Tuesday 27 September 2011

Design Wall!!! #2

Here's the wall - made using a few metres of acrylic felt tacked to the picture rail in my room.  It's neat to be able to stand back and see how a project is taking shape : ).  Suddenly I'm finding the motivation to make a few more blocks this week!



The centre block is finally half done - woohoo.  It's taken ages and it has been quite annoying having to be so accurate *sigh* - still I'm pretty happy with the joins all in all so far.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Design wall!!!

It's official.  I finally, finally, FINALLY have a design wall.  Pics to follow : )

Thursday 15 September 2011

Shoulder Janes

Some people talk about having an angel and a devil that sit on their shoulder and whisper things into their ear.  I think I have shoulder quilts.  DJ keeps whispering in my ear and telling me it's time to step away from the Nearly Insane and The Morrell and focus on her for a while.  I've also been looking at the following Dear Jane BOM for 2012 at Stitchin'Heaven and thinking 'will I, won't I'.  My current sad and sorry attempt at the Dear Jane is a scrap quilt (or at least I hope it will be some day, but seeing as I've only managed to make five blocks so far...).  I'm leaning towards 'I will' - I'm thinking that receiving a fabric bundle each month will help keep me on track/task with this one : )

Saturday 3 September 2011

A (long awaited) finish

I made the top for this quilt about 14 years ago and only recently got around to taking it to my quilting place to get finished.  I got the call that it was done and so I went and got it yesterday after the quilt show.  I love love love how it turned out.  I really love the simplicity of the irish chain pattern and the gorgeous quilting in the cream blocks.
I may have had a slightly unfortunate mishap when trying to remove a couple of decade old fabric marker lines using a little bleach solution (it seeped through to the back and now I have three very small light spots on the reverse of it.....ooooops..... : S.  Still, in 50 years time, who's going to notice as I'm sure it'll collect other spots and marks in the future.
Thanks to quilt-model Murray - nice pose!

After a soak in the tub and drying overnight, I have to say that I'm really happy with the outcome.

In the barn!

Had a nice trip out to Wonga Park to check out the Quilts in the Barn yesterday.  Such a gorgeous day - sunny and warm - genuine Spring weather.  I'd lost the flyer and couldn't remember the address, so I ended up having to call my local quilt shop for the details...

The quilts on show were lovely. It's always interesting to see how other people mix pattern and colour.  One of my roomies tagged along for the ride and supplied us with the quote of the day 'So....these things are called quilts, right?'... quite funny : )


Just lovely

The Barn itself is a nice little building and got my mind ticking over as to how you could fit it out quite comfortably to live in. Hmmmm...  Perhaps the red/white colour scheme helps me to picture living in something like this.

Thursday 1 September 2011

53/98

Over half way done!!!  *Yay*

The end (of the central blocks at least) is in sight!!!  53 blocks down, 45 to go - plus a couple of remakes.  It'll be obvious which ones are on the 'to remake' list when you scroll through the pictures.

Recent news:  the sewing 'nook' has been rearranged and a design wall is in the not-too-distant future : )











Thursday 2 June 2011

1/3 Insane

Ok, so it's been a little longer than I'd anticipated it would be between posts.  NI update: 33 blocks complete :), so that makes it 1/3 complete (excluding sashing & borders of course).


I started to lay some of the blocks out a couple of weeks back, so that I could see how it was taking shape.  As you can see, Gracie has decided that she likes them too...

Tuesday 29 March 2011

The Insanity continues

Here's the pic (finally) of block 18 - under construction as well as the final product.



(It doesn't look so square here, but it is... hmmmm..... perhaps I need to set up a mini-studio to get some better pictures)

The off-cuts pile...


Another finish! (well, of a block, anyway)

Saturday 19 March 2011

More Redwork

*Newsflash* block 18 complete - all 229 pieces of fabric.  Pics to come : )

Friday 11 March 2011

Redwork Insanity

My other project is a red and white version of Nearly Insane.  I'm über-excited about this one - at last I'm delving into my rather extensive red stash!  Sometimes, if I have a stash I'm particularly fond of, it can take a while to find a project worthy of it... and anything with red & white is my current obsession.  I'm also going through a bit of a scandinavian/nordic design phase. 

Here are a couple of my favourites so far:











Friday 4 March 2011

Dear Jane

I started working on a Dear Jane about four or five months ago.  I thought it would be a fun way to use up a lot of the scraps I have left over from other projects that are too small to use in 'something big', but that I am much too attached to to merely throw out. I'm using quilter's muslin as my background and a variety of fabrics for the top - some with stories, some not.


The yellow in the star block and the green in the circle block are fabrics I used in a 'farm' quilt I made when I was about 15.  So nice to be able to put the leftovers to good use.


The pink is also from the 'farm' quilt, and the yellow in the star is leftover from a quilt I made for my brother and sister-in-law as a wedding present.


This block took me ages to finish - so fiddly.

I also signed up to a DJ mailing list and it's been really great to see what other people are doing with their    'Jane Journey'.  Being a part of the 2011 Secret Pal is also proving to be fun!

Two sites I really find useful for DJ are:
http://www.dearjane.com/
http://thatquilt.blogspot.com/

Amsterdam

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I posted on here last.  Since my last post I've spent a few weeks in Europe and made a tour of some of the fabric stores I came across : )

I arrived in Frankfurt in the middle of the snow storms in mid December, and headed straight for Amsterdam.  Well, I tried to anyway.  After two cancelled trains, endless delays, a side trip through Belgium, another train, a bus, yet another train - that broke down, and finally a taxi crash, I arrived.  A trip that should have taken about 5 hours ended up taking more than 13...

Anyway, it was well worth it.  Now, I know that when most people in my age-bracket think of Amsterdam they generally think of pastimes which may be restricted in their homelands due to local laws.  Not me.  When I think of Amsterdam, I think of dutch chintz and Den Haan & Wagenmakers!
The store in the central part of the city is lovely and has a nice range of fabric on offer.  Naturally a purchase or two was made.  The ladies who run the store are very helpful.
There's also a website: http://www.dutchquilts.net/
and an online store: http://www.dutchquilts.net/shop/home.php?sl=US