Sewing and designing and gifts……

I have several shapes already cut and glued waiting for me to sew them on to make a Joseph’s Coat quilt. I got enough done using up all my scraps and then just wasn't too sure how I was going to sew them together.

Did I want to just use them for a border on a quilt? Did I want them arranged in a certain way? Well I loved this disappearing 4 to a 9 patch block (thanks Andie) and thought….well sewing several of these together I could then sew the shapes on to these and then have a lap quilt or in my case a quilt big enough to go over my cafe size kitchen table.

So into my EQ7 program on my computer I went and worked out how many blocks and their sizes and put in the fabric I was going to use and this is what I came up with.

I have sewn all the blocks and loved doing them….such fun!!! Now I am stitching the shapes onto these blocks. I am doing needle turn method..because I love it but I am sure blanket stitch could be used as well.

I sit at night times and while I listen to and sometimes watch television I stitch these down. Its a bit dangerous with all them pinned on but I needed to distribute all the shapes evenly over so that no two lots of fabrics were in the same section.

I found a new thrift shop the other day and got a bag of old vintage buttons….sorry didn't take a piccie of them and they are now in the storage jar. Also got this lovely doily for me to cut up and sew the sections onto my framed hexagons that I am doing. Although it is in good condition and so I might not cut it up yet. Should have got the one with the hole in it! lol.

I have made a couple of table runners and given them for presents. This one here went to an Aunt-in-Law in Czech…..she loved it!

I used my Go! Baby to cut out the flower shapes…..makes it so much easier than tracing and cutting out yourself!

This one went to my DIL over in WA for her birthday at the beginning of the month….she loved her table topper too.

I designed it in EQ7 and so my DIL has an original design. Plus she loves purple.

I loved designing it and loved sewing the Dresden plates and I even did fancy quilting on it.

Hope your sewing is going full steam ahead…

I have added a pattern in the Patterns To Purchase section up the top under my banner ….they are pdf patterns and if you want hard copies they will be available in my store soon. Plus if you are looking for those pegs like I used for my lace and trims I was able to get some and I will have a few packets available in my store soon. (just have to list them yet) Under the Notions section.

Hugs to all…..

A new quilt, wall hanger and other things ….

 

This quilt was a Monthly Sampler BOM that I was in on my craft forum. There were nine of us who were in it and we all sent in a pattern for a block to use and we all made up the blocks each month. We sewed our own blocks so didn't really swap but was still lots of fun. I really enjoyed sewing these blocks and I got brave and machine quilted it as well. Just an all over meandering stipple.

It was fun.

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This wall hanger is finished and this time I machine quilted swirls all over and being a small quilt it was easy enough. Plus I put the legs and eyes on the birds….so at least they can see where they are going to now *grin* I made this from the Go! Baby that I love!

There is still time for you to enter the giveaway over here for a chance to win a Go! Baby all of your own. You will love it *big grin*

If there is enough interest I will do up this wall hanger into a pattern and have it available to download. Let me know if you would like it.

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This little guy just sits on my fridge grinning at us each time we go to the fridge. I painted him quite a few years back but being a purple frog I thought you might like to see him

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This fabulous purple note and pen holder was what the gorgeous Naomi gave me for guessing the little competition she had going a while ago. Thanks Naomi……I love it *smiles*

 

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I was in the shop the other day struggling to walk along with my big “CAM” boot on (I have to wear this for 6 weeks because I fractured a bone in the top of my foot….the day before I went to WA to see my new grandson!)

and…..I spied this sitting on the shelf……now as its purple and would match my cutting mat, I just had to have it…..plus my other one is a bit old now.

Its a really nice iron to use to iron my patchwork and sewing things…..I don't use it for ironing clothes!!

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So its no fun having a fracture in the foot and I can hardly wait for it to be healed. At least it’s my left foot and the car is automatic and so don't need to use that foot. But it is still hard to get in and out of the car tho. No joy at the moment! So a few things to show and tell and let me know if you would like the pattern for the Birds Wall hanger to be available and I will do the pattern up and have it as a freebie.

Hugs to all…….

Go! Baby Giveaway…wooo hoooo!

I have been given the GO! ahead to give away one Go! Baby Fabric Cutter and three dies.

Are you excited about that? I am!!

You all saw how I had so much fun with mine and shared a tutorial HERE on using the Rickrack, Birds and 2 1/2 inch strip dies on this blog post.

I made this cute wall hanging and I really did have a lot of fun using these dies.

Now you can have a chance to win your very own Go! Baby Fabric Cutter and 3 dies of your choice.

I will give you a few chances to be in the draw to hopefully win your very own Go! Baby Fabric Cutter.

Here’s all you have to do………. 

1 entry - Leave a comment telling me why you would like to own your very own Go! Baby Fabric Cutter and 3 dies.

2 entries - Become a follower of my blog and leave me a comment telling me you are or have become a follower

3 entries – Visit Accuquilt and see which dies you would like and come back and tell me.

4 entries – Blog about it on your blog and come back and tell me you done this.

Please don’t leave any comments on Accuquilt’s Facebook page for my giveaway. I have been asked to tell you this by Accuquilt.

That's all…easy peasy! Of course you don't have to do all four but of course you want to have as many chances as you can right?

Ok…this giveaway will go from now until Sunday 6th November 2011. AEST and I will announce the winner on the 7th November 2011 , you need to make sure I can contact you via email.

Also check out the Get 22 Free Patterns Button on the left side of my blog, all you have to do is sign up with your email and you can download 22 free patterns. Awesome patterns too!

