Quilting over a few weeks

Lately I have made the choice to quilt/sew over blogging, I couldn't do both with my limited time/energy of late. My full time nausea that I had for both first and second trimesters of this pregnancy dissappeared when I got to third trimester, so I set about to get done what I could while able. Until this week Mr Busy had been away for eight weeks in a row, sometimes only home for two nights/one day before leaving again, though this didn't increase our chore load much it is a relief to have him home again. Add this in to numerous appointments for myself and the children, home schooling, keeping on top of living in major renovations, preparing for a new baby and being rather tired. 

So this is what I have been up to in recent weeks.

Finally finished is the Sheep quilt for DS. I started this quilt back in 2007. It sat for a long time just pieced as I wanted to put tractors on it instead of the sheep. Then DS was calling sheep 'heep' and we were coaching him to put a 'shh' in front of the 'heep', so I then put the sheep appliques onto the quilt. LOL, that brought more delays as with the quilt top together and the appliques needing to be stitched down I didn't want to do this, so the quilt sat again for ages until late last year (2012) I decided to baste the quilt and do the applique/quilting in one go. I just worked on a little bit at a time and got through it; I even had the binding on and stitched down before the quilting was finished - this nice.

The quilt was in Australia Country Threads magazine vol 8 no 1 and is designed by Roz Leadbetter of Country Cupboard Designs. The original quilt was 40 inches square with 8 sheep appliques but I increased my block numbers (now 12 sheep) to make it larger.

A little boy is loving having this on his bed finally!

 Butterfly Garden is almost quilted. I basted this almost two weeks ago and basting on the floor when 34/35 weeks pregnant isn't easy; in fact it left me feeling so tired and achy that I'm not basting again till after the baby comes.

 Here are the other quilts I have been working on in the past few weeks, they are all quilted and are waiting for me to hand stitch down the bindings. The top three are for babies that are due soon to friends/family of ours. The second from the bottom is a Fig Tree quilt for my neighbour who had breast cancer a few years ago (I may be slow but do get there eventually!) and the bottom quilt is the QS Luna Notte quilt for our bed that was basted twelve months ago, so it will be on our bed this winter. I don't recommend leaving quilts basted with pins for too long, a lesson learnt!

 Three more quilts that I was hoping to have basted/quilted before the baby comes, but it isn't to be as I can't baste on the floor anymore. These will just have to wait a bit longer!

These quilts are; Little Macca's Farm for my youngest DS. the 'lolly' quilt, for DS who has the Shheep quilt I showed above. My Friends in Stitching BOM from 2010 for DD who owns the Floral Bouquet quilt in this post.

Once these are quilted I should only have 7 quilts left to quilt! I tend to like putting the tops together more but with quilting my own and having such a large pile to quilt I had to make this priority; and I have enjoyed finishing these quilts off.

 last week I put together my hand quilting hoop that I bought from Anni at The Home Patch (Hatched and Patched) over a year ago. This quilt is the cheater cloth from Bonnie and Camille's Bliss fabric range. I ditched all the straight bits but did a terrible job on the circles. So much for putting together a quick to make quilt! A while back I decided that I would hand quilt the circles in as the quilt doesn't feel finished without the circles being done. It has been years, 2004, since I did any hand quilting......

 Floral Bouquet in Sunkissed is finished.

DD loves it and was over the moon to put it on her bed in her new room (well for a short time anyway). As you can see there is no proper flooring (cyrpess floorboards need to be laid) and no window trim; there are also no doors either.

DD moved into her room so her brother can move from our room to make room for the baby. She will have to move out when Mr Busy lays the flooring down, but in the meantime she is loving having space to herself.

 Such a pretty quilt and fabric range....