Last weekend

I attended a class with Kathy Doughty, a very inspirational tutor from Material Obsession in Sydney. She was teaching her Modern Wedge class. 
Lots of fun, especially with the fussy cutting. Actually the decision on what fabric to use, and how to use it, takes the most time, as the blocks are very easy to sew.

Here are a few of the class wedges.

 The one above, is one that I would love to make. All scraps - I think this would be alot of fun!

 Below is my attempt and I must say I was pretty pleased with it. I just have to applique it down.

 I'm on the countdown now to my trip to canada, Houston and Japan, in October, so I'm making lists of things to do. Hand work to take, Food in freezer, food in freezer,,,,,,:-)

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http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

I am so behind with....

my blogging. I seem to have sewn everyday for at least 3-4 hours, but don't have much to write about.
I have been on a finishing tangent this year, and am pleased that I have finished 2 quilt tops and 1 totally finished quilt. All of these are Queen size quilts. 
The quilt below was a BOM from Material Obsession 

The Blue and Tan quilt was made entirely from my stash.
 

At this stage I don't have a photo of my Nearly Insane Quilt as its too large for the floor space that I have, but I hope to get a photo in a couple of weeks at Quilt Guild where it will be hung for photographing for the Festival of Quilts in November.

 Along with that I have crocheted the last of my hexagons and half hexagons, but now have some ends to stitch in and a couple of rows to go around the top. 

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 http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

Birthday Present and bread.

This past weekend I made yet another loaf of this wonderful bread. Its usually the only bread I make now, and is soooo simple. Its called No Knead Bread and can be found on Foodlovers.co.nz.
If you can't find it I can email the recipe.

 Sorry my photos are not so good as there was too much sun reflecting.

I also finished a bag for my Sister's birthday. She doesn't sew or blog, so I'm quite safe showing this.

This is the back of the bag. I used a strong bag pellon, which makes the bag stand up.

This was a free pattern from TeresaDownUnder. Sewn Up. 

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Another UFO to finish

Its been a busy couple of weeks – Grandchildren time, then out and about  Quilt fabric shopping for necessities( of course) in the last couple of days. Sharon and I had a lovely visit to The Country Yard 
where I spent some money, lunch then a visit to Leeanne’s house Quiltmekiwi to see her quilts and her longarm machine. All in all a lovely day out.

Below are the photos of my latest UFO to finish. They are all squared up now and I am about to join them up. Each block measures 181/2" so it will be a large quilt. ( So what else is new - haha)

I'll post again when I get the quilt top finished.
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Quilting Day

It was lovely to spend last Saturday with my local quilt group, sewing in the hall. I had plenty of room to lay out all 144 x 8" blocks for my Blue & Tan quilt. This also gave every-one half an hour or so of fun rearranging the blocks, so none of  the tans/browns were together. 

 Then they had to make sure none of the creams were together and also the blues. All in all it was  fun to watch them, while I sat back and ate my lunch! I left them to it!! :-)

Next job is sewing them altogether.
Have spent the last 2 days with DH sitting and watching the U.S. Open Golf Championship. I find it hard to sit and do nothing, so I got on with knitting the vest I started last winter. Maybe I'll get it finished this winter so I can wear it. 

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Revisiting my Blue Quilts

I decided it was time to change my header quilt. This is a quilt I made as a mystery quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. It's still only a top as I can't decide on a border. One day it'll happen.
 
The next quilt was made for one of my grandsons, and was made using scraps. I pieced it using the strata method - sewing randomly cut strips together and making a piece of fabric. I think from memory I sewed the piece of fabric into about 9"in depth, then recut using my 45 degree triangle, turning the ruler one way then the other. Its a bit hard to explain with diagrams, but the quilt is in Australia now so I cant show any other photos.I quilted this one myself on my Pfaff.

Alexanders Quilt

The quilt above was made in 2005 for my sons 40th birthday. The white sashing was very crisp and all the squares were blue & white. Its now on a single bed in their home and still looks lovely. Sorry the photo is a little blurry. This quilt was professionally machine quilted. Its measure approx. 80" square.


