Loving Spring and latest quilt to show.

I love Spring…..especially when birds make nests in my garden and lay their eggs and a pair of Doves (not white ones but greyish ones) have laid two eggs in the nest they made in the little tree in the garden.

Look at those lovely eggs…..that means two more gorgeous little Doves will be in our garden and our very clever Bella keeps the norty bird hunting cats away….she chases them out and barks at them……so hopefully they wont come back and eat these little babies when they hatch.

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I have a very proud husband…..he designed a quilt and chose what fabrics he wanted the quilt to be sewn up with and this is the final result.

A few finishes……

Here it is…..all finished!!

My Vintage Dishes Quilt.

Pattern by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet and fabrics are Sew Cherry by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet for Riley Blake. I fell in love with the pattern when I saw it on Lori’s blog and I was able to get the pattern and fabrics and then I thoroughly enjoyed sewing up all the plates and cups and saucers. I love the zigzag border and also how the corners are cut off.

Sooo special!!

My dear friend Dawn quilted it for me and she did an all over flower and leaf design.

Love it Dawn!! Thank you for doing such a superb quilting job. If you would like Dawn to quilt a quilt of yours just pop on over to her blog and send her an email. Dawn wanted to see me wrapped in the quilt…..well this is me hehehehe

 

I can’t remember if I showed you my very big quilt that I finished a few months ago. This one is huge and too big to fit on the fence to take a proper photo of it. The fence is just over 6 foot high and so you can see how big it is.

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I loved sewing the blocks for this one and it is a Thimbleberries design. My friend Natalie of The Quilting Bug machine quilted it for me and it is awesome. I said to Nat…just go for it and do what ever takes your fancy. She loved that and had a ball creating the patterns. I love it too. Thanks Nat!  

I tried holding it up to get a picture of it but its just too big. I am behind it lol….. When its a nice day I will take it somewhere and have a photo shoot with it.

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The other day I was looking around in my local thrift shop.

Sitting there with my name on it was this darling basket.

I just had to have it and I thought….painted white will make it even more special. So I have been waiting for a warm day to spray paint it. First up I am going to have to take out the inner linings as I don’t want paint on them.

There was even a little heart pin cushion, a Thimble holder and scissor holder inside. It was a bargain for $5.00.

I love searching around thrift shops and you just never know what you will find.

hope you are all having a fabulous weekend….

Hugs to all……

 

You might want a coffee……

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last blogged…..where does the time go?

First of all…..I am going to be a NooNoo (Nanna) again.

My daughter is expecting her third child in January and I am so excited about it. More quilts and sewing to happen once she finds out if its a boy or a girl.

 

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I have been busy doing ‘life’ things and also in the sewing department too… I have done more blocks for the Sampler BOM that a few of us are doing at Our Craft Forum 

   

I have put these ones and the other ones I have done together into a quilt layout with EQ7 so I can start to get an idea with how I am going to put them all together.

The BOM is going until October this year and we started it in February which means that is 9 blocks. Each of us who joined in the BOM gave a pattern for a block from the Quilters Cache or other places and some of us have given more than one design, so we get to choose which blocks we want to sew up for that month. I have chosen to do a couple but mostly have done just the one. Since starting the BOM, I was only going to do a 9 block quilt…but since that, I have decided to do a 12 block quilt. So that means I can go thru the block choices and do extra ones.

I know the layout above is for 16 blocks but I can change it to 12 quite easily in the program EQ7. I just click on the Layout button and change it to 3 blocks across and 4 down and I then have 12 blocks.

So simple and I can change the placement of the blocks to suit the fabrics too.

Another fun quilt I am sewing is one made up of Granny Squares. This is what I want to make with the blocks of Granny Squares.

I am going to have all white for the borders and sashing and a striped edging.  

My blocks are coming together nicely and I am really loving sewing these. Here is strips of little blocks sewn together waiting to be sewn into the block.

With all of mine I have done a yellow centre one on all of them and white ones around the outside. But there is no order for the rest of them as I love no order sometimes. Maybe the next one I do will be more co-ordinated.

Fee and Dawn were sewing these and then Dawn got me onto them as well. I love them and they are such fun to sew up and so easy. The tutorial for them can be found HERE

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After looking at the pictures again, it has got me quite keen to sew up another lot for another quilt. It’s funny how that happens isn’t it? Does that happen to you? I know when one goes away for a retreat it recharges the batteries and going to sewing groups is the same. I don’t go to any sewing groups so I get recharged from blogging and looking at everyone’s creations and the main place I get my batteries recharged is Our Craft Forum as there are quite a few like minded ladies who pop in there everyday and chat about what they are doing and it’s like sitting in a group and catching up with each other in your pj’s as most times when I am on there it’s first thing in the morning and I haven’t got dressed yet lol. Someone said that Our Craft Forum wasn’t up and running again after the time it was down for maintenance etc.

