby in hospital.



And to top it all off this little quilt won the Auckland Modern Quilt Guild Challenge - how exciting was that - it is my first quilt to win a  first prize. So thank you to all those  who voted for it on-line.