Surely my head is going to explode!!!

It's been a busy old time around here, my first school holidays in a long time I have to work through (deserves me right for leaving my teaching job you might say!). Juggling the boys between DH's shifts and my working half-days plus Oma babysitting them for a day while trying to keeping the oldest boy's BSL (blood sugar level) under control - they always go crazy when he is not at school. Add in a 4 day trip to Hamilton (only 380 odd km one way - on NZ roads this takes me 5h) and yesterday my middle DS turned 10:

The Birthday Boy

Henry the Hedgehog (icecream cake for breakfast...)

His slightly crazy 12y old brother (well, what can you expect with this mother lol)

His still 7y old younger brother with birthdayboy's cat Tigger

10y old boys can be so complicated!!! You wouldn't believe the dramas we went through in organising his 'party': In our house you get a birthday party with games and things up to age 9, and you are allowed to invite as many children as your age, e.g. @ age 7 you invite 7 friends, @ age 8 you invite 8 friends - you get the drift. From age 10 you get to invite a few (no. is negotiable) and get to do sth. special, e.g. go to the movies and McD which is bday boy's chice for this time. He wants to see Diary of a Whimpy Kid Dog Days which only runs at Whangarei at the moment (about 90km south). Ok, we can do this. Then his best friend rings up, he will have a movie night / sleepover as an early celebration for his 11th birthday, on the same Friday afternoon. Now bday boy sees no other solution than having these two events clash and therefore neither of them taking place (more or less). He has eventually accepted my solution of going to the movies int he morning (with best friend) but while he wants to give said friend the present, he can't see himself going to the movie/sleep over (yet). Mother is slightly exhausted - and there I always thought boys were easy?!?!

Sewing therefore has been a bit neglected (and DH has pointed out repeatedly that the veggie garden needed work) but I have had another play around with those Quiltlet Cards:

I didn't like the look of that zigzag around the edges, so I took it out again

Looks better with binding, but would look even better with tighter binding!

With card attached - the card was very light, will have to find sth. better for this

I used Leah's FMQ from last week for this quiltlet, I think this is a good way to get the practice in and try out different designs with a purpose. I followed Helen's advice about using fusible and lighter weight card (except my card was very light). There is a lot of potential, but I will keep on working on this!

Last but not least: My QD9 To the Power of Four has been accepted into The Big Quilt Show at Northart Gallery in Auckland!!! Surely my head is going to grow so big that it will explode (if it hasn't yet from all the other stuff that's going on lol)!!! And even better, Suz's half log cabin at the Beach has been accepted also, so I see a trip to Auckland coming up early November to conincide with Auckland Festival of Quilts (formerly calico Christmas). Hopefully Rona from Layer upon Layer won't be (wo)manning the eftpos machine all day long so we can have a catch up!

I have a lot of ideas what I want to start next, but I  leave you with some pics of what I have back up on my design wall, would love to have this finished as a Christmas present for a teacher colleague:

Disappearing four patches (D4P) - just another 80 or so to go...

Happy Sewing!

Pastellation

It's finished :-) and despite the very murky weather I took some outside photographs ready to send off for the exhibition entry. It was quite interesting to have to come up with an artist's statement and to name the quilt - we'll see if that helps or hinders my entries! Here are some of the pics I am sending off:

It's hard to find a decent space to take photos!

A bit closer...

Close up of the centre

Half the quilt - right side is the top

Close up of the back

More of the back

Details

and that one again

More details

Even more

and that's it on the bed :-)

And while I am at it, here are some pics of the other entry, my QD9, which I have now named "To the Power of Four" as a play on the word Quadruple :-)

Now to think about what I am doing next - hmmmm I'm sure there some UFOs lurking somewhere...

Very pleased with having this finally finished, so linking this up with Leah's UFO Sunday http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/ufo-sunday-6-snowball-but-still-have-fun.html and I blogged about it on Sew it's Finished http://sewitsfinished.blogspot.co.nz/ where you can find several hundred completed UFOs :-)

Finished Quadruple Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt

The school holiday are almost over and the Quadruple Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt is finished! Kids are watching 'What Now' - a Kiwi kids' institution for Sunday mornings, so I actually get a turn on the laptop (my work laptop is still at laptop hospital...)

Here is a quick summary of how it had all started - you can also click on the labels Double Disappearing Nine Patch and Quadruple Disappearing Nine Patch (I should probably go and tidy this up...)

Towards the end of last year, Suz and I visited Carolyn, The Powerquilter. Amongst other things I bought a Batik Charm Pack. I really wanted to do something with these, so I tried out the Double Disappearing Nine Patch as seen on A Few Scraps. Initially I toyed with the idea of using black to go with the Batiks, but I stayed with white on white instead. For batting I chose cotton/bamboo from Stitchworks which I found wonderful to work with.

My very clever oldest DS (11y) asked if I could continue the pattern to make it a Triple or Quadruple Disappearing Nine Patch - and it worked! Lovely Rona from Layer Upon Layer did the maths for me in her comment, click here if you would like to find out what size starting squares makes what size triple or quadruple D9.

