Granny's Garden done and dusted.

My Granny's garden is now done and dusted. It has taken me a year and a week to complete this quilt. This is quite fast. I needed a quilt to use all of the gorgeous Jelly rolls that I have been given as presents. I found this a great way of using up the fabric, though this was supposed to be a subtle pastel quilt. It is quite soft but not what I had envisioned when I started this project.

I started quilting on this on the 4th of April, so the quilting took me  71 days. The picture below shows my thread before and after the quilting process. I used up a whole sheet of needles and seem to have lost my thimble.
        

I used a butternut binding. I draws out the yellow. The whole quilt is hand pieced and hand stitched. I used silk batting and the quilt is amazingly warm due to this. 

Tomorrow I will start on quilting a poor quilt that has been ignored since 2011.

Have you have an excellent weekend.

Have a good one.

Just in time June..

May sped past at quite a rate. I spent some effort and joined the quilt festival. It was great to see so many beautiful quilts. There really is an amazing amount of talent out there. I have been busy quilting my Granny's garden.

 I have completed quilting all of the flowers and have started on the borders. I have completed the one side and done about 90% on the second side. I still need to finish the edges and then add the bias binding. The worst thing is that I am working against a deadline that I will not make.

I started this quilt on the 7th of June 2014 and it would have been awesome to complete it on the 7th of June 2015. We have a public holiday to the 16th of June, so I recon that is probably when I will complete it. Let us see. I also am finding it hard going doing the border. It is just a tad boring.

Oh well, stitching does that sometimes.

I am still on the hunt for my next project. The next thing I am going to do is quilt a smallish quilt that has been waiting to be quilted since 2011.

The weather is still bearable. The only time it gets really nippy is first thing in the morning. I am sure it will soon be very cold.

Hope you have an excellent project to work on and the weather is neither too hot or too cold; in other words let all hope for bear porridge weather that is just right.

The quilt was draped over a chair so that I could take the pictures. A short while later I saw a bit of movement and this is who had sneaked in for a quick nap.

Have a good one.

And now to Quilt...

This is where the quilt is now. It has a backing and batting all nicely sandwiched together and ready to quilt. We started at 9:00 this morning and I finished at about 13:00. 1 hour of my husband and daughter helping with the pinning and then another 3 hours of me tacking the borders to keep every thing nice and tidy. 

I have been click happy this morning. Here is how the morning went. Firstly a nice cup of tea and a little play on the computer. The old girl cat sitting on her seat looking all fluffy. I think she is ready for winter. She seems twice as fluffy as she was in summer. She is having a moments peace. This kittens are chasing each other around the house.

This was not likely to last. The little girl bounced all around and came to say hi to the bigger browner cat. The kittens are now six months old. Happy half a year birthday to them. I like the fact that no hissing happens any more.

Tea finished and I thought that I would mug rug today. As I passed my sewing room I thought I would just take a peak at my batting and make sure that it looked ok. This time I am using silk batting. 

The backing goes down first

This is the 12th quilt that I have made and I have tried 5 different battings. I suppose that I should settle for one, but it is too much fun trying a different batting each time.

 Well after staring at the batting for a while, i decided it was time to prepare for quilting. T

Then the batting

his is always an ominous time in our house hold. This is a make or break for the next three month activity. Ok it is really not that dramatic. Firstly down goes the backing and then the batting. 

The top is the top of the sandwich

Lastly the top goes on and then it is pinning time. I  previously used straight pins and then tacked the whole quilt. This was not as much fun as using quilting pins.

The pinning is slow and laborious.  The kitten could not help himself, he had to help with the proceedings. First he had to bite the batting to see if it squeaked on his teeth. This went on for a while until he was satisfied with the quality.

Next he took it upon himself to supervise my husband. I think he was unhappy about something. It looks as though clear instructions are being given. 

Oh goodness has he spotted an error in pinning, This is why he need to be so vigilant whilst supervising. He may need to have another chat. A kitties work is never done. All of this and being cute as well. *SIGH*

The pinning is now done. Time to roll it into a long tube and take it for the next steps in preparation.  I hope he has not spotted a mess. I think he wants to know, why all the pins weren't used.

Here I am tidying up all of the edges. I find this is necessary as this help with keeping the quilt tidy whilst stitching. I cut off the excess batting and the curled the back overt to form the hem. 

All feels well. The backing is soft to the touch. I have found the quilting circle and all of the tiny needles. I am actually writing this blog so that I put off starting the gargantuan task of quilting this quilt. I may only start tomorrow, Maybe there is still time to play with Mug Rugs.

Hope all have an amazing Saturday on this Easter weekend.
Have a good one.

Friday- stuff Done

As I said in my previous post. I am planning on being so busy this weekend. I have been saying for months now that I really want to make mug rugs. Well now I have made one. I have a whole lot more that need completing and then I will be doing some applique ones as well. I was quite happy with how this one turned out. Quilting was fun again except the thimbles that would not stick on my finger.

Eventually I just gave up and used my rubber based thimble. Possible it was the waterproof plaster that I had put on my finger to aid in pressure release. I found that it was two stitches, pull through and then pick up the thimble off the floor where it has rolled to. 

I have finished the backing for my Granny's garden. It is really delicate flowers. I needed to enhance the photo so the the colours could be seen. Without the enhancing it looked like I had taken a photo of a whole lot of white blocks. I think it is pretty.

Here are the bindings that I bought yesterday. Are they not the most fabulous colours. The mug rugs and quilt will look quite handsome wearing these. I made the binding for my Dear Jane . It was actually quite a task. Eventually my whole family was involved in the production. We made about 20 meters, so I still have enough for another quilt.

Hope you all had a great and productive day.

Have a good one!

