Giveaway - My 100th Post!

Welcome One and All!

I am hosting a giveaway to celebrate my 100th post.

Anyone can enter (no you don't have to "follow" my blog, but I'd love it if you liked it enough to!).

I don't mind where you live (international entries welcome).

This is what's on offer:

Hope Valley Blues (Fat Eighths)

These Japanese beauties I picked up at the Craft and Quilt show in Brisbane recently (fat quarters)

And finally, because you all know how much I love them, and I want to share the love:

Liberty Scraps.

Please make sure you leave your email address in your comment if it's not in your blog contact details so I can get in touch with you if you win.

The Giveaway will close at midday on Sunday 8th April (Brisbane time).

The winner will be announced some time on Sunday night!

Cheers!

Mary and Me at the Melbourne Zoo :-)

Recent purchases

Some new Liberties from Patchwork on Central Park.

Purchased whilst on holidays in Melbourne with my daughter last week.

I'm planning a quilt for our bed.  Finally!

It will be blue and red and yellow.

Along with the fabrics in the picture above, I have pulled these from my stash to include in the quilt.

These two fabrics were purchased years ago from Duckcloth.  I can't wait to cut into them.  Isn't Nani Iro just the best??!! (the white fabric)

More blues... lots of Liberties!

More to come in the next few days!

Down Under Doll Quilt Swap 2 - Round 2!

This is the little quilt I was telling you about in my last post... 

To refresh your memory... Michelle and I both participated in the Down Under Doll Quilt Swap No2.  Unfortunately Michelle never received a quilt, so I offered to make her a little something.  I just couldn't bear the thought of her going without after she made such a beautiful quilt for her partner.

Many months later, I finally finished.  Here is a close up.

And the backing...

I've always just loved this Liberty sunflower fabric.

The quilt is made with all Liberty of London tana lawn fabrics and was machine pieced, machine quilted and then the binding was attached by hand.

But look at what Michelle made for me!

Isn't her appliqué just BEAUTIFUL!

But wait!  There's more!

A pincushion and a, well, I'm not sure what it's called, but I don't have one and I really need one.

You put your needles on the white bit and you can put all kinds of other bits and pieces in the other parts.  It's like a wallet for quilters!

I'm bowled over by Michelle's generosity.

Check out her blog.  You'll love it!

Finish - Down Under Doll Quilt Swap 2

I love this quilt and it will be hard to give away.

New Liberties with Perle cotton hand quilting.

Backed with a cotton / linen blend call Raw Workcloth (Cloth Australia).

Binding lovingly attached by hand.

And so incredibly soft to touch.

It's going to Aunty Cookie!  I hope you like it Shannon.

I decided to use 80% cotton / 20% polyester batting to try and achieve a more antique look.

I'm happy with the result.  Although I think it will look even better after a wash or two.

I want to thank my gorgeous friend, Kathleen, of Kathleen's Sewing, who sent Mary these gorgeous gifts for her first birthday.

Love the rounded corners!

Thank-you Kathleen!  Mary and I love them!

Down Under Doll Quilt Swap 2

Here is my progress...

Lots of pretty new Liberty and hand stitching...

I am enjoying working on this little project very much.

I've also got some Liberty hexies on the go, amongst other things!

Happy Easter!

Liberty Love

And now for a closer look...

As usual, I'm in love.  These Liberty tana lawns are so good I just want to eat them up.  The colours (muted greys, which are not at all my usual choice), the definition in the prints, and of course, the softness...  Just beautiful.

I picked these up online from Calico and Ivy.

And now, for a further peak at my Anna Maria Horner "Innocent Crush" project:

Pinned and ready for quilting.  Now to decide: to hand quilt or not to hand quilt.  These fabrics certainly are deserving, but time is a real issue for me with a beautiful 10 month old baby girl to care for, a demanding part-time job, lots of study to do and a busy household to run. :-)

I tried some hand quilting on this quilt during the week with regular hand quilting cotton, as opposed to Perle cotton, and my lack of experience was so much more visible with the thinner thread.  Maybe I will stick with Perles!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Liberated scraps! Yum!

This is going to be a crib quilt for a dear friend of mine who's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl.

I couldn't get enough of this block, having recently made a table runner using the same one (see post below).  I have used scraps of Michael Miller, Denyse Schmidt and Liberty fabrics, with some Moda solid pink thrown in there for good measure.

It needs a border, because it's only a wee quilt top so far.  I just kept making blocks until I ran out of scraps and this is what I ended up with.

There is one problem, however....

CHUNKY!

BULKY!!

I am thinking that I will need to get a long-arm quilter to quilt in the ditch along these really bulky seams, so I can then go ahead and do my hand quilting inside the white stars.  There is no way my little Janome could handle these seams!  It could barely manage piecing them together!  I am hoping quilting in the ditch will help flatten it out a little.

Any other suggestions?

Playing with hexies

Just playing with the layout of this future beauty...

Because Liberty prints are so detailed, I wanted some structure with the layout, to make sense of the fabrics.

What I've done is made rows of blues and pinks, using both colour and tonal value to balance the picture.

I really like where this is headed!

But before I even "go there" I still have Mary's hexagon quilt (the 1930's reproduction one) to quilt and the civil war reproduction hexies to piece together.  Not to even mention all the other UFOs in my quilt basket!

More Hexagon Love

Hexagon Love

I haven't been sitting around doing nothing, dear reader!  I've been sitting around making hexagons out of Liberty of London Tana Lawn fabrics.

Unfortunately, my computer won't let me upload any more photos to this post, so I will have to show you more later.