Wednesday 21 January 2015

Normal service will be/has been resumed.....GIMQ Post #5

I've been holding off with this blog post as I'd misplaced the SD card from my camera, obviously I've found it now, a blog post is no use what so ever without photos is it?

I had lots of good intentions over the past couple of weeks. After working on customer quilts right up to Christmas I resolved to take a couple of weeks to recoup and reorganise with a bit of painting, a bit of cleaning and a fair bit of farm office paperwork. I did paint and clean my farmhouse kitchen, I did catch up on my office work but still need to finalise my accounts before sending off to our Accountant. I faffed around trying to clear some space in my studio so it feels less claustrophobic, although I have a 30 foot room, it's just too full just now.



I finished up a Linus baby quilt top pieced from some leftovers from a different baby quilt.....




The digitised panto is Dropsy, quite appropriate for a broken dishes quilt don't you think?

I made a big push to finish piecing my GIMQ (Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt) and 'Tad Dah' it's done.

Last clue done!

Halfway stage......





My big reveal...

Joining in with a mystery or sew along is fun sometimes you add another quilt to your repertoire without even realising it. The colour choices and fabrics may not be your normal choice, have to say these are my colours with just minimal tweaks and constant fabrics. All of the other GIMQer's or sewers get you going to finish up in double time, believe me some people had their quilt blocks all pieced on New years day, that's the same day as the last clue was revealed. If you have never joined in with a sew along you should, it's fun.

Thank you Bonnie for all that you do, it's really appreciated, I'm linking this post with Bonnie's reveal linky at Quiltville
I'm waiting for just the perfect bolt of backing which has been on order since October and wouldn't you just know it is now on back order.....hope it comes soon, the colours will be a perfect match, who knew?

I'm already back to working on customer quilts, I have a small queue to be getting on with so that's really nice to just slide back into.....I'll be back in a while with a some customer catch ups.....







Thursday 1 January 2015

Rydal 9patchesnpinwheels...

Health Wealth and Happiness to all in 2015

I gifted some quilts over the festive season, here is a little review......

Rydal 9patchesnpinwheels...

This quilt started life while hosting a quilting retreat at Rydal Hall in September 2014.
Inspired by Bonnie Hunter’s free pattern ‘patches and pinwheels’ which you can find Bonnie here at Quiltville.



I was gifted a jelly roll then bought a Moda scrap bag in autumn colours that matched while at MQX, Portland 2013. The pinwheels (cut using the easy angle ruler ) from the 3 ½ inch strips in the scrap bag were perfect to match the nine patches made from 2 1/2 inch jelly roll strips, I didn’t turn my pinwheels coz I wanted my blocks to float on the border. 










I’m usually a freehand freemotion girl and have only thus far used my computerised system for doing edge to edge designs but my body was tired from doing customer quilts leading up to Christmas so I relented and did a custom digitised design using Decatur Feathers from My Creative Stitches. The binding was finished Christmas Day before gifting to my Mother who loved it….

Next up was a Cabin type quilt with deer and again autumnal colours, this is a vintage top which I quilted with an all-over digitised design by Anne Bright called Deer Crossing....



Now, I definitely took photos of the quilt, when I find them I'll update the post???

I gave this warm looking quilt to a friend who has just move into a new home






It was a mystery quilt that I made a couple of years ago, helped by my Granddaughter who pieced the pillow case. I'm sure Millie and Gem will use it lots....

I also finished up the binding last night whilst watching 'The Help' on TV waiting for the 'New Year to arrive, this was a top I bought from a friend recently who sold some of her quilt tops to raise funds for her Grand Son to travel.