Ah April

April is here already. This year is zooming by at such a rate. All of us are worried about global warming, maybe we should be worried that time is slipping by due to the earth spinning faster. The older you get the faster it seems. Though the speed of  1,700 km/h (1,040 m/h) is pretty fast. We are pretty radical if you think that we walk on an object moving this fast.

The kittens have grown to be small cats now. They have settled into our family as it they were always there. Each of the kittens have developed their own little personalities. The little boy has been to the vet twice so far from being a boy and doing things that the little girl would not think of doing.

Though saying this, I have to admit that the little girls is a killer of any flying insect that comes her way. It is so amusing to watch them do arial fights in persute of moths. Neither of them seem to have a sense of self preservation.

One of the trips to the vet was due to the little boy chasing, catching and eating a bee. We have a hive in our chimney. We do not use the chimney as I threw out the fire place that was attached to it. The bees have now lived in the chimney for the 18 years that we have lived in the house.

Initially I tried to have them removed. After two attempts and doing all of the things you are supposed to do so that African Killer bees do not take residence, I have come to a place of peace where the bees, my family and pets can co-exist. They enjoy the garden and so do we. I would never discourage all of the birds that live on the property so why do it to the most marvelous insect. With that said, the little boy cat has to come to terms that some insects bite back.

I have finished piecing my Granny's garden top. I have cut the squares that I will be using for the back. I just need to take out the sewing machine and stitch it. This is one thing the I don't hand stitch. The back need to be smooth as possible and machine stitching has less texture than hand stitching.

I love stitching up a quilt with the machine. It is so fast. Although I have embraced the Zen required to hand piece a quilt, there is still the savage side of me that would love to produce multiple quilts in a short amount of time. This is the part of my personality that I am still working on.

From being a fidgety child 50 years ago, I think I have come a long way in being able to sit quietly and stitch away. I find it interesting that when I stitch , my mood needs to be calm, as each bit of non-calmness results in my thread snapping or snarling into a knot. Very much like the tension on a sewing machine.

Hope you all have a marvelous first day of April and have an interesting project for the Easter weekend.


Have a good one!

Granny's garden top finished

Wowser. I have just finished stitching the top to my Granny's Garden quilt. I started the first flower on the 22nd of June 2014 and the final flower was done on the 1st of December 2014. The border took me from the 1st of December until the 22nd of March 2015. It has taken me a week to sew the border onto the quilt.

So from start to finish it has taken me 280 days.

The whole reason for wanting to do a granny's garden quilt apart from the fact that they are bright and friendly was to use up a whole lot of jelly rolls that I have collected over time. Many of them were presents and a gorgeous collection of colours. I think they have melded together quite well. As you can see with the border, I just made 4 cm by 8 cm blocks and plaited them together.

I still have about 6 more jelly rolls, so I will have to think of another quilt to use them up on. 

The next step will be to create a backing. I have some lovely floral fabric, which should be perfect. The only problem is that they are not as wide enough to be a backing without some creative intervention. I am going to be using a silk batting. This will be an new experience. The batting feels lovely, but, I will only know how it stitches later. I loved the feeling of bamboo batting, but found that it was quite 'sticky' on the needles.

Hope you are all having a marvelous day and getting some stitching in.

Have a good one! 

Border progress adjustments needed

Well today is Sunday,the outside world is grey and gloomy. What joy. I have spent the whole day stitching. I have managed to stitch the edge on the border. 

These are the corners all ready to be attached. What do you think of the butterflies that I have added?

I have now got to the point where serious calculations needed to be made to do the final adjustments to the design. I am adding some blocks to the border as well as a 1cm stripe to the top and the bottom. It sometimes is fun to do follow your nose designs. The whole point is not to have a freak out when you realize you still have 20 metres to stitch. 

The kittens have been keeping me company. The poor little boy spend a night at the vet. The mean Siamese cat from next door came over to our property and scratched his flank. The scratch formed an abscess and this needed to be drained. The poor boy went under anesthetic and while he was under he was neutered as well. I know it is the responsible thing to do, but, I do feel bad for the poor fella. Extra greenies for him. 

Hope you are having an amazing day and that stitching is part of your plans. I found this funny and it really does appeal to me. Do you think it is funny or do you have to have drunk this cold drink growing up.

Have a good one.

Fabulous February 2015

February is here and January is done and dusted. My Granny's garden has all of it's flowers. I have squared off the flower area with green. In my mind, shrubbery around the flower garden. I have added a thin brown strip. This is to demarcate the flowers from the border.

I am now working on the borders. I have made about 100 little bricks and need to make another 550. I am going to do crazy paving with them.

 I had started making chevrons out of the bricks, when my 2 design consultants (my husband and my youngest daughter) that this was a gross idea and would look stupid. My husband has just denied the use of the word gross. Never the less.

After fiddling around I could see that possibly it was not the best design idea. I do think the mixed placement looks better. I have been given many jelly rolls over the years and this has been a fun exercise in using them up. The paving will use a whole lot more.

The kittens are growing beautifully. Yesterday I took the baby boy to the vet as he had eaten a stinging critter and one half of his face was all swollen. We have a bee hive that lives in the house's chimney, so it may have been a bee. There are many other creepy crawlies in the garden so I just wanted him checked out.

He was given a good check out and 2 injections. This morning he is just fine. His beautiful little face is once again symmetrical. Even his nose is down to it's normal size. He did have a little thug thing going on.

We have been having a whole lot of rain. The next door neighbor has a dead  tree which deposits branches each time it rains. Here is last nights deposit. I suppose wishing for them to be decent neighbors is asking too much.

Hope you all have a Fabulous February and the last 6 weeks of summer/winter go by in a pleasant manner.

Lastly I have added a video of the kitties being cute,

Have a good one.