A wonderful weekend

 I was very happy when two of my quilts were accepted for the inaugural, biennial, Great New Zealand Quilt Show which was held in Rotorua this past weekend.

As it was my DH's birthday on the Friday, we decided we would take a road trip down, stay a night in Rotorua, visit the show, then go over to visit with family for Mothers Day in Taupo. 

It was an excellent exhibition with approx. 85 juried quilts on display.

Imagine my delight, when on Thursday evening I got a phone to say my Quilt 'Mrs Billings Returns' had won BEST OF SHOW!!  To say I was excited is an understatement. 

I was so lucky to be presented with a series 5 Bernina. Thank you Bernina!

I would love to know what he said to me! ( I can't remember)

When Natalie rang me on Thursday night, as I said I was very excited, but then she said....'but, wait there's more'!

My Nearly Insane Journey won Best Bed Quilt!

 What an amazing feat! 2 quilts and 2 prizes!

I am so grateful to Quilters Lane from Masterton for sponsoring the 1st Prize for this category.

I couldn't get a shot of the whole quilt with the ribbon as I couldn't get back far enough.

Sorry if I sound as though I'm doing too much bragging, but its a once in a lifetime achievement for me and I'm pretty chuffed as you can tell!

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http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

Border for N.I.

I am piecing the border for my Nearly Insane Quilt and have taken a photo of what I have done so far. Not sure whether to have a cream border in as well, but I think looking at the photo I like that version best, even though my zigzag border almost finishes the correct size to the rest of the quilt - give or take 1/2". If I add the cream I will have to work out the maths for it!  The original quilt doesn't have the extra border, only a wider border after the zigzag.

Sorry my photos are a bit on the dark side, but its a funny Autumn day here - raining and then sunshine, and we have veranda's around our house, which darkens inside.
 
I've also gotten onto the  'Stars in a time Warp' quiltalong on the Civil War Blog

Because I jumped in well after it started, I am making my stars in what ever color I find at the time, but trying to keep in with what they are doing on the blog, so my colors are a bit out of order!

Yesterday I was thrilled to receive this trophy for 'Viewers Choice' for 
'Mrs Billings Returns' from The Western Quilters Show that I entered last month. 
Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the quilt with the trophy as yet, but I'll work on that and see if I can hang my quilt some-where and get a photo taken.

 

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On target….

with quilting my Mrs Billings quilt. I haven’t been anywhere much, and most of my friends have pretty much given up asking me out but, all is going well with my quilting. I have been borrowing Audio Books from the library, and I must admit, I stay quilting longer whilst listening to a good mystery. The only problem with borrowing is, the last book, I got up to nearly the end of the book, and it automatically went back to the library before I found out who murdered the three people. I had to re order it to find out. :-)
Here is a photo of my progress. I have allowed myself up to the end of August to finish these 4 borders. I am onto the 2nd border now. I have planned a week in Sydney at the end of August and when I get home I will have a month to finish the quilt.

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After well over 150 hours

of hand quilting my Mrs Billings, I realised I had a problem with one of the rows. The small squares on point were causing me some angst as in some parts of the quilting I was having to quilt 4 layers and as the area is quite small I was getting everything quite uneven, and I certainly did not like it!
It was making me reluctant to sit and carry on with it. Sunday afternoon I was feeling pretty fed up with that row, when all of a sudden something clicked in my brain and I thought why not just do straight lines across the squares. Brilliant!!!
So…….I have nearly 3 rows to undo but its worth it.
From this


To this…..



I am back to being a ‘Happy Chappy’ and looking forward to another days quilting!
Thanks for taking the time to keep looking. I’m looking forward to having this finished, as there are other things I would love to be doing, but have been very focused and not allowed myself to get sidetracked, which is not normal for me. :-)

A little catch up….

to show you the progress however slow, I am making with Mrs Billings.
No problems as yet  with my fingers, but I have to get up every now  to stretch my back as that seems to be whats getting to me. Later in the day I take a walk to the road gate ( only about 100 metres ) to close it doing stretching arm exercises as I go.  Haha must look funny, but we dont have any close neighbours! :-)

Ive had to undo some of what I’ve done, and redo it, as I’m still getting back into the swing of  hand quilting after not having done any for about 9 years. So hard to get those stitches  even…

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Now For The Last…

border. This will be another time consuming border, when I have to applique all my hexies down.
I have just finished piecing borders 13 & 14. I think the pressing of all the seams was the hardest part, and I started doing it so carefully I thought it would take me two days to do it, so I thought …,what the hell… just go for it, which I don’t usually do.


