1 xmas item, log cabins & Anzac day.

April's 1 xmas item a "C" for the start of my Christmas bunting. From now until December if I do one letter from CHRISTMAS, I will have my bunting ready for this Christmas. Thanks again to Narelle from Pins & Whiskers for hosting this groovie idea!

Barbara made this quilt at a class at The Country Yard. This is the second time running this popular class, back in 2010 was the first class, remember I quilted the class sample? Also another one from the class can be seen here, all the same but different!

The centre block was a stencil I had that seemed to look nice to me. This quilt, measuring 68" square has heaps of ditch stitching!!!!

Tiny 'scribbling' & echo stitching to define the stencil design. This quilt is now proudly displayed on the bed at Barbara's house that is especially for her grandson.......lucky fellow!

It's hard to tell from these photo's but I quilted a feather on the checker board border. The cream logs have feathers, the red logs only have ditch stitching.
Here's the pieced backing Barbara made......................

Here in little New Zealand it was a special day called ANZAC day.

Orca Bay upcycle!

This time last year I was loving the excitement of joining in on Bonnie Hunters yearly mystery ( my first ), Orca Bay.

Here is one of the photo's I took for the blog link up.
All was going well, until I started to put all these star blocks together with the string blocks....................

Blue string blocks

gold/orange string blocks, with our sweet Rosie

That's when I ended up with Ocean Waves, rather then Orca Bay. Talk about wavy!!!!!!
 This was the moment I threw the lot in the headache box! I had some advice to join in blocks, rather then in rows as Bonnie said. But by now my Mojo & excitement for the project was over!

Until a few months ago I had the idea to 'upcycle' the star blocks.

Tada!!.................................... Not bad aye? I have made this for one of my family members, fingers crossed it is liked.

The back has some lovely fabric with star blocks & I even used a star block in the label.

For the plain 6" blocks I used a new stencil, well part of the stencil, then I did orange peel on the background of the star blocks.

For the border I also used a new stencil, a celtic knot/ rope. I used a new thread too....'Glide' I also tried Miracle Chalk, which a friend lent me to try. I tested on a piece of the border fabric, it came out like a breeze. I quilted, went to iron off as instructed, it didn't come out of the needle holes!!! ARG.....slight panic ( note this stuff is very messy to work with ) I tried a damp cloth, I was reluctant to try again with the iron, as my thread is a polyester, I didn't want to melt it. I contacted Diana at Stitchworks who suggested I try a hair dryer or the brush attachment on my vacuum cleaner. YES!! that worked!!

A few more photo's.................

Artfully? rolled in the garden..........................................

I found a spot in the lounge to enjoy it until it goes to it's new owner.

I also finished another book......................

An eclectic bunch of people with a mixed up lot of problems come together at an Amish widows home to learn to quilt. Say that 10 times fast!!!!

Happy New Year to all, may all your hopes & dreams come true!

More customers quilts finished

Jill has been busy making table runners for Christmas presents. Jill is a newbee to quilting & is going great guns!

Five table runners, four with tea cups, one with roses. The tea cup runners I did simple straight lines & stipple, for the rose runner, I did scrolls & stipple.

This table runner is now ready to be trimmed for the binding, which Jill had me attach for her ready to hand stitch down.

Carol has also been busy making this next quilt for her daughter for Christmas. Jill made this quilt at a class at Grandmothers Garden with Ngaire Brookes.

Another lovely braid border that I quilted an orange peel design, in the cream border I broke the area up a bit with straight lines & a scroll/feather design. On the red ( not sure you can see that clearly) a curling ribbon.

I had the perfect stencil for the setting triangles.

Some of you might be thinking that I do a lot of sampler quilts....well you would be right! I am happy as I can explore new quilting ideas. I like each sampler block to be different, but have some continuity over the whole quilt. So for example, the curling ribbon I have used on the above block has also been used on the red border.

I used my favourite threads, Madeira polyneons & my up & coming new favourite, Gunold. I have bought quite a few new threads in the last few weeks to try.

The Christmas tree is up & decorated.....by me, my boys no longer think it is cool to get into the buzz of decorating for Christmas. Maybe I will take some photo's of what I did & blog about it. Maybe.......I have a new computer with a completely new operating system that is very different to what I am use to, so this post alone has taken a good couple of hours!!

an end to the mystery

The Country Yard had another mystery stitchery this year and I did the quilting. I used a stencil & some of my favourite threads, Madeira Polyneon's & Gunold

Mmmmm winter my favourite time of the year!!

 The stitcheries where done with Aurifil 12 weight variegated thread and Nancy Halvorsen range of fabrics. The design is exclusive to The Country Yard.

This is the stencil design I used for the large squares, then I modified the design to fit the triangles next to the season stitcheries.

look at the cute mittens! see the nice variegation in the thread?

The vines have sweet little YoYo's that were added after I quilted.

hello July!

Pam is a new customer of mine, so when she gave me this quilt & said you quilt it how you like, I was careful not to do too much quilting, I just needed to test the waters. I am always interested to see new customers first reactions when they pick up a quilt from me the first time. It can be a bit nerve racking, it is quite a big responsibility to quilt for someone. Any how Pam was happy :-)
I made couple of my own stencils for this quilt & didn't do too much quilting. I used 'Sew Art' invisible thread for the ditches & the rest of the quilting was done with Maderia's Poly Neons.....my favourite threads so far.