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What have I been doing?  Not much,  but I seem to busy all the time.
Piecing is not my forte at all but I did this Jewel Box Block for a secret project.  The recipient doesn’t have a blog or read blogs so I am pretty safe to show it here.  She is 70 years old in April.

The background is a tone on tone black and we were to use jewel colours in batik or similar.  It was a fun block to make and should look stunning when all the blocks are together.
This past Monday I celebrated another birthday.  Wish they would stop coming around so darned quickly.  Anyway, we can’t stop them, so we may as well enjoy them.  I had a lovely day with my friends doing coffee and then lunch with Shirley, followed by some retail therapy.

We went to coffee on Valentine’s Day so all the coffees were presented with the heart motif.  Too cute.

Tomorrow we are off on another adventure in the company of my sister and her husband.  We are going in our camper and my sister and hubby are tenting it.  They haven’t camped since about 1970 when they were just teenagers.LOL  this is going to be really funny.  My sister is a 5 star girl normally.   (She is looking a bit worried here  LOL)
It should be loads of fun.  Back in about 4 weeks.  Ciao.

Autumn / Winter

 

So far we have had a bit of winter weather in autumn and a bit of autumn weather in winter.  It is all a bit topsy turvey  around here and one never knows what to dress in for the day.

Grandad raked the leaves and Lilian had fun helping him.

This type of weather makes us think about food all the time.  Well, it does me anyway.  What better for dinner than a hot steaming beef casserole.  Oooh it was yummy.

The other pastime I am really enjoying most evenings is hand quilting.  My ‘Leaf Flowers’ quilt is coming along nicely and all being well I should have it completed for the Toowoomba Quilter’s  exhibition in September.

Doing my Block

After the family left today I dashed into the sewing room to do a Japanese block for my up-coming sashiko quilt. 

It was a struggle due to the @@##$$! cream fabric which was a monstrosity.  A very open weave fabric which, of course, had a propensity to fray badly and stretch out of shape.  I bought this fabric because the osnaburg fabric I was originally going to use was too open weave.  I should have saved my money!!  Next time I will back the fabric with some special interfacing I bought recently so I could use the osnaburg.  I sure was doing my block!!  Don’t think I will use this block in the quilt.


The block called Yamato kasuri igeta comes from this fabulous book which I love – author, Susan Briscoe.  I plan to do many more blocks and sashiko pieces from this book.

Family snaps from today.  Our daughter, Bonnie, visited for the weekend from Brisbane.
(Left) Bonnie with Dad who is out of hospital now and feeling much, much better.
(Middle) Gorgeous Bonnie in the squatters chair.
(Right) Bonnie and Lilian on the swing Grandad made for her.
A beautiful Autumn day here today with warm sunshine and just a hint of crispness in the air.

Sue's Block

 
Our small Thursday sewing group is making a special quilt for a special person.  This special person is called Sue ( no computer - so she won't be reading this).  Sue will be turning 70 early next year so we just had to do a quilt for her.  We are all (9 of us) making a 20" block.  The colours were chosen by us all,  and we agreed we would base our patterns around hearts.  
Sue appreciates hand applique and embroidery and does beautiful work in these techniques herself.  (Hope she doesn't look too closely at mine!!).  
This is my original design and I am very pleased with how it has come up.  The empty spaces are for some hand quilting, probably hearts.

 
Nine hearts!


When we get all our blocks altogether I will share them here for you all to look at.  This quilt is going to be awesome!!

Binding

 
The hand quilting is finished and the quilt is ready for the binding to be sewn down.  This is the binding fabric, Kaffe Fassett of course!  It is going to give a nice effect around the edge.
 Binding is the part of the quilt making I love the best.  It heralds the finish and in this case it has been quite a while getting there. 

Our renovations are nearing completion too.  Here is the before and after photos of the outside pathways and patio concreting.

 
DH and I still can't decide whether to close in the area or not.  I am in favour - he is against.  So, for the time being it will remain like this until we reach agreement. 

