New Arrival

This is what arrived on the back of a truck yesterday. I'm excited!!!....

Why, you might ask would I be excited by a pre-fab building being dumped in our front garden??

Weeell, for the moment this building is going to be used as my husbands office for his business so

a) I can have my house back as a "home". (Currently it looks like an office, even infiltrating the formal dining room grrr)

b) I can just see it being a great studio/sewing space in the future. (Have to wait til hubby retires.. ) But, believe me quilting friends, I am very very patient.

The building is going to be moved to the back of the house behind some other sheds, so it won't stick out like a sore thumb.

Nana is organized (for a change)

People who know me well will know I am not the most organized human being on the planet. This is why I have the perpetual New Year's resolution "to get organized". So, I think I am doing really well having an Easter gift all ready for our little granddaughter. I have made her this really simple bunny (pattern from an old Better Homes and Garden Mag) from left over flannel and picked up the little vintage egg cup at a recent antique market. The links toy I picked up when Target were having a huge sale on toys back when baby was still in the womb! (Really excelled myself there with forward planning!)

Life has really got in the way of blogging lately, but in between all the mundane things of life, I have been working on P & Q projects. I have put finishing touches to a quilt from our quilt group for the bushfire quilt appeal, and I am ready to pin and quilt the quilt from the previous post for the appeal. In between all that I am still making 600 yards (okay, slight exaggeration, but feels like it) bias tape for the up and coming applique leaf quilt.

Here is Lili at 12 weeks, she has stolen our heart and is giving us lots of smiles.

Bush Fire Quilt

This is a quilt top which I put together some time ago now using a technique shown to me by a lady named Joyce Carter. We were both members of Gympie Quilters at the time. It was called "Magic Triangles" and I swear on a stack of bibles, I did not cut one small triangle to make this very scrappy quilt. That is not to say I did not cut some BIG triangles, but hey, cutting and sewing big ones is a lot easier than cutting small ones...agree?

Once the big triangles are cut, you end up with a triangle you see in that block called "Birds in the air?????" or something like that, anyway. You can make your small triangles however you like, e.g. 1 dark, 3 light or 3 darks and 1 light and all the other combinations, but that is decided back at the beginning when you start with 2 squares.
Clear as mud? Well you have to see it, it is a really cool technique, too hard to explain here.
I have decided to donate this quilt to our quilt groups bush fire appeal, and have also decided to donate backing and wadding and quilt it as well. Better get on with it.

The other project I have been working on is my new leaf quilt. see previous post re leaf quilt.
I have started the long (and have now found to be veeeerrrry involved) process of making the bias tape for the leaves to attach to.
Now, if you don't own one of the clover bias tape makers, well do yourself a favour and invest in one. They are the best thing since sliced bread.
Putting the sticky stuff on at the same time, well that has been a challenge, but as usual I have learnt much.

As you can see, I roll my cut bias tape onto an old cling wrap roll, pull it through the tape maker (that little green thingy), ironing as I go, and roll it onto another cardboard roll.
This is set up on the ironing board at the moment, and I do a little bit at a time - so very tedious.

Someone in a previous post warned me about this - anyway, you were right.

Lessons - Make your tape the width they tell you on the bias tape maker packet. In a couple of places I went a bit narrow and the tape wont roll over as there is not enough of it to do so.

Iron it (no steam, or you will burn your fingers) as close to where it is coming out as possible.

Don't sweat the small stuff - if it doesn't roll over or it misbehaves learn to ignore it, cut it off or fix it up later - that is what I am going to do!