Fingers crossed that you win!

Go! Baby Go!

hugs to all…….

 

A winner has been drawn and this giveaway is now closed.

A tutorial using my new Go! Baby Fabric cutting machine.

I had a design in my head and I needed to get it out….Once I got my new Go! Baby Fabric Cutting machine I could start!!

I got 3 dies with my Go! Baby….they are

The 2 1/2 inch strip cutter, The Rick Rack, and the Go! Birds. I have put links into the pictures which will take you to the web pages that they are on at Accuquilt.

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First up I cut two lots of strips of the green fabric and then two strips of the pink fabric and then sewed these together along the length of the strips.

Then I laid these strips on to the strip die cutter and cut several pieces for the 4 patch squares.

Then I cut 4 squares of the pink fabric to make the centre part of the wall hanger.

The centre pink lengths and outer borders were cut on the 2 1/2 inch strip die cutter too. I love how easy it does this for me. There is minimal wastage too.

After this I cut the Rick Rack using my Rick Rack die cutter on my Go! Baby fabric cutting machine.

I love my Go! Baby fabric cutting machine…..

I put the thinner Rick Racks on the corners and blanket stitched these down. You can either do this by hand or machine…I did mine by machine.

Then folding the larger Rick Rack in half and pressing them, I then trimmed one side of the humpy bits and then blanket stitched these onto the front of the wall hanger.

To get this.

Then it was time to cut out the birds.

I didn’t cut mine with vlisoflex ironed onto the back but you can do this if you want to. I lightly glued the birds onto the wall hanger and then blanket stitched around them. I have yet to stitch some legs for them and do the quilting but I will do that. I just wanted to show you how much fun I had.

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Then I cut more strips for a quilt I am doing and these were folded to get the width of the fabric lengths. I will use these for the bindings on the quilt.

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I am flying over to Western Australia on Wednesday to see my new grandchild. He/she will be born tomorrow by C-section and I am so excited and of course the proud parents are too.

This will be Nick and Tara’s first child and it nearly was born on their wedding anniversary but won’t and it will be on the 11th October 2011. So 11-10-11…..how special is that?

I can hardly wait to have cuddles of my new grandchild and to see my kids and get cuddles from them and my two gorgeous grandsons as well. Ohhh…lots of cuddles for me soon. It’s been a while. The last time was when my son got married last October.

Getting a little bit emotional here now. Squish squish. lol…..remember that show Absolutely Fabulous when the mother was supposed to be all sad and cry and she couldn't so she would just say squish squish darling! Loved that show.

I will be taking my laptop with me so will be able to keep track of all the goings on in blog land etc. and will be able to show off my new grandchild too …… I am coming home next Monday, so not going for long this time.

Take care everyone and hugs to all

Much excitement !!

 

I have started a new BOM which I got from Block Central and

with a few other ladies from my Craft Forum we are going to sew these blocks together …you can read about it here too… It’s called A Sentimental Journey.

Anyway the instructions were for all the blocks but not the finishing instructions so as I have EQ7 to help me design blocks and quilts and just about anything I can do, I put the blocks into EQ7’s program and then added borders with the corner blocks like it is in the picture.

I have also made the quilt to the size of what Block Central said it is.

I also wanted to see what my choice of fabrics would look like in the quilt,

and so I loaded them up into EQ7 after I downloaded them from the Moda website and the ones that weren't listed there on Moda, I scanned and imported them into my fabric library.

I came up with this…

I am happy with the fabrics and really happy that I can do this with EQ7 as for me to sit down and colour in a graph paper with it all on just bores me to bits.

I will have some exciting news to tell you all soon…but for now its a secret. But you will love it.

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Another fabulous bit of news is that the delivery man came to my door yesterday and gave me a huge parcel.

I was so excited to get this parcel and couldn’t wait to get it inside so I could open it. But first I had to take a piccie of it.

When I opened it I was even more excited as my very own Go! Baby and 3 die sets with their cutting mats were inside!

I got three fabulous dies and I am blown away by these as they are just the biggest dies that I could imagine them to be. I will be playing with these later today and have an idea already…all I could think about when I woke up this morning was what I would make with them.

So Go! Baby…I love you already and cant wait to play with you.

Stay tuned for a tutorial and then more excitement! I can’t wait!!

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Have you been and commented to hopefully win the My Memories Scrapbooking software from my post here?

Its a great program and makes the daggiest pictures look great. Mmm…might have to do a few of me with it.

hugs to all ……..

It has only taken 3 years! ......Plus a secret to tell.

That’s not long is it? 3 years?

YES!!!!!

Well I was in a Row by Row swap on the Craft Forum back in 2008 and got all the completed rows from those who were in the swap and I sent off rows to those in exchange. It was such a thrill getting the rows in the mail and now I have finally put them all together with sashing in between the rows and a border all the way around.

The next step is to quilt it and then of course bind it. I am really pleased with it and my darling hubby loves it! So I am going to surprise him with it as his very own quilt. He doesn't read my blog so it will stay a surprise. *grin*

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My secret……..Have you been excited lately?

I hope you have and well I have…I was contacted by Accuquilt this morning to tell me they are giving me a Go! Baby Fabric Cutter and it’s now on its way to my doorstep for me to play with!! Soooo excited about this *big toothy smile* and I can hardly wait for it to get here to play with it and soon after I will have one to give away too.

Stay tuned for this as I know you would love to win one.

I am doing the happy dance here!

Thank you Accuquilt…can hardly wait to play.

Have a great day everyone

Hugs to all……