Two Stack n Slash quilts

Noelene from our Friday group made a Stack n Slash quilt last week. This time her pieces of fabric were smaller than fat quarters so she used more than one stack to get a suitable size quilt.

But when I saw this it reminded me that I had done a similar quilt with fat quarters earlier in the year but the quilting was not quite finished and it needed binding.   So that kept me occupied for part of the weekend and now I have one less UFO. A good feeling.

Fifties Dress No 3

No 3 dress for Dress Me Up wasn't quite as time consuming as the first two.  I think it's really sweet.

But if you look carefully half way up the left hand side you can see  that a small pleat has formed in the fabric - as I started to iron it the backing shifted - an iron-on adhesive kind of gauze which re-inforces the front fabric and  helps prevent puckering.  The more I tried to get the pleat out the worse I made it, so now I need to do some thinking !.

Not being a good week, actually.  This morning I made another block for the Farmer's wife quilt and went to give it a press before trimming the edges,  Only then did I notice  that one of the fabrics was sewn in with its wrong side facing.  It's so noticeable - how could I not notice it when I was sewing. Now for some retrograde stitching - the polite way of saying unpicking.

But one person who does things right is Pam from the Friday Group who has finished her lovely log cabin quilt.  I really like this one, particularly the sprays of flowers at the centre of each log cabin.

But it's raining.  And I'd love to go out for a latte !  Why can't we have a coffee truck which trawls the streets with some approriate bells or music blaring so that I could just rush out and get my desire !

Fifties Dress No 2

These fifties dresses for the  "Dress Me Up" quilt certainly are not quick to finish, but are fun to do.  I love the curve of the collar on this one, which is the second in the series.

I've just started No 3 dress and it  seems simpler to do with its sprigged pattern.

And there's  still been time to make a few more blocks for a Farmer's wife quilt. I'm now about half through for a lap size quilt.

Spring has Sprung - Freesias and Fridge Magnets

I know that officially it is still winter, and that there's still a lot more cold weather to come, but as far as I am concerned Spring opened her eyes today - beautiful weather and I picked the first freeesias.

Something else which brightened my life this week was some patchwork-inspired fridge magnets from  Possum Blossum Patchwork

And my last two Farmer's Wife quilt blocks came out exactly the right size first try for a change.  Isn't life good !

Our Friday Group

Yesterday Brandie showed us what her Quilting Group was doing so now it's my turn to show what our group on the other side of the world was doing today.  There are just five of us but our leader/hostess is away touring in a caravan with her hubbie - last heard of in Alice Springs - but she'll be back soon as another grandchild is imment - so we soldier on and keep quilting.

Pam is hand quilting a lavender log cabin quilt which is to be a gift for a friend.

Noelene was sewing off ends on her Bed Runner, made for the end of her spare room bed, folded in half for this photo.

Mary worked on her Celtic supper cloth - this is how I learnt about the lovely gadget for making bias binding.

And these are the blocks which I added this week to my Farmer's Wife quilt.

I hope you are all part of a friendly quilting group where you can get together with friends and sew, talk, display, talk, admire, talk, advise, talk, gossip, talk, eat, talk, laugh, talk, smile, talk and generally make yourself and others feel good, good, good.

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt

Now that my Gypsy Quilt is finished I have started on a Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt from the book by Laurie Aaron Hird. It's a pleasant change  to be working on something where each block is a different pattern.  And I am also enjoying going back to hand piecing -  so much better for doing all the fiddly little bits and pieces in some of these 6" blocks.

I'm wondering if I could sneak in some machining in some of the less complicated blocks though, or is that a no-no in the quilting world to mix up the techniques !  At least the house doesn't seem to get in such a mess when you're only cutting out one block at a time - just a basket of fabric pieces which seem to tone together and a folder to put the finished block in - no piles of cut fabric lying around.

As usual one of my main problems is getting every block to end up as the required 6" block plus seam allowances. But I did acquire a little gadget for folding the edges to make bias binding so I can see more basket handles coming up in the near future. I hadn't seen one of these gadgets until recently when a friend was making binding for a celtic mat.  What would we do without friends near and far to learn from and to exchange information with.

Looking up the dictionary for the meaning of the word friend after that last sentence I came across the word "trust" and I thought that was very applicable in quilting circles.  Because we trust our quilting friends to pass on useful information and tips and we trust that any criticism they might give our work will be helpful and constructive. And that is the only kind of quilting friend that I have.

Some Hexie Flowers and Fifties Dress No 1 for "Dress Me Up"

I should be achieving more this cold weather but progress is slow.  Yesterday I posted off a couple of Hexie Flowers to my July and August Swap Partners in the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap

It can be difficult as some people are quite specific as to what they want.  I mean, red centre, or cream centre, or bright, or pastel are fine, but once specific ranges are mentioned it becomes hard.  I don't know one range from another and only buy fabric because I like the colour or pattern.

Then I made some progress on the dresses for Dress Me Up from the Bobby Socks Quilt Company.

This is the first dress finished.  Slow work.  I am a great copycat.  It was seeing someone else doing this pattern which got me started.  Perhaps I should just say that I find other people's work inspirational.  And that applies to coffee mugs too.  I got all nostalgic when I saw another blogger's Pride and Prejudice mug done in the old, familiar Penguin colours and wasn't content until I had one too.

I've started on Dress No 2.  I'd had great trouble getting a nice line in the black backstitch using two threads of DMC.   So this time I wanted to use a single thread in a heavier weight.  I am using Aurifil Mako No 12 for the black and am doing split stitch instead of backstitch.  Anyone know any other of the thicker threads I could try ?

The roses were too fiddly to trace so I am just sketching them on as needed. The flowers are worked in a single strand of variegated Cottage Garden Threads.