 

At 21 1/4" each the 16 blocks were simply too big for a single bed (originally I had planned this to be Storm's quilt), so they had to go onto my NZ Superking Size bed and I discovered in the process that this is 71" x 80", smaller than the King Size 76" x 80" from The Quilter's Pocket Reference Guide (what would we do without Wikipedia?).

 I played with different settings

and ended with this

This was in February when Diane Gaudinsky was the guest tutor on The SewCallGal. Her fantastic tutorial inspired me to quilt fmq feathers in the white spaces:

I have been following Leah Day's Freemotion Quilt Along and in the process learnt a lot about stippling - I have even practised!!! This has really helped me with stippling behind the feathers to make them come out better. For the batik squares I simply stitched in the ditch and added the diagonal. For the white areas I used Gueterman Cotton thread, but I was disappointed how many times the thread broke - my machine seems to like Aurifill Cotton better!

Early on I had decided that this was the quilt to learn to do QAYG - I really liked Mari's method on The Quilting Edge. I used joining strips of white on white backing from Stitchworks (very reasonably priced and still good quality, unlike some of the other backing fabrics I have come across!), and for the back or the blocks a large square of batik each. I was held up slightly when I ran out of white on white - I had forgotten to count the front joining strips twice as Mari recommends to use a strip folded in half.

As borders I added another sashing strip all around plus more batik squares (looking through my stash I can see I have to make another batik quilt, I just love them and there are plenty!). I had cut the white on the back 3/4" larger than the front so I could fold it over the front and machine stitch it down as binding.

And now it's finished! At 98 1/2" square, the cotton/bamboo lets it drape beautifully across my bed! Now the rest of the bedroom needs to match it (maybe I should give it an 'autumn clean' lol).

I told DH that I had gotten some of the quilting out of my system now with two pieces finished within a week, only to sit down yesterday and work on my SiL's placemats lol so that resolution lasted all of 12h obviously - must be an obsession after all...

Other things I have been thinking about:

• I am working on a few designs for Lesley to burn onto Thermofax screens - one as a label, and one or two for printing onto fabrics to then dye (not that I am in any danger of running out of fabrics...)
• Jill from The Quilt Rat has posted about the ATC swap on The Quilting Gallery. That sounds like fun, so I thought I'll join up for this.
• Quilt Retreat: DH has been thinking about my request for a portable sewing table and will pick up a trademe (our ebay) purchase on Monday to make me a portable sewing table - isn't he sweet? <3
• Retreat Projects: So far I am thinking about (finally) continuing with my pastel tessellations (only 400 squares to go I think... sew them together, cut them apart at an angle and sew them together again. Then join the four resulting rectangular pieces via QAYG. Add borders with more tessellation, this time from a jelly roll. Then applique on top - I think this won't be a finish for May!
• More Retreat Projects: Strata leftovers have been waiting to be turned into Reverse Applique Cushion Covers
• Another Retreat Project: ATCs for the swap, using Rona's painting method, or sunprinting?!

Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?!

Linking this up to Sew It's Finished and to The Freemotion Quilt Along :-)

Happy Sewing!

12 down, 4 to go

Just 4 more blocks to go on my QD9! These most recent four blocks were not without trials, somehow that white-on-whites had shrunk more than in the previous blocks and I had to add a strip of white to an edge on three of them. Also, for the first time I had seriously puckered up one backing at a corner (folding the backing back over itself...). Luckily only a tiny strip of batting visible, and due to using batik I have little concern that the "raw edge" of the fold will fray much. I'll probably handstitch a narrow strip over this. There had to be one more to make it three, topstitching the last binding strip drove me nearly mad, the bobbin ran out, the stitches didn't cover the seam, the bobbin broke etc. etc. I obviously don't do my best work at midnight... Anyway, all done, and I am hopeful that it will get lost in the bigger picture of things. Tomorrow I will try to get the majority of the last four blocks done - stubborn as I am I got it into my head that this will be my March finish for Sew it's finished, so I have to keep going!
Happy sewing!!!

Still here!

Some blogs I have come across seemed to have just suddenly stopped at some point in time, but no, I am still here :-)

Work has been busy, last weekend was taken up with heaps of fun at Jeannette DeNicholis Meyer's workshop in Whangarei - have a look on the Kerikeri Guild Blog for some more on this - and things have slowed down a bit on the quilting front. Sadly (in my opinion) autumn has arrived, so I have just bottled some pears, and the quinces are simmering as we speak. I have enough preserves already, and since oldest DS was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes one year ago today, our consumption of them has decreased a lot. However, I can't stand it to see the fruit go to waste and then buy tinned fruit from say China in the supermarket instead, so I will continue to make good use of what the orchard has to offer!

