My beautiful sister in law gave birth to the most adorably perfect baby girl last Sunday, and of course as a super excited Aunty who quilts, the perfect gift of course was a quilt!
 I'd had a star quilt in mind since my brother first rang to give me the news that they were expecting, I waited to find out if I was getting a niece or nephew before I did anything though, and by then I was working and just didn't get to it till after Christmas.
 I'd seen a couple of interlocking star quilts round the blogosphere, so when I finally sat down to work out what I wanted to do, I kept going back to those, I pulled a stack of fabrics from my stash, then edited, pulled a few more, edited again, pulled a few more.... well you get the drift, it took me hours just to pick the fabric!!
Finally worked them out, worked out the size of the quilt then ducked into spotlight for the background, backing ( Denise Schmidt) and binding, and sat down and started cutting, it felt so good to be starting a new quilt, and I just kept going and going until it was done. The quilt arrived up north yesterday, and they loved it!!
I stuck with my usual all over stipple, but changed things up with the rounded corners and bias binding, its approx 40"x44" just perfect for a baby quilt that later on can be used as a child sized lap quilt.
I was half way through sewing the binding on when I read about the Sparkle Punch Quilt Along! mind you I tend to graph out all quilts before i make them weather from a pattern or from my head, I find its the best way for me to get my head around fabric requirements, and to work it all out.

Sorry I haven't replied to comments lately, or commented on any of your blogs, I'm back at work again now, and life is just crazy with my house of girls, one of these days ill get back to blogging and commenting and replying the last year has just been a blur of change for me.

Kitchen Window quilt #1, Yes I finished the 2nd one first (months ago!) this has been sitting on my sewing table just waiting to be bound since august, around about the last time I blogged actually, So much has happened since then, my life is completely different now, I got a Job!!!! I'm now the canteen manager at the girls school, which as I'm sure you can all imagine is perfect for me, school hours plus I get to see the kids during the day, and keep an eye on things for that matter!

Backing.
I've also lost 15kgs since July, woohoo!!!! this puts me back at a very healthy weight for my shape and height and I feel so much better for it! (My fitness Pal) and life has changed at home too, as I'm now a single mum. The school holidays are almost half way through already, and I'm missing work, but also loving being at home with the kids and being able to get some stuff done, including sewing again!



So this post is all a bit of a ramble, it's been so long since I posted, I feel like I'm starting all over again.
So anyway... The blocks in this quilt were made by the girls from Bee Seam Piecing Down Under, and I've posted about it numerous times already so I wont go through it all again, I'm really happy with both my quilting and binding on this quilt, both are the best I've done so far, Its destined to live on the lounge with its twin for the cold winter nights that at the moment seem so very far away!


I also made a new quilt, from start to finish in a couple of days, its only a little baby quilt for a very special little one that is due to arrive any day now, My first niece!! I'm so excited!! I cant wait to be an auntie!!



A couple of little sneaky peaks for now, I'm sending this off to my brother and sister in law tomorrow and once it arrives ill do a proper post. Hopefully I will be around more often again, now that I'm a touch more organised, I have another quilt on the go already, I'm making it up as i go along, but the intention is to make something a bit more arty for the wall above my bed or somewhere in my room anyway.

Pam's blocks for July are the last ones for BSPDU, and the last ones for me for a while too. Ive really enjoyed being involved in both Bee Seam Piecing Down Under and The Australasian Bee, Ive learnt a lot and
"met" some awesome people.

Quilted and bound, I am in love with this quilt!!! It came out so lovely, soft and wrinkly, I'm looking forward to snuggling up with it on the lounge :-)

I can't quite make out the print on the back but it is the same as the cushion back below.

When I was cutting the fabric to send off to the Bee girls, I somehow got it into my head that they would need a 3.5" square.... yeah not sure how that happened, but it worked out well in the end, I whipped up the front of this cushion cover a few months ago, then added the borders from scraps the girls sent back to me, it is quilted with quite a loose large stipple compared to the quilt which is tighter and smaller.

I love this backing fabric, I had originally bought it with the intention of making myself  skirt, but it is just not a colour that I would wear, there was however just the right amount for the quilt and the back of my cushion.



We had Charlie's birthday party on the weekend, we had a lovely afternoon with her best friend and her (same age) Aunty. I knocked out this chocolate cake in the morning, you can't quite tell in this pic but the mound of strawberries in the middle was quite large, it was polished off pretty quickly I can tell you!!



In other news, I cut 8 inches off Miss Jocie's hair last night, she is such a cutie <3

The second quilt made from the blocks that the awesome girls in Bee Seam Piecing Down Under made for me! Unfortunately I ended up having to make 2 more blocks for this one, and with not enough kona charcoal for the frames, I decided to think outside the square (hehe) and go with a dark hot pink, (I think its Kona Pomegranate but I'm not sure) I'm really loving the effect!! This one is for ME!! Ive got the backing, binding and batting all ready to go, I just need to pick up some thread, I'm going to meander this is a light grey to match the Ash sashing, hopefully in the next week I'll have a finish to share :-)

My biggest girl turned 10 today!!

But she's not too old for tricky candles (magic re-lighting ones at that!!)

Jam and Cream filled Lamington cake....... oh yeah!