Hopefully I’ll be able to handquilt it around all those seams!

 

Thanks for keeping up with my progress. I still have about 10 large hexagons and about 20 small one to make, so better get with it!
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Plugging away…

With Mrs Billings. I’m on my time target – I hope. Now onto Borders 13 and 14.  Lots and lots of cutting and sewing!
A photo to show my progress so far. Its very hard to take a photo of the whole quilt as its getting too large.
This is up to border 12
 
I laid it outside ( hopefully no ants have sneaked into a seam) as I would have to shift the furniture to get a photo.
 

This photo is 2 rounds of borders 13 & 14. Two more to go!
Thankfully I am walking with my neighbour for an hour every morning, which makes up for me sitting at the machine for about 6 hours a day at the moment! I am on a mission to get the quilt pieced by Easter, so I can get my quilting friend Judy to baste it, so I can start hand quilting. 
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Cutting, Marking, Stitching

my way through approx. 112 of these beauties plus any others I decide not to use


28 done – 84 to go
On a roll now, and this is a great way for me to keep a record of when I did this quilt.
Thanks for dropping by and keeping me boosted along. :-)

Which border??

Trying to work out the best colour for the 2nd border.
The Blue

or the red.

I want to keep the brown borders and the red at the top of the photo as this is going to be for my hexagon border, and I bought the fabric especially for it. Everything else is out of my stash ( bought with this quilt in mind) as I go.
Thanks for your help

Happy New Year!

I have been so slack with my blog – I see its almost 2 months since I wrote anything. A lot has been going on including a trip to family in Western Australia for Christmas, then when we got back home, we had the painters, builder and Tiler in doing some refreshing of our home inside. Its so good to get these jobs done as we built the house 25 years ago, and some things were left as we ran out of money. You then get used to it, until one day you decide that's it - time to sort it out!
The hardest part was getting my sewing room painted. Its happening in a weeks time, so I have to dismantle it – unbelievable job!! It’s a very small room and I’ve ended up sewing in the lounge and using my sewing room as a bit of a storage area ( only for my patchwork, knitting wool and the odd bit of ironing. So much so that I can’t really find anything thats not in a storage bin!  Here are some before photos  - I must say I’m  ashamed! Haha!
The main reason for this post was to show the progress I am making with my Mrs. Billings quilt. I am determined to finish it this year, and am hoping to get the top pieced ready for hand quilting by Easter! Fingers crossed!







 

Now I’m not sure about the blue border. It may be too bright - in keeping with the French Generals I am mainly (but not only) using I have been auditioning the next two borders and I think its going to be too multicoloured which I really dont want.
My centre hexagon is not stitched down as yet, and I think I’ll be changing that also.
Got to be careful I don’t over analyse it. :-)
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Had a Great Time…..

last weekend at a retreat run by my little local group – Village Green Quilters. We had the retreat at a Bush Camp which would have been lovely for photographs, but for the weather which on the Friday night, and Saturday blew and rained like you wouldn’t believe. After going to bed in our bunks, I froze – so much so that I wore my fleecy lined rain jacket and socks to bed. Haha what a sight. I had taken a quilt and a mohair rug, but obviously it wasn’t enough. Fortunately for the second night, I remembered I had a picnic rug in the car. One of those old fashioned tartan ones that our mothers used to own. I slept snugly the second night.
We had lots to eat of course, and huge amounts of laughter. Just what the doctor ordered!
Some show & tell of what was made or started or finished for the weekend.

            All hard at work                                                          

Sue T’s Sampler 


 

 One of the 4 tops Anne made




 

The centre of Esther's Mystery Medallion


 
 Jackie’s cot quilt

Friends holding Judiths blocks 

Lynn’s lovely applique  Quilt         Pat’s baby quilt
                                               

Centre of Pats Mystery Medallion

               
 Maureen’s scrappy Quilt



 
 Linda’s Lovely Zig Zag quilt 




                        
   Maureens Grand-daughters quilt

Lorraine's Double Wedding Ring

Norma’s two lovely baby quilts –
ready for whenever she becomes a Nana

  Jan’s ZigZag Quilt

Gayle’s baby  quilt

                                                

Carol’s Striking quilt

 
    Esther’s quilt

  Sue B’s son’s quilt     

       
            Carol (with matching shoes) 

                          

Lynns beautiful quilt

Another striking quilt of Linda's
 

Sheila’s double wedding ring.  

The girls insisted on holding up my weekend’s worth of work. Doesn’t look much, but took ages of precision piecing – 

My Mrs Billings.

Thanks for dropping by