Jeanette's workshop was very interesting. I like making a mess, and I didn't mind at all cutting up my painted silk pieces. At the same time I bought some white cotton sheeting off Miss Lottie, some of it was used as drop cloth and looks quite interesting now,  and I intend to try my hand at dying as well as screen print some in the holidays. Working with the silk was interesting and challenging - it was amazing how the colours changed when you changed the order in which you placed fabrics on top of each other! Today my lovely mum gave me her Silk Organza so I will try my hand at this again some time - I have plenty left over from the workshop but I want to have another at some of the techniques we used to use for painting silk scarfs back in the 80s (remember the wet colours running into each other, or what marks rocksalt left on it?). Can anyone tell me if this works on Silk Organza (feels stiffer than what I remember the scarfs were)? The two challenges I find are that silk is slippery (...) and I am worried about washing it. Any advice? I also want to see if I can transfer this technique to cotton muslin if I starched it to the point that it would lay flat?! Anyone has tried that before?

Design decisions...

Finished work - it turned out all deep and meaningful in the end, the patterned background provided a grid to free motion stitch my childhood "Das ist das Haus vom Nikolaus" pattern - a house you draw in one continuous line. I continued from there on like a pathway which led to more houses - some small, some big, some wonky, some straight. The path rarely moved in a straight line, symbolising the pathways we take in our life, some times zig zag, sometimes going around in circles but no matter always on a journey. Over the top I raw edge appliqued yellow stepping stones leading who knows where?

Detail of the stitching

In the meantime, I am still slowly feathering my way through the QD9 - up to block 6 of 16 at the moment (if I want this to become my finish for March I better hurry up!). I also need to find a donation for school fundraising - Suz is finishing a lovely quilt top for it this year, she had made awesome placemats last year, so I am looking at placemats this year. Gathering up the various ideas I have read about and played with lately, I am planning to make it 'whole cloth', reversible, with a curly feather with 3 branches and tight stippling in the background. I hope this works on cotton batting - I felt that was the easiest to wash (well, at least in my house they need regular washing!).

Fossil Ferns + Moda - will it work?!?!

 

Another little idea I am toying with is a combination of the technique used to make my boys' faces, painted silk, small scale and the birds Wendy over at Sugarlane Quilts had photographed recently. I used a photo of one of the boys' 15 (!) budgies, sketched it on cotton organdy, layered 3 pieces of painted silk on top. From the back I stitched the lines through the layers and using my snips I carefully cut the top layer away where I wanted to show the middle layer, and both layers where I wanted to show the bottom layer. When I get a 'round-to-it', I will find a suitable background fabric (or paint one) and applique the body on, with paint / thread as beak, legs and the twig it sits on, a bead for the eyes. Postcard size. Now imagine actually posting such postcards (in an envelope) and make it a postcard swap?!

Be careful with those snips, I cut through the green on the left there! Mystifuse should fix it ;-)

Happy sewing!

Weekend...

brought some not so nice weather - I even put on the heatpump this morning, and it's only the beginning of March?! [This blog mentions bad weather too often this year!].

Not much one can do but sew, aye? Well, the internet was off, too, the oldest still has the tummy bug and DH was off work this weekend, so on Saturday morning I put my first four QD9 blocks together:

The pinwheel look of the DD9 has given way to a kind of diamond shape - almost like a medallion type design now?

Close up of the quilting - I didn't realise I could quilt like this!

It didn't completely go without hiccups, the various (and lightweighted) white on whites shrunk slightly differently during quilting, the blocks ended up as 20 3/8" cut before joining. I can't wait to continue on the next four blocks (they're sandwiched and pin basted ready to go).

But I just needed to have a quick change, so please meet Tommy who has now been renamed to Soft and his 'dad':

 Have a good week everyone!

Feathers and more feathers

And I think they are looking pretty nice even if I say so myself :-)

I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to stipple behind the feathers - this photo convinced me to do it.

2 down (up), 14 to go :-)

That's what you can get done when you're home with sick kids :-) Actually the feathers are getting a lot easier with time. I suppose I will have feathers out of my system by the time I am finished - or I am forever hooked :-)

Here a few pics from yesterday's trip to Cape Reinga and Te Paki Stream (Giant Sand Dunes) as part of the school camp (DH looked after the sick boys. Update: One will definitely be back at school tomorrow, and about the oldest one we still have to see, type 1 Diabetes and tummy bugs don't seem to mix all that well...). We had the most amazing weather, a last little bit of summer I suppose...

See the tree on the right of that rock in the middle? Legend has it that the spirits of the dead leave from this tree for their journey to Havaiki

Cape Reinga Light House

Taputaputa Bay - one of the nicest beaches in New Zealand just south of Cape Reinga (if it wasn't for the long winding road to get up there...)

There were jelly fish and the kids said they sting! We had some creme in the First Aid Kit...

Smaller sand dune at Te Paki Stream

Medium Sand Dune at Te Paki Stream (I didn't get close enough to the giant ones :-) It's great fun to go down these on a boogie board, but a plastic rubbish sack will do!

Now I better go and google bulk supplies of Gueterman cotton thread, looks like I need quite a bit...