Gotta love this face, I think she liked her pressie!!! (and seriously I love these dolls!! I want one for myself so bad!!)

It was super difficult getting a photo of this quilt, its huge!! 86" x 94" in fact! It will be a long time before I will be able to show it finished, its going to be hand quilted, I'm hoping though it will be done by the middle of next winter, we'll see.

With the beautiful hand-dyed backgrounds and our choice of fabric for the snow globe, this quilt is going to be very very interesting to look at, Cant wait to see how it all comes together :-)

Not the best pic ever lol! This is my Fanciful flowers in Wonderland quilt, that I've been working on, on and off for about 18 months, I finished the last applique block yesterday and wanted to lay it out to see how it would look. This quilt pattern is from Material Obsession one.The fabric is Wonderland by momo. I couldn't help myself though and altered it a bit to work as a queen size quilt, I also used a jelly roll and layer cake for most of the fabric with only a couple of the prints in larger half yard cuts. All the applique is needle turn, and very very far from perfect, rustic is a more fitting term! I still have to trim the flower blocks, sew them all together and add the border, but I'm not in a rush this one is a slow burner :)

The Front.

The Back.

Close up.

Emma asked for blocks of our choice, with the only stipulation being that they "read" as yellow. I love love love this style of block, and I've done it a few times over the course of my two bee's. I can't wait to see this quilt come together, its going to be lovely and bright and sunshiney!

Kitchen Window Quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's "Practical Guide to Patchwork"

Blocks made by the awesome girls in Bee Seam Piecing Down Under!!
frames are Kona Charcoal and sashing is Kona Ash, fabrics include AMH Good Folks, Meadowsweet, Kaffe and Prints Charming, There is still another identical quilt coming together as well, the backing for this one is under construction and I plan to quilt it with an all-over stipple. 


In other news, My course has pretty much come to a standstill talk about over my head! I'm now looking for work instead. There has been quite a bit of hand sewing happening but I haven't taken pictures yet. I've also been spending a fair bit of time volunteering at our school's canteen, which I absolutely love! All the girls are doing really well, growing bigger and bigger all the time.
 I hope to get back into blogging regularly again now that I've sorted out some big life decisions (study vs work).
I hope everyone out there reading this post is doing well, and getting in plenty of sewing time :-)

First up, April is Abigail's month in the Australasian Bee, She opted to very generously donate her blocks to charity, so these blocks are going to be made into a quilt for a victim of the Christchurch Earthquake.

April in Bee Seam Piecing Down Under is my month (yay!!) I pulled my small collection of Good Folks and added a few more fabrics that I thought worked well, then while looking at sneak peaks of the quilts in Elizabeth Hartmen's "The Practical Guide to Patchwork" (I couldn't wait for it to arrive!) I saw her Kitchen Window's quilt and fell hard, She even used Good Folk in her version! so I muddled out the measurements (which are wrong by the way!) and started cutting up packages,  My book finally arrived (seriously it took a month!) figured it was close enough and sent them out as is. I'm already seeing what the girls are making for me in our flickr group!

I've used Kona Ash for the sashing and Kona Charcoal for the frames.

And yep I said on here once before I'm addicted! This one is designed by me, their are 5 small dots on the side, representing my daughters, and the heart itself is for my wonderful husband, we got a tattoo each in march in honour of our 6th anniversary (together not wedding). His is a total nerd tattoo, it is "Kelly" in binary, love that man <3 (and the going joke is, if (god forbid) anything ever goes wrong, he just needs to add a couple more 1's and 0's to make it an error..... boom boom!)

Theres not a lot left to be said really.
(90" square)
Still trying to come up with a better name, monster just sounds so ugly!

The Journey:
Finding the fabric. 29/01/10
Finished the Flimsy. 20/01/11
The Back. 03/02/11
The Sandwich. 09/02/11
Quilting. 02/03/11
Quilt Saviour. 21/03/11

This block was on my 'one day' list. Note the "was". Yep making 2 of these has cured me of the need to ever make any more. Its a lovely block, don't get me wrong, I love hst's, I really do. Its just this block, it nearly got  the best of me. Nearly. It was so much more time consuming then I could of imagined, probably 3 times the amount of time that I normally allocate. But the result I think is worth it, and I really cannot wait to see this beautiful beast put together, and at 16" per block it is going to be huge!! I was short less then an inch of yellow so the second block isn't finished. I'm sending it home to be fixed :)

These blocks were based off a quilt by Rita at Red Pepper Quilts, and requested by Nicole in Bee Seam Piecing Down Under

Bronwyn from Whippet Good, requested rose blocks for her turn in the Australasian Bee. She sent out a great mix of pinks and greens, How freaking adorable is the carrot fabric?!

I managed to knock out 3 blocks, the pink is 9.5" the green is 9" and the mix is 6"

I had it in my head that I wanted to do a really really small block, like 2" but In the end I couldn't get my head around it, so 6" was the smallest I could really go with this one.

Love the three blocks together, they totally match Charlotte's quilt!

In other news, Ive finished my FMF quilt!!!! I slept under it last night for the first time!! You can see a sneaky peak over here. I just need to get some decent pics and do a round up post on it.