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....

Quilts

The above quilt is HeMingHos that I actually finished a number of months ago but didn't have a camera at the time to show you. I made it using only two jellyrolls and backing fabric. The centre squares are pieced with two JR strips and the binding is a scrap binding. I had very little left from the two jelly rolls which was fantastic. Even better I bought the JRs on sale! The quilt is SB size and is on our lounge at present.

This one is ready for me to stitch down the binding. It is a baby quilt to put away for when I need one for a gift. I used two American Jane charm packs to make the dissapearing nine patch, then sashed it with white. The quilt size is about 50" square, so a generous size for a baby/toddler.



Another baby quilt to have the binding stitched down and be put away for when I need a gift. Another dissapearing nine patch quilt, this time using Basic' Grey's Max and Whiskers range. Size is about 38" square.



The Friends in Stitching online group that I am in has been doing pieced block of the months the past two years, with one person choosing a block per month for everyone else to piece. This is the BOM from 2010, I didn't start last years because I hadn't finished the previous years quilt top, and I when I decided to put this quilt together I didn't piece the four blocks that I was behind on, so it is 55" square, lap quilt size and not single bed size. I used my stash of pretty Holly Holderman fabrics to make this. 

A quilt top to quilt and put away for a baby gift. LOL It seems like I am  building up stash of these, but with two nephews and one neice being born within a couple of years and me being as slow as I am at getting their quilts made I wanted to be a bit prepared from now on.

I used the Verna quilt pattern and Pure fabrics to make this one. It's about 40" square.



This quilt top is a project from last years Fig Tree Club and once quilted it is a gift for my neighbour who went through breast cancer and a masectomy a couple of years ago. The layout of this quilt was quite simple and basic, and to start with I was a little dissapointed with the design; but once I started piecing it I fell in love. It is so much prettier in reality than the computer image. I feel a little reluctant about giving it away! I am sure my neighbour is going to treasure it when she recieves it. I think it's about 68" square.

This is a SB size (78" by 50") dissapearing ninepatch, lol I think I have made enough dissapearing nine patches for the time being! I used two ranges, Farm Fresh and Fox Trails, both by Riley Blake Designs.

This quilt is for our new baby, lol it was meant to be cot size as I haven't any patchwork/quilted cot quilts but as wanted to make as much use out of the charm squares I had bought the quilt has ended up being much bigger! Before I quilt this for the baby I have set myself the goal of finishing off quilts for my other children as I have only finished quilts for two out of five children. Luckily don't have much to finish the remaining three quilts, provided I can manage better with this all day nausea that doesn't seem to be going away.

This is Floral Bouquet and it is for my eldest daughter, made with a JR of Sunkissed that Kerri sent me as a thankyou for when I helped her out last year. On the back is one of Heather Bailey's Fresh Cut fabrics. This is one of the quilts that doesn't have much to go on it; and I need to get it quilted so I have pins to baste some of the quilt tops I have recently finished. Don't get me wrong here, I do have quite a pile of basting pins so I don't need to purchase any more. I also happen to have a QS quilt that is also full of basting pins at present too; AND I need some motivation to get these tops quilted!

Quilting

 Finally I have all my Butterfly Garden blocks together and ready to be machine appliqued and hand stitched. I can see the end in sight now, though it is over near the horizon!

BG is my night time stitching; aside from doing bindings.

 I have another An Angels Story block prepared ready to machine applique.

 This cute little quilt is half bound and I have almost finished quilting it; maybe it will be done by tomorrow for the end of the month????

Ah yes, quilting. Lots of it!

Even though it is pinned and ready to quilt I keep procrastinating about quilting the QS Luna Notte quilt (2nd from right).

Also ready to quilt is the Shheep quilt for DS5yrs. I kept putting off machine appliquing the sheep on it because it's awkward once the whole quilt is together. I am going to ditch the quilt then raw edge/quilt the sheep. Not sure how it will turn out but at least my son should get his quilt sooner rather than later!

The quilt on the left is a dissapearing nine patch with white sashings that I made using two charm packs of American Jane's 'Punctuation' range. I will quilt this and put it away for when I need a baby/toddler quilt.

The last quilt in the pic (2nd from left) is another dissapearing nine patch, but without the sashings. I used two charm packs of 'Max and Whiskers' by Urban Grey - gorgeous fabrics.... This quilt, small as it is, isn't pinned yet as I AM OUT OF BASTING PINS and need to quilt in order to baste some more!



Quilting Forks

 I am about two thirds of the way through quilting my 'Forks' quilt that I started to quilt at the same time last year, definately time to finish it! Of a night I am stitching down the binding on the sampler quilt in the last post and will show you when it is finished. I can't begin to tell you how good it is to get these UFOs finished!

I am also working on a few secret squirrel projects that I can't share just yet...

We've had some rain here today, only about 5mls but that is better than none. Unlike other parts of Australia we have only had a very few ml of rain since Christmas time and if we don't get some half decent rain in the next few weeks with this heat things will not be looking good fire wise. We have dry thistles in the paddock that are waist and chest high on me, I dread to think how fast a fire would burn through. So I am hoping that we get some more rain.

Sampler Quilting

Fresh in the morning sun is a snapshot of my first quilt top that is almost completly quilted!

I didn't know what to choose, fabric wise, the choice was so overwhelming. I ended up choosing the border fabric (bottom left) first then a co-ordinating solid in that lovey periwinkle blue. There are alot of stripes and plaids in this quilt as I chose them so I could give the quilt to my eldest child, a boy. At the time he was just over two years old. Now he is almost 11! All things going well the quilt will be on his bed before this birthday.