Gemma's Surprise

One of the swaps I've participated in this Christmas was the Holiday Quilt swap. The idea of this was to send a mini quilt and some goodies to your swap partner.

To make life a bit different in our house Margaret, the swap mum and myself hatched a plan. Although I was the official partner and I was the one who made and sent out a quilt I wasn't going to be the recipient. Gemma was. This would then , hopefully, be a nice surprise to Gemma when the parcel came with her name on it.

Well we were right. The parcel came yesterday and it was a lovely surprise to Gemma. I had to explain why she was getting a quilt and goodies though as she didn't recognise the name on the return address as one of my regular blog friends. Yes she does read my blog so be afraid. She knows who you all are.

Anyway we would both like to thank Sharon for rising to the challenge and making Gemma's day.


First up we have all the goodies that appeared in the parcel. Look at all that chocolate and jelly beans. THey've probably disappeared by now.
The lovely notepad and notebook I believe are going to school to be used and bragged about.

And now to the best bit, the quilt.


Gemma loves it and Mal is currently busy knocking nails in the wall so it can be hung.

The quote was, " Oh that's definitely going up on the wall." I believe it'll be staying there aswell as Gem has no plans for it to be stored away until next Christmas.

Here's a close up of the lovely snowglobes on the quilt. They've actually been paper pieced I think, with some chiffon? placed over the top to give the effect of the glass.


Like I said, Gemma loves it so thank you again Sharon for doing this for Gem. I can't imagine what you must have thought when you saw the swap details. I know if it was me I would have quite a few moments of panic.



Just to complete the post here's a pic of the swap quilt I sent out to my partner. She requested a religious themed quilt.

We Three Kings

Got Christmas all wrapped up

I've bought all Gemma's presents and they are wrapped. same for my niece and nephews and FIL. Mum and dad's is on order and should be with me early this week. All cards have been written and sent/delivered. Now the photo you are waiting for, I've finished hand sewing the binding on Woven Feathers ,the quilt for my Aunt. This has also been wrapped up ready for delivery.



I've used one of the creams for the binding and I'm pleased with how effective it has turned out to be.
You can see the close ups of the machine quilting here.


Right apart from having to do a small shop for fresh fruit and veg I'm ready. Bring on Christmas.

How to embarrass your Husband

Stand in the queue in a big busyNewsagents while waiting to pay for the latest patchwork magazine. While in the long queue start flicking through said magazine until you get to the recommended blogs section and then yell

"It's me - I'm blog of the month! "



Sorry about the crappy photos.

Does anyone want my autograph. LOL

Why you shouldn't let your hubby go paint shopping alone

Well as you know we've been decorating and moving bedrooms. After the mammoth task of finishing Gemma's room we have since decorated ours. The colour scheme was to be a nice soft cream and white. I know this will be a surprise to many of you but rest assured there will be plenty of colour in the curtains and quilts for the room, when I get around to them.

Anyway as I said the room was to be SOFT CREAM, got the colour in your head, a nice warm cream/yellow. Right this is what the room looks like




BEIGE!!!! I've got a BEIGE bedroom. How the hell did that happen. You all know how I feel about the B word.
It turns out that instead of picking up a pot of Soft Cream paint Mal bought SOFT COFFEE instead. His defence was that it must have been in the wrong slot in the store. As if. This is what comes of trusting your husband to go paint shopping alone. Well never again.

Mal is refusing to redecorate as he thinks there's nothing wrong with the colour.I'm just going to have to make a really bright quilt now to take my mind off the BEIGE walls. I can see alot of wall quilts going up in the future.

Decision Made

Well I ummed and ahhed for ages. I weighed up all the pro's and cons and took all your comments into count.

I love Dancing with the Stars as you would expect. I love star blocks and the colours are just me. On the flip side there is something about Moonlit Garden that really appeals to me. I don't know why but I really like it.

Well I continued to umm and ahh and I asked Mal and Gemma's opinion and I've finally made a decision.













I'm going to do BOTH.

I'll just have to cut down on the amount I spend elsewhere. I just hope they don't mind sending both out to me Airmail.

Decisions Decisions

well girls do I do THIS BOM or THIS BOM here. I can't decide. My bank balance won't cope with doing both of them so I have to make the big decision.

Sunshine and Showers

34" square table topper/wallhanging

This is a slightly different way of doing a log cabin and the way I always make mine. I haven't given fabric requirements as the blocks are strip pieced using the full length of a strip of fabric. This method is quicker but there will be a bit of waste

Cutting Instructions

All strips are cut from the full 44" width of fabric ( WOF)


Centre fabric ( also used for the borders ) - cut 2 strips 1.5" wide for the centres
cut 4 strips 2.5" wide for the borders


Pale Blue - cut 4 strips 1" by WOF
medium blue 1 - cut 5 strips 1" by WOF
medium blue 2 - cut 6 strips 1" by WOF
dark/bright blue - cut 8 strips 1" by WOF

pale orange - cut 4 strips 1" by WOF
medium orange 1 - cut 6 strips 1" by WOF
medium orange 2 - cut 8 strips 1" by WOF
dark/bright orange - cut 10 strips 1" by WOF

METHOD

With right sides together sew a centre strip to a pale blue strip along one of the long sides. Press the seam allowance towards the pale blue. Repeat with the other centre/pale blue strip. This should measure 2" wide.



Cross cut at 1.5" until you have 36 segments



Place one of the other strips of pale blue, right side up under your sewing machine needle. Place a segment on top of this, right side down and with the pale blue towards the top.


Start to sew using a 0.25" seam allowance, adding a new segment butted up to the previous one as you go along like chain stitching and leaving as small a gap as possible.



Continue until you have all the centre segments sewn to the pale blue strips.


Iron with the seam allowance towards the new strip. Using a rotary cutter and ruler cut each segment apart.

These should measure 2"


Lay a strip of the pale orange, right side up under your sewing machine needle. Start adding your centre segments, right side down and with the newer strip of pale blue at the top.


Repeat the previous steps in this order pressing the seams towards the new strips and making sure the newer strip is always uppermost when chain sewing

pale orange
should measure 2.5" square

medium blue 1 and medium orange 1

should measure 3.5" square

medium blue 2 and medium orange 2

should measure 4.5" square

dark/bright blue and dark bright orange

This is the finished block and should measure 5.5"

Using either the photo or the printed layout here



The centre of the quilt should be 30.5" square. Measure through the centre and cut the border strips to size. Add the borders and sandwich and quilt as desired. I quilted feather wreaths over mine and then used a dark blue to bind it