Saturday 25 June 2016

Another UFO finished! Whoop whoop!

Happy weekend to everyone!  Yay it's been a TGIF and onto Saturday!

I am pleased to have finished this UFO from 2013.  It has been fun to do but was put off as it wasn't for a particular date or occasion.  In fact this is going into the car as a spare Incase we are caught out somewhere and just need a quilt.
I decided this would be a great quilt to practice my free motion quilting on!  And yes it was.  Following is a few photos for you to look at.
Here is the finished quilt ready for binding.  I am sorry about the bad lighting, but we are experiencing some very horrible weather at the moment.  Hubby is building a quilt stand for me at the moment and I may have it for next weekend which will definitely help me take photos of my quilts!  Whoop whoop!
In my stash I found some binding which wasn't quite right for another project but perfect for this one.  So to the machine I go and on it goes with a decorative stitch!
Binding on!
See the decorative stitch I used!



And here it is hanging.  This quilt just needs a few ends tied in and it will then reside in the car!  This was done as a block of the month quilt with Facebook group 'Quilting'

I will be linking to Whoop whoop it's Friday!  and TGIF with whims and fancies  and I would so love to say thanks to the hosts for providing these links it's such fun and I am glad to link with you.    Don't forget to check everyone else's work out also!

Have a great weekend!

Wendy.






Friday 24 June 2016

Winter Mystery Quilt along clue 3 is here!

Good Morning to everyone!  here is your clue 3 for the Winter Mystery Quilt Along!

Are you all ready?

Today you will be sewing hourglass blocks and I have a very cool way of doing them without dealing with triangles!  I am sure you are happy about this neat little trick.  

Cutting Instructions

So today you will need 18 backgrounds cut at 7 1/4" this will either be you light or your dark fabric
Then you will need of your 18 Medium fabrics cut at 7 1/4".  I am using two colours for my mediums and if you are doing this cut 10 of one colour and 8 of the other.


Preparation and Sewing Instructions 

Squares ready to be prepared for sewing

Mark each medium fabric with a pencil diagonally like this
You may use a pencil or you may use a hera marker like I did to form a crease in the fabric that you can see so you can use this as a guide.   Pair your mediums with a background fabric square with right sides facing.   Off to the machine we go and we will sew a 1/4" seam either side of this marked diagonal line.

You should now have 2 sewn lines like this



Place your ruler point to point diagonally on the opposite diagonal to you have sewn
Cut the fabric from point to point diagonally on the opposite of the sewn diagonal like in above diagram and below.  Then cut on the drawn or marked line inbetween your stitching.  

this is what you will now have.
Open up the pieces and you will now have four quarter square triangles ready to make into hourglass blocks.
cut units to make hour glass blocks
Press your seems to the dark side, in my case this was my medium fabrics.   Making sure you but the centre seems together to have a neat fitting block and then sew this seam to form your hourglass blocks.
Pink ones sewn Yellow to be sewn

Ta Da!  You are almost complete.  If you did not hear on the first clue I accidentally recalculated my calculations and halved the amount of four patches you need so you will need to make another 36 four patches before next weeks clue.  

unit blocks and totals for the quilt so far

72 four patch units
9 Uneven 9 patches
36 hourglass blocks

I really hope you are enjoying this quilt,  next week sees the final clue and the making up of the quilt. I have actually purchased a striped binding for mine and a Star background which you can see in last nights blog post here

Also remember Announcement of Mystery can be found here
                          clue 1 can be found here
                          clue 2 can be found here

You can join us on Facebook Wehago Designs Quilting Community or on Instagram with #wintermystery2016.  

Looking forward to seeing your quilt come together like mine is and all the different combinations of fabrics and colours.  It truly is amazing how we can make a quilt look different by our different choices of fabrics and colours and make them look so totally rockstarish!

So this is your EARLY Friday post to start your weekend off in a great way!

