Grandma's 80th Birthday Quilt : :

In April it was my grandmothers 80ths birthday. Is there a better way to celebrate turning 80 than with a new quilt? Nope, I couldnt think of anything either!

I decided I wanted to make a quilt using a Jelly Roll (my 1st ever!). I wanted to use one because I wanted to make her a queen sized quilt, and didnt want it to take me too long!
After a few sneaky phone calls to my aunt about what types of colours nan does and doesn't like, I decided to get 2 Lario Jelly Rolls.

Lario is by 3 Sisters for Moda. Its a traditional-type fabric, but still has some really nice colours.
My grandma is a traditional sort of lady so it was a match made in heaven!

I borrowed a Jelly Roll book from my friend and decided to make the pattern 'Daisy Chain'.
(hmm hmm, I actually was going to go with another pattern, but ran out of time!)

It actually sewed up really quickly for a queen quilt, but I was still rushing to finish it because as usual I had procrastinated for about....only a YEAR!

Yes, I began planning this quilt at her 79th birthday and had all these wonderful plans to start and finish it waaay before her 80th.

I didnt start cutting this quilt till 1 week prior.
Need I say more?

So here is it being used in my grandmas bedroom. For the background I used Kona snow, which was perfect with Lario. Snow isn't as 'stark' as white, which was nice for a more traditional quilt. 

I backed it in a peach coloured backing I got from my local craft store. To be honest, I cant stand peach coloured things (it reminds me of 80's shiny bridesmaids dress and dated old bathrooms), but it went so well with the quilt, and was wide enough that I didnt have to have any seams on the back. SOLD!

And my nan didn't mind it either, which, of course is the most important thing!

To quilt it, because I was sooo strapped for time, I used a wavy stitch on my Bernina, and just stitched the width of the quilt on every seam. For some reason I thought it would be quick -It wasnt!

But it looked ok. I think I would've preferred to stipple this quilt (if I was being honest) but I really didn't have the time......

NEXT time, I wont leave it till so late! (Says she who is still making a baby quilt for a baby that is now 4 months old!)

Jessica

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