Baby Girl Quilt : :

Despite my obvious lack of posting on my blog of late, I haven't lost interest!! We have had a lot of things going on in the last few months.
 We are steaming ahead with our renovation, my logo for the store is now done, and we had the twins 5th birthday in the middle of all that as well (where does the time go?).
All that was done in between the everyday things of shopping, cleaning, kinder, speech pathology, visiting friends and family, and SLEEP!  (not nearly enough of the later though if you ask the bags under my eyes!)

But despite all that, I still love to squeeze some time quality time in with my sewing machine!

Earlier this year one of my good friends had a beautiful baby! (please ignore the clucking you may or may not hear coming from me).

So of course, every beautiful baby needs a beautiful quilt!

The pattern for this quilt is called 'Sweet Pea', and came from the quilt book written by Camille Roskelly,  'Simplify'. (I L-O-V-E her patterns, fabric....hair, and the fact she is a member of the same church I go to! Yup, she has got a lot of things going for her!)

I used my favourite fabric, Sarah Jane, Children at Play. (yes I know i have made a zillion quilts with this fabric range before. I just have a whole ton of it!)

This is also the first time I have EVER free motioned! I decided to just stipple the quilt instead of getting fancy (and frustrated) with a pattern. I used the Bernina Stitch Regulator (fondly known as BSR) and while it's not fool proof, it was definitely good for me!

I found that it really helped me stay a steady speed, as every time I moved the fabric too quickly, my machine would start beeping at me! I know it makes for 'lazy quilters', as I was told by a Pfaff sales representative when I asked if Pfaff sewing machines come with any sort of equivalent (really, I deserved it! I mean, come on, would any other machine even come close to a Bernina?)

I would like to be able to use the free-motion foot without the stitch regulator eventually, so I tried to maintain a steady speed while quilting. The best thing is that while I'm leaning, my quilts still look fantastic, and it gives me loads of practise!

I love the look of the heavy stippling. I'm not a great fan of sparse-stippling! I am honestly coming to believe that a quilt can never be too quilted!

So this quilt is now over in Baltimore keeping one gorgeous baby girl warm! I really hope I can go and see this quilt in action in the US soon!

Jessica 

P.S Sorry for the terrible lighting with the photos. I stayed up really late the night before and then got up at 5am to finish it! I just snapped a quick photo at my friends house before I left!! Ill up my game for the next post!!

Star Light Star Bright!!

If you follow my blog you will know that I am doing the Happy Quilting Quilt-a-long!!
I chose to do the 4x4 Queen layout, each block in this layout is 40'' square!!
I love love love the large blocks!! After finishing all four of my blocks, I realised that I don't really need another queen size quilt....

But what I DO need is about 4 baby quilts!! I don't know if this is allowed (sorry Melissa!) but I *think* I'm going to just leave the large blocks as they are and turn them into baby quilts!!

I'm not 100% decided with this..I may use one of two as a baby quilt, and then whip up another few blocks and turn the whole thing into a quilt after all....or I was even thinking of backing it in laminated cotton and making a picnic quilt......or using 1-2 for baby quilts, then making little picnic quilts for tea parties for my girls...

Ha ha, as you can see, I'm not 100% yet what I'm going to do with these beautiful quilt blocks! I love how they are just so darn versatile!

Sorry for my lack of ironing.....My twin girls have to go to see the speech pathologist this morning, and I didn't want to be running late, so I had to just take a quick snap. I'm also working tonight (I'm a nurse), and I wouldn't get this up in time for the grand prize ...*fingers crossed*!
Ill take some better photos in the coming days and show you my other four blocks!

Jessica

Amy Butler Little Splashes : :

After a VERY loooong hot summer its finally getting cooler (well the nights are anyway!). So now I'm moving into winter sewing as the winters in Gippsland can be very long and cold!

About a year ago (or possibly more, whose counting right?) I ordered 3 different types of laminated fabric and the Amy Butler sewing pattern Little Splashes.

I let the girls each choose which fabric they wanted, Little Miss E choose a zoology fabric by Robert Kaufman in whales, and Little Miss I chose a cute strawberry laminate.

Block Corners : :

So...I finally caught up with the Happy Quilting quilt-a-long. I was soo far behind! There has been so much happening here lately, some good, some bad.
Good news is our house is sealed up! We pulled down all the internal walls that needed to come out (we are renovating) and then had to lay the floor. Its been a trying couple of weeks with birds coming in and out of the house, but its finally all closed off!!

I have finished this weeks assignment (just in time too!) ...so here are my block corners for my quilt!

 

I cant wait till its all sewn together! I haven't used the BSR on my new Bernina 440QE yet, and I really plan on putting it to the test on this quilt! (By the end of quilting a queen quilt, one would hope I would have the hang of it!)

I have lots to put up here and now I have found my charger to my camera, I can finally take some photos of the things I have been making!

Jessica

Something Is Coming...

Something BIG!! Something HUGE!!!!

I'm opening an ONLINE STORE!! Yippie!
I am still in the process of organising myself, but I have my first order of patterns here ready for me to list, and another order on the way. (yes I will be selling sewing patterns)

The name of my store is.....

Yes its completely irrelevant to what I'm actually selling, but I love it!
My lovely maybe-almost-sister-in-law is going to draw up some cute graphics for me so I can really get things looking nice (think tea drinking foxes!).

I'm planning on stocking a large range of quality patterns, including men's, women's, and of course children's patterns. Eventually down the line I may also look at sourcing notions and sewing tools that I love to use as well!

My store isn't up yet as I'm still getting everything in order, but it will be soon! When it is, I will be sure to let you know and add a button to the side of my blog for easy access!

I'm SO SO SO excited! I have been wanting to do this for AGES now, and I cant believe its nearly up and running!

Jessica

Sorry for the lack of posting of late! There has been so much going on that I haven't had hardly any time!!