We are heading into a very cold patch of weather today so if you are in my part of the world rug up and stay safe and to everyone else take care and stay safe and we will meet back here again very soon.

signing off to go and get ready to quilt some more an another project.1

Wendy 





Thursday 23 June 2016

A busy week to be sure and company in the garden

Hello from my little happy quilting place down under!  How have you all been?  What's happening in your part of the world?  Read on and see what I have been doing this week.


Tuesday saw a little visit to the Sewing Connection for these beauties.  The pinks and purples will be for my Glacier Star Quilt and the strip and star fabric will be for my border and binding of my mystery that I am sharing with you all here.  Next clue in the morning.  Please note that the first clue did have a mistake and you should have 72 four patch units not 36.  I have edited the blog post but just Incase you have missed my amendment I thought I would just mention it here.

I have been working on my Decades of stars quilt and I am happy with the progress and the way the quilting is bring this quilt to life.







These Little Wattlebird visited the garden for the nectar in this Calistemon and I managed to get a couple photos of them.

They also have a wonderful song and are beautiful to listen to.   I really love my garden the way it attracts these lovelies.


Oh and here are some fabrics from the stash by Denyse Schmidt that will make an appearance in an upcoming quilt which I am excited about and these fabrics are just a tad gorgeous also. I will have some piecing and some applique to do for this quilt and I'm sure you will love it.


Today I have been doing some free motion quilting on this UFO.  So tomorrow I should have another quilt finished.  I am happy that my machine quilting is coming together also.  My first love will always be hand quilting but sometimes time and other constraints make hand quilting not possible.  So I will be happy to be able to create lovely quilts using the machine for these occasions.
This is the entirety of the quilt.  It was a free block of the month I did with a Facebook quilting group about four years ago with my scraps and I finally got these blocks into a top this year and am now completing the quilting and having fun!




So tomorrow morning I will give you the next clue in the mystery.  We will have one more week and then the mystery will be revealed.  I hope you are having as much fun with it as I am.

So tell me how has your week gone?  Have you had a Quilty  week or a relaxing week of something in between.  Leave a comment in the comment box and let me know!  

Until the morning have a great night or day wherever you are in the world.

Wendy
P.S.  Remember A creative person never gets bored!

Sunday 19 June 2016

Sewing Sunday Slowly Away

Happy Sunday to you all!  I hope you have had or are having a wonderful day!


Let me introduce you to my oldest UFO (unfinished object). This is Decades of Stars.  Now I will not go through all the details today as to why this has taken way too long to finish but I just want to let you see the start.  I will be posting photos of this over the next few weeks as I continue to work a little bit each day on it alongside my other projects.

Loading of the quilt onto my hand quilt frame
Ready to start quilting life into this baby
These are a couple of photos as I was loading this on the frame a couple of weeks ago!
Threads for stitching
These are the threads I had purchased several years ago, they are Superior Threads Treasure hand 

quilt thread.  
Cable for the border
This is the border as I started to work on it again.  This quilt had been on the frame a few years ago but was removed as I had more pressing deadlines.
Border complete

Border was completed during the week.


Side border started 
This is the start of the right hand side border.


Start of the main body of the quilt

After a few hours it is starting to look quite ok and I am starting to get excited for this project again.


 where I am tonight, I am loving how this is looking


And this is where I am quilting tonight. This quilt is mainly all Debbie Mumm fabrics.  It does have very special memories which I will reveal with the completed quilt as soon as possible.  So what are you stitching up this Sunday?  I will be linking this Slow Stitching Sunday and would like to thank Kathy for hosting this link up once again.  

Have you heard that I am hosting a Winter Mystery quilt along?  If you would like to join in please check out the featured post on the blog.  Plus here is Link to the clues so I hope you can join in.  

So Until later in the week take care and have a great day and remember to give a smile away! :)

Wendy.



Friday 17 June 2016

Clue 2! Winter Mystery Quilt Along! Come Join the Fun!

Happy Friday to everyone!


