Ideas galore

Another month gone bye, another repair of my machine done and dusted arrgghh The technician found that the knee lift problem was due a shattered pin; he observed that obviously the machine was well used, I wore out that pin and he put in a more substantial one now:0 Makes you wonder about the amount of use these machines are expected to have, my machine is 2.5y old and I had to have the tension thingy-ma-bob and the knee lift pin replaced already (and I'm obviously not quilting daily). My husband is getting rather suspicious of the quality of this Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0, and as I still end up with the odd jumped stitch during fmq and some tension issues I'm starting to wonder, too.

With the Tokyo Subway Map finished, it has been well loved especially by the cats including been barfed on - great! Two washes later I can still see some faint stains on the light blue fabric (typical, couldn't have hit the red or orange?!) but at least the amount of cat fur on the quilt has reduced to previous blog post state after the washes and time outside on the washing line (would you believe that I found two more unburied threads while it was hanging on the line?!)

I have been working on the Giant Chevron; the inner of the white star in fmqed now, and I have begun the 'matchstick' quilting of the black and red parts on the next star. For the yellow and blue parts I plan to alternate dense quilting with parallel ribbons - I have been browsing Judi Madsen quilts and will try out if this fits with the overall quilt.

late yesterday afternoon on the washing line

and this afternoon on the dining table

close up

and another close up

It's already May and I'm still on the hunt for a suitable feature fabric for our trans-Tasman Vintage Quilt Revival sampler project! I have my heart set on Daydream by Moda (Kate Spain) and as my budget doesn't stretch to the cost at the local quilt shops, I might have to order from overseas...

From Pinterest

As an alternative, I bought this on special the other day, 

but Suz and I agree it's not quite going to work for what we have planned, so I have something else in mind for this material...

Image from Pinterest; I had bought the ruler last year and thanks to PDF patterns I got the Metro Rings pattern in an instant yesterday :)

What do you think about this combination?

Some homespun fqs, a white homespun and a green print from Spotlight as well as some solids from a  Jelly Roll (Moda?) I found in my stash

I have looked at the Double Wedding Ring patterns for a long time and this looks like a quicker and more simplified version of the traditional pattern. This afternoon I washed the fat quarters, the green print and the white homespun, and I was very disappointed to realise that I got 4m of the white while I paid for 5m! It was cheap (AUD7.99) but that's beyond the point. Not sure they will do anything about it after I took it home and washed it, but it's not really good enough - I had asked the sales assistant to measure what was left on the bolt and thought I had counted 4m but accepted her word for the 5m.

The closest local quilt shop Patches at Indooroopilly are putting on a number of classes, and I signed up for the Opal Essence workshop with Lorena Uriarte on 30 May! Really looking forward to learning some new techniques! I received my requirement list and started looking through my stash; this Melka Dubrowsky pile has been calling me for a while, and it's quite distinct so I'm not sure I can mix it with anything else I have got but I'm really not sure - what do you think?

I tried to split this pack of fqs up into light, medium and dark, and I have a few more fqs that could fit more than one category

I have lots of batiks I could use instead - would this be a better choice? Really value your advice! I pulled out some prints that could work for the applique circles (using my Seville city map prints amongst others), but I'm not often working out of one line of fabric, I'm really not sure what to do... I'm sure they will have lots of lovely fabrics at Patches I add to the project but realistically my stash should be large enough to make it work??

I'm happy to report that I spent more time in schools over the last few weeks, one trip led me to Roma, about 500km inland. I didn't take many photographs, but here is one of the bottle trees which lined most roads:

So I have lots of ideas - I just might need to find a few more hours in the day...

Happy Sewing!