Caution - Mundane Post

I finally got to the sewing machine today and got the binding sewn on to my Kaffe Fassett quilt.  There is still some hand quilting to be done right up to the edge so I have chosen to put the binding on before trimming this time.  It just suit me better to do it this way this time.  Hope it works out to be straight or I am in trouble.  It is not a prize winning quilt anyway, just a quilt I have loved doing and look forward to using on our bed.


 
Speaking of our bed, I have had to put another blanket on this past week.  This is a woollen blanket I bought at a garage sale about 20 years ago.  It was in perfect condition and still is.  One of the jobs I love to do is make the bed every morning.  It gives an opportunity to let your mind wander onto what the day may bring.  A mundane task, but satisfying.
 
Now, to brighten this post up, a very happy little Lilian doing what she likes best - playing in dirt.

Hand Quilting with a difference

Finally I got my act together and started hand quilting my Kaffe Fasset Quilt.  This quilt will be referred to as KFC (Kaffe Fassett collection)  so I don't have to keep saying the whole title.
The weather has cooled down a bit and it is now quite comfortable to quilt for an hour or so each night.

The quilt stand was made by my friend's husband.  It is absolutely fabulous.  You can adjust it up and down to get a comfortable position to quilt, and it also rotates 360 deg, so you simply turn it when you want to head in another direction.  Sometimes though I end up in a big twist, especially with this quilt being so huge.  No problem really, as it is quickly untwisted.  It makes me get up off my butt and do a few stretches.  Too much hand quilting in one sitting is not good for my headaches, so I have to discipline myself to take regular breaks.  I have a small kitchen timer to help me do this about every 20 minutes.

The thread I started quilting with was a sashiko thread and it was a little too thick and tended to shred a bit, so I changed over to a DMC Perle No 8 in a very similar colour.  It is going like a dream now, very fast, as I am using a No 7 crewel needle to quilt with.  It's a bit different look, but I am loving it.

Basting Kaffe Fassett Quilt

We are at Robyn's house in this photo - basting my Kaffe Fassett quilt.  Robyn's husband who is an engineer has designed this fantastic frame for her to baste her quilts whilst standing up.  It is brilliant.  Robyn very kindly lets us baste our quilts on it too.  It is extremely helpful when your quilt is as big as this one. 

Two colours I love at this time of year.  The flame tree with it's brilliant flame orange (sorry about the foggy picture - taken through the very dirty windscreen of my car) and the jacaranda tree.

I particularly love the purple carpet it lays down.  This carpet is from the tree just outside the meeting rooms of our quilt group. 

We have a few jacarandas in our garden, but the flowering was a bit disappointing this year.  They are still beautiful to look at though.

Leaves - some of them

I have used some of my few hundred leaves to make this quilt from an Aust. Patchwork and Quilting magazine. I have bought some border fabric for it, but borders will have to wait now as we get organized for our quilt club's big event of the year - our exhibition. 
This quilt may end up on our guest bed, or it may be a gift to a family member.


I have about 250 leaves tacked ready for my other leaf quilt (which is an original design - a design in progress) .  I just love appliqueing leaves.  Boring?  I don't find it so, because when I am hand appliqueing such an easy motif, I don't have to think too much and I am relaxed and  transported to another world free of stresses.

Kaffe Fassett Collection

I finally bit the bullet and started cutting up my Kaffe Fassett collection. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. Once I decided on the pattern and could see how it was all going to come together, it was really exciting. The pattern I am going to do is in Kaffe's book, 'Quilts in the Sun'. The quilt is the Red Floral Parade Quilt, but I am making the squares slightly smaller and more of them because ...well because. Most of the fabric I have been collecting has been in the way of fat quarters and eighths and this dictated the square sizes.

My daughter is loving the colour and now wants to make a quilt for Lily-bub in KF pastels. We will have to start another collection now. Found some fabulous KF fabrics at a very, very good price on fabric.com, so had to indulge in a couple of these. Needed some more polka dots for the 'collection quilt' anyway.

It amazes me how all the KF fabrics seem to blend. Do hope the quilt ends up colourful and not just plain garish though. It is the brightest colour I have ever, ever used.