What a week I have certainly had and its been lots of fun and lots of planning of many many fun things to come. I hear you saying "Seriously you are saying just get down to business and let us all have the mystery clues".  I hope you are enjoying it, don't forget I want to see all of the photos of how you are going.



So without any further ado, here goes:-

Today you will need to bring out the little 2" squares we put away last week and to this we will add some background and our medium fabrics.  I am using two different colours so I will give you total to cut and then my breakdown incase you are using two colours also.

Cutting instructions:-
from last week the 36 dark 2" squares (18 blues and 18 greens)
36  pieces cut at 3.5" x 2" of medium fabrics (20 Pinks and 16 yellows)
*note I cut these in lots of four of the one colour, if you can this would be a good idea unless you are doing a completely scrappy quilt
9 x 3.5" squares of your background fabric


pieced all cut and ready to sew
Sewing instructions:-
From your medium strips you have cut separate into two halves keeping them in pairs.  
Take one pile to the sewing machine with the 2" squares. 
*if you are using 2 colours separate the colours and take to the machine with your medium strips.  I had 10 pink strips and 8 yellow strips. 
We are adding a square to each end of the strip.  If you are using two colours add them to opposite ends of the strips.
ready for sewing
The next stage take the 9 backgrounds with the remaining strips to the machine and sew the strips to either side of the background fabric making sure you use the same fabric on each square.

prepared ready for sewing
And this is what we achieve, 5 pink units and 4 yellow units and 18 strip units.

all pieces joined into units
Last stage for sewing this unit is, to join the strips together as follows.  
Remember if you are not using two colours for you darks it will not matter how you put the small strips to the centre of the block.  If you are using two colours make sure the colours are opposite each other as follows in photo below.

Ready to sew unit together

all units stacked in order for sewing

Clue 1 and 2 all complete 
Now we have completed clue two.  We now have 9 uneven 9 patches and 36 four patches.  Only two more clues left folks!  How are you enjoying this?  Are you loving my colours coming together or are you enjoying yours more.  Don't just visit leave your calling card!  Say hello, and let me know where you are visiting from, I love to chat!  

Don't forget to join me on instagram here  and don't forget to tag your blocks with #Wintermystery2016 or on Facebook  at Wehago Designs Quilting Community

So until the next post over the weekend to let you know how my sewing is going, have fun and keep on smiling and quilting!

Cheers!

Wendy

Saturday 11 June 2016

Start of Glacier Star Quilt! Whoop Whoop


Fabrics for the quilt
Yesterday I went to do a class on how to do the Glacier Star Quilt by Judy Neiymeyer. The above photo is the fabrics I chose to start with.

Start of piecing



Once in the class I decided I needed one extra pink, so lucky Janene was walking around the class and gladly went and selected a couple for me to chose from so I have a lovely baby pink batik to fit in with these fabrics now.


Here is my New York Beauty Block moving along



Almost there
At this stage I just wanted to get a glimpse on how it might look together

oh look at these! whoop whoop!

And Ta Da!  Here are all of my eight blocks together. Next is onto the smaller New York beauty blocks for the inner part of these blocksw.

next part to piece
Here you can see I am ready to start these tomorrow. This will just leave me with my homework of cutting the papers and the fabric for the next months class. 

oh the start of the mystery after clue 1
Now this is all my first clue waiting to have the next part cut and pieced ready to add to the pile so we can complete this quilt.  Don't forget to check the previous post if you would like to join in with the Winter Mystery quilt along for this year.  I am really doing a whoop whoop for this new quilt, I just love the way the pink sparkles are showing up.  I am also whooping it up for this little mystery I am sharing with you and I am getting back into sharing with you all through my blog.  I would really love to say thank you to the linky host today of Confessions of a fabric addict (check out her giveaway today and many many thanks) .

So until the next post which maybe tomorrow if I manage to get back to the hand quilting.

Have a great day!

Wendy.