Well it is up and running and even better than before and one doesn’t have to chat their heads off if they don't want to…..they can just pop in and read all the chatter or catch up on the swaps with just a quick …. ‘I am still alive’ comment.   I always find it amusing when people spread silly rumours about things they presume are what is going on about things. Those sort of people are really only destroying themselves. Their falsehoods come back and bite them on the bum eventually. Anyway I could go on but I don't want to go into all that went on a few months ago with certain vicious people. Lowering myself to their standards just isn't me.

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I have a few things waiting to be published soon and not only with Patchwork & Stitching from Express Publications but also Down Under Quilts from Creative Living Media and with Jenny in her upcoming magazine for this month. 

I will give you all a bit of a look at what is coming.

AND….My husband Tony, has been creative also and he designed a quilt and then I sewed it and Natalie of The Quilting Bug quilted it for him.

That is being published also and he is very excited about that.

Quilters Companion magazine done a little article on Tony’s, Natalie’s and my combined efforts and that was exciting to see.

They also talked about my quilt that I designed but this one won’t be being published. Doesn’t his first ever quilt he designed look great?

So …..a few things happening here and you can bet your bottom dollar that a few more things will be happening down the track also. It’s all good.

I hope to get onto looking at everyone’s blogs very soon…I have missed you all! Told ya you might want to get a coffee…lol.

hugs to all……

A bit of Christmas Magic…….

This quilt is designed by Kim Diehl and its called Christmas Magic, and is in her book the ‘Simple Seasons’ – I love this book and I love this quilt….. I have finally finished it.

I had it professionally quilted by Nat from ‘The Quilting Bug’ a while ago and all that needed doing to it was sewing all the buttons onto it. Red buttons for the berries and black buttons on the snowmen.

Here’s some of Nat’s fantastic quilting.

Lovely swirly swishes all around the border….

Luscious leaves in the corners…….

Even fabulous Stars placed here and there…amazing!

More luscious swirls……….

So this is another quilt I can have out for the Christmas season. Tra la la la lahhhhh!

There are a few of Kim’s quilts in her book that I want to make so it looks like I am going to have a busy year next year.

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I have been busy with these

but I can’t show you what they are tho as they are Christmas presents.

Still a bit of Christmas sewing to do and its not far away ……eeeek!

Thanks so much to the lovely ladies who told me that my PayPal was behaving itself. I appreciate you doing that for me. The price of the postage for the Charm Squares is calculated into the price ……I couldn’t work it out any other way. One day I will be an expert at it all.

Hope you are all having a fabulous weekend.

hugs to all……..Vicki 

The Wedding Quilt.

Hooray! Finally I can show you the Wedding quilt.

The happy couple love it and I also made a journal for them which tells them the progress of the quilt as I made it. They loved that too.

There is 72 leaves all up that I hand sewed on and 16 flowers and 17 flower buds. Lots of hand sewing and the Lone Star part was fun to do as it had to be all precise and exact. My son Nick wanted red in it and his wife Tara, wanted purple which is her favourite colour.

This is one of the triangles quilted pattern that Natalie did on her quilting machine.

I am very happy that Nick and Tara love it and it was such a thrill to give it to them. It looks fabulous on their bed too.

Thanks heaps to you all for your lovely comments on the previous posts….I just haven’t got to replying to you all but know I have read them all and will get to replying very soon.

Hugs to all……..Vicki 

A quilted quilt to show you.

I finally got my act together and took a photo of this quilt that I got back from Nat (from the Quilting Bug) who machine quilted it for me.

This quilt was a BOM from Debbie Mumm. It’s called Natural Wonders.

I really enjoyed doing it and Nat did autumn leaves all over it to compliment the quilt. With a border design as well.

I am now loving having my quilts machine quilted.

I love how the pattern just flows all over the quilt….Love it. I love the feeling of having something finished and looking good too.

The part on the very right is the backing fabric and that machine design is all over the quilt except for the very light part (middle) which is the outer border. Thanks Nat! I love it.

Nat is in Victoria and has a fast turnaround for all Edge to Edge quilting and is just the loveliest lady to deal with.

The time has come for me to take my Pin Cushion off for downloading for free.

I know a lot of you downloaded it and I do hope you enjoy sewing it and don’t forget to show me :) I love seeing what you all do with my designs.

If you missed out on getting it for free you can now buy it from my Etsy shop.

Also don’t forget to download the last BOM block for Flirting With Flowers and here is the finished quilt.

I am yet to write up the pattern for sewing it all together but I will get there.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I always enjoy reading your lovely comments and visiting your blogs too.

Hugs to all……Vicki