Friday, 29 February 2008

I finished it!

Delph II was finished and handed in today along with 10 other quilts. My walls look very bare!

Tuesday, 26 February 2008

Delph III Finished!

I love the way the binding ended up.


Progress


Got some more done on Delph II today. I think the border I've put on it comes pretty close to the virtual border I painted on the photo yesterday. Now I have two days to layer it, quilt it, bind it and put on a label. And do all my ordinary work...

Monday, 25 February 2008

Delph II

Remember I was wondering if I have time to finish Delph II in time to submit it for the show? Well, I've finished Delph III so I'm going to have a go. I've got until Saturday morning to finish and I don't know if I will manage it as I also have the sleeves to sew on the backs of the other 9 quilts I am submitting for the show.

The first picture shows Delph II as it is at the moment. I've got about 2/3 of the black satin stitching around the florets finished. I've got maybe 1/3 of the pale satin stitching around the edges of the background diamonds done.

The second picture is my concept of how I might finish it. I took the photo into Photoimpact and scribbled some dark "stitching" in behind the flower heads for stems and shadows. I drew pale stitching over the rest of the background and painted in a border. Unfortunately, I don't have fabric like that to make the border! But I could come close I think.

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Another Challenge Quilt

Mmmm....., in my last post but one I was wondering if I could get Delph III finished AND Delph II finished in time to enter them in the show on the first Saturday in March. Well, there is no progress to report there BECAUSE I have started another quiltlet! There are three challenges classes we can enter in for this show and I have already made two entries for one of the challenges. You can see them here and here.

The Challenge I have made this little quiltlet for is this one:
Cotton-On Quilters are celebrating their 20th birthday in 2008. Make a quilt using the number 'Twenty' (20) in some way - for instance it may have 20 blocks or twenty pieces. The quilt may be any size up to a 40" square (2 x 20 :-)).

I still have to bind it and I'm still thinking I may do some more hand quilting or other embellishment, maybe some beads.
Can you see the five different ways I've incorporated 20? I'll accept a guess of four if the fifth is too hard...

Thursday, 7 February 2008

Fairy Quilt All Finished!

I finished Aimee's Fairy Quilt last Saturday while I was at my Quilt Club, hand sewing the label and a little hand quilting in the sky around the fairy's head. I have to wrap it up this morning to take it to Wellington for Aimee's birthday party on Saturday. Here are the final photos:

The front of the quilt, the back of the quilt,


the centre picture, a close up of the quilted leaves and flowers in the centre and the label.

I said back in early December that I was nervous about quilting it on the frame because I wanted to do fancy quilting in the centre. And I was right to worry. I closely quilted the blocks around the centre panel on the swiftquilter and just did a little quilting in the centre. I then took the quilt off the frame and did the rest of the centre panel quilting on the normal sewing machine. It made the centre panel quilting very easy but the quilt was already stretched out of shape from the uneven quilting on the frame and it never recovered. Lesson learned! Next time I think I will pin the quilt and stitch around any key areas before floating it on the frame when I want to quilt part of the it off the frame.

Monday, 4 February 2008

Delphinium III and Delphinium II

I have at least five (unfinished) quilts which I could be working on but this is the one I have chosen as most likely to be completed by the deadline of the first Saturday in March. That's when we need to hand in our submissions for the Cotton-On Quilter's Quilt Show 2008. (The unfinished quilts list includes Delphinium I and Delphinium II.)

Delphinium III was started at Symposium in January 2007, in a crazy log-cabin class tutored by Sue Weston. I'm afraid I didn't follow her class very closely, but she very generously allowed me to 'do it my way'. And I had fun - producing five of the delphinium florets in the day long class. Last week I took them out and in a couple of days I made two more florets and pieced them all together with background pieces. During the trip to the USA last winter I had concentrated on buying 'delphinium' coloured fabric - blues, purples, turquoises, greens... and I had a lot of funky dots and stripes to choose from for the borders. And don't tell anyone because it will spoil my reputation but I actually HAND appliquéd the stems in this quilt.

Now, I have nearly four weeks left to layer and quilt this - can I do it? and can I maybe do it in time to have a go at finishing Delphinium II as well for the Show? This one was started in a two day Jane Sassaman class where she taught us to abstract a very stylised version of a flower or seed head or leaf to use as the basic building block for a quilt. She also taught her technique of using heavy iron on interfacing and satin stitch around the edge of each motif.

The delphinium florets are nearly three quarters completed. And for this photo they have just been laid out on a piece of fabric that I may or may not decide to use for the background.

Sunday, 3 February 2008

Losing Big

A couple of years ago my daughter, Sarah, took up running and with that and watching her diet she lost 20 kg (44 lb) over a year and has maintained that loss ever since. About a year ago I had some blood tests that showed my carbohydrate, saturated fat and sugar intake was too high so I worked out a diet that suited me and as a byproduct of the new diet I lost weight. 20 kg over the course of a year and so far I've maintained that loss - and I still enjoy my new way of eating.

Now my eldest daughter, Emma has started on the weight loss journey. She is using an exercycle, swimming three times a week and watching her diet. In three weeks she has lost 4.1 kg.

Emma has set up a web page here where she is raising funds for Cure Kids. So giving to this excellent charity through her page will encourage her in her efforts. She is also reporting her weight loss each day in a pop-up blog you can see on the right hand column on her page, about half way down. Pop in now and again and check her progress - leave her a message of encouragement!