 This quilt is entitled " T with Friends" after chatting with my quilting friends and getting lots of ideas regarding sashing, I made the cornerstones a ruby red the same as the first border.

I hand quilted this quilt using my most favourite pattern - Baptist fan.
 Now I must get back to my Blue & Tan quilt. I have made about 30 large blocks ( 4 x 4 )
Only 6 to go. Yipee as I am so bored with it, and have the next one ( to make) eating away at me. :-)

.
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Doll Quilt Swap Revealed

I received my fabulous Doll Quilt from Sharon Tucker. Thank you so much Sharon. I love it, together with the YLI thread, pkt needles and a swatch of repro fabric with grasshoppers playing pool.
Its beautifully quilted – some hand and some machine.

I am also working on finishing a few UFO’s. This is a quilt I started about 6 years ago. The block measures 8”finished.

I am piecing them into 16”squares as I find it a little less daunting to have to make 36 of these rather than 144 x 8”blocks. 

Dumb I know but thats how my brain works.
It will be a very random scrappy quilt, but I am only using blues and browns/tans, plus whatever creamy/white backgrounds I have. I am NOT buying any fabric for this. I have laid out 2 of the 16 “ blocks. (unpressed)

I'm still having problems writing in Windows Live Writer. Something has happened to Google ( to me and alot of other people) so I am writing this directly to blogger. 
Thanks for dropping by

Sue

http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

Hoorah!

My Nearly Insane Quilt top is finished and ready to take to the Machine Quilter. I am so relieved to have finished it, and have made given myself a deadline to finish as many UFO’s or WIP’s whatever you call them in the year of 2015. This measures about 96” square.  

The quilt is so large I couldn’t get a photo at home, so got a friend to take a photo at Quilt meeting last week.

It took me almost 5 years to make, from the date I made the 1st block to when I stitched the last border on, with lots of down time in between!

 
I have another quilt basted for an Australian Grand-daughter ready to do some of my hopefully reasonable machine quilting on. I am a real beginner at this, but they say practise makes perfect! This quilt measures 80”.

I am in the process of making more blocks for a blue, cream and brown/tan quilt that I started in 2011. I needed to make 144 x 8” blocks for this quilt as I wanted it for our main bed. I like the quilts to finish about 96” square. I still have about 40 blocks to make, and am joining them into blocks 4 x 4 which seems to make them easier to cope with.
Thanks for dropping by
Sue

http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

I have been trying to send this post for over a week, but now have my photos in Google Drive and I can't seem to pick them up onto Windows Live where I normally write my posts. This time I am writing directly to blogger, so we'll see how it goes. Ah! today after wasting yet another 3 / 4 hours trying to blog from Windows Live Writer I find its a problem with Google. Hundreds of other people are having the same issues. Whew! at least it wasn't just me!!

I have been in a Doll Quilt swap run by Lori from Humble Quilts.
This was a lot of fun, although for me a little difficult, as I normally make large quilts
.
This is my first attempt, but I was worried that the blocks at 4" were too large, although looking at other small quilts since then, I think it would have been OK.

 Sorry can't crop these today! 
 
Actually top right was my 2nd attempt, as the first time I made the pinwheels with no sashing, which I thought didn’t look as good.
3rd attempt …….

finally the finished quilt.
I unintentionally  cut the pinwheels alot smaller than I meant to, and they finished at 2”. I hand quilted in the ditch although you can’t see that from the photo.

I am in the final stages of added the borders to my Nearly Insane Quilt. I have pieced 112 of these time consuming squares. 

 


Now to try and figure out how wide to make the outside cream borders with the limited piece of fabric I have left over. I would like to make them 6” finished in keeping with the 3” borders shown here, but I wont have enough fabric as I also need fabric for the bindings. I think the bindings would look better in the cream also, but I’ll have to see.
I also made a pincushion for our office girl, who isn’t a sewer, but was telling me about something she was making and was having to put the pins on a table and try and scoop them up. Great little birthday gift!
 

 I used wool felt on the bottom of pincushion.

Thanks for dropping by
Sue
http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com