Lots of Progress

The last week has seen a lot of progress and almost finishes!!

I got my binding on my "100 Modern Quilt Blocks" from last year's

Breakfast Club that I ran at the shop.

Helen Harford quilted it and it looks great - it is such a large quilt it is going 

to take forever to hand sew the binding down.

Here is a taster of the quilting.

 

   

I got the first corners of my Patchwork of the Crosses on.

It is going to take a while to get all the way around the quilt.

But it is going to look good with the blocks 'floating' on the cream.

I am not sure what will be the binding. 

I thought maybe the red of the squares but that is going to be unlikely 

as I don't have enough of it.

No doubt something else will work and it may not even be a red. 

There could be enough red in this quilt already. 

Or maybe it should be bound in the cream background.

What do you think?

I also got my Duo Star Quilt blocks all put together.

I have quilted by machine - in the ditch around the blocks and will now 

put some hand quilting on it.

This quilt is the sample for my class Stitched by Hand" on Fridays once a month.

It involves foundation piecing by hand and by machine.

I loved using this technique to get the accuracy in the star points.

Little 1800s Star Quilt

It has been great having a long weekend - in fact mine is even longer as I have 

a day at home tomorrow sewing our Shop Hop Quilt.

As well as stitching I have time in the garden, which was long overdue and

time out and about, so in all a nicely balanced weekend.

I have got all my foundation pieced stars finished. This has been a fun project 

to work on especially when you end up with such accurate stars. 

Each star uses the same set of fabrics but each fabric is used in a different place

in each new star. I love he scrappy look this gives the stars.

I have worked by hand and by machine. I pieced the very small units by hand 

and then jumped onto the machine to put the units together to maker the star blocks. 

I did try hand stitching these all together but going through a lot of seams was a bit of a mission, so it seemed better to go to the machine for the final piecing of each block.

I made the alternate and side blocks on the machine - foundation pieced.

This turned out to be a successful combination of machine and hand work.

Now it is time for the borders and more work on my Patchwork of the Crosses Quilt.

I have all the blocks joined up and now need to add about three rows around

 the outside edge.

Back soon with borders on this and the Shop Hop Quilt started.

It will be in the red French General fabric.

Double Star Duo

I have now finished one double star block for my Double Star Duo 

Mini Quilt. The finished quilt will measures 32".

This block is 6" when finished.

I have foundation pieced it. I did the smaller units by hand and then sewed 

the units together by machine.

Working with the little pieces to start with was much easier by hand 

than I thought it have been on machine. But when it came to joining the units 

the seams were getting quite thick so I thought the machine would get through 

the layers better than my fingers would.

I have also pieced the larger alternate blocks by machine, 

but still foundation pieced.

Now I need to make four more double stars to fill the corners.

My next post will come from Symposium in Palmerston North.

Do stop by the Mechants' Mall and say hello if you are there.

New Year New Project

Happy New Year. I hope your year has started off well.

My Patchwork of the Crosses is almost done.

I just need to add the final rows around the edge.

But actually I guess that is going to take many nights.

It is a long way around!

I am now busy working on a new class sample.

Foundation piecing by hand!

I saw this wallhanging at the Houston Quilt Market and as soon as the lady

behind the counter suggested that I could hand stitch it - it was sold!

It measures 32" square and mine is going to be made in these

 1800s Reproduction fabrics.  I started with choosing the border on the right 

as it is smaller in scale. What do you think?

This is the first section of the first block.

Watch this space for more.

Back soon now that the sewing year is back underway.