Bloggers' Quilt Festival, part two.

Here I am again, this time with my entry for the bed quilts category of Amy's quilt festival.

This quilt started as a mystery quilt from a shop in the UK.  I am sorry, I can't remember the name of the designer, but it may have been Debbie Caffrey.

When I had finished the centre I really, really did not like this quilt. So, it got put away, and it languished at the back of a cupboard for about 5 years, unloved, and unwanted.  Then one day, it jumped out of the cupboard, yelling "Look at me.  Look at me"  So I looked.  Then I fell in love with it and had to finish it.

Once I had finished making the blocks for the centre, I knew I wanted it to be a bigger quilt than it was originally meant to be, but that gave me a problem.  I did not have any fabric left over from the blocks to make any more, so I was going to have to add borders.  Another problem - I had bought the fabrics a long time ago, and they were no longer available.  So, off I went to the LQS, blocks in hand, to see if I could find anything similar.  How lucky was I?  Look, I found some tone-on-tone fabrics that were almost a perfect mix, so I put borders on and finished the quilt.

Here's a close-up of the quilting, which also helps to show off the close match of the border fabrics.

I used a plain fabric on the back, which I usually do as that means I have 2 quilts for the price of one, the backing looking just like a wholecloth quilt.

I love this side of the quilt too.

Quilt Stats:

• quilt size: king size
• quilted using a pale yellow thread with a 4-leaf clover all over pattern with the help of Big Bertha and my robotic LA system.

To see the other quilts in the Bed quilts category, and to choose your favourite for the Viewers' Choice quilt, just go here.

OK, I couldn't resist ...

... Amy from AmysCreativeSide.com is currently holding the 5th Bloggers' Quilt Festival, which is a great event with loads of chances to look at some wonderful quilts and maybe win some wonderful prizes too.  You don't even have to have a quilt entered in the show in order to win - how good is that?

This year you can enter two quilts, in different categories, so, of course, I just had to enter one in the throw and one in the bed quilt categories.

My entry for a throw is my Crazy Christmas Trees quilt. 

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't alter the pattern a bit, and with this one I decided to add borders, which the original did not have.  Doing that meant that I didn't have enough backing fabric, and so I decided to really step out of my comfort zone, and make a pieced backing.  I then thought I'd make it even more difficult for myself and settled on inserting a pieced strip diagonally.  

Once January had come to an end, I reluctantly decided that my Crazy Christmas Trees had to be put away  but couldn't decide what to replace it with.  Then I realised that February is Valentine month, so I really should have a red quilt.  So what did I do?  Turned Crazy Christmas Trees over!  Simple.  I have a reversible quilt that I am very happy with.  Mind you, it had been like this for several days before Mr Fixit looked at it one evening and said "when did you make that quilt?"  It's good to have someone so observant around!

 and here is a close up of a couple of the blocks, so you can see the quilting. 

Quilt facts

• Quilt measures 64" x 82" approx - almost a single bed size I guess
• More than 30 FQ's were used in the making of this quilt!
• LA quilted by me (with the help of Big Bertha, my robotic LA system)
• Quilting pattern is called Square Spirals

This quilt is everything I thought I didn't like, ie quite scrappy and with a pieced backing.  Well, you know what?  I was wrong, I don't just like this quilt, I LOVE it!

Now if you go here, you can see all the other entries in the Throw quilts category, and don't forget to start deciding on which ones you would like to nominate for the Viewer's Choice quilts in each category.

My face ...

... must have been a picture.  "Why?" I hear you asking.  Well I'll tell you.

Today Mr Fixit and I went to a carvery for lunch.

I had roast pork, and with it came a piece of crackling.  Yummy, I love crackling.  Anyway, I saved it till the end, but was really disappointed to find that I could not break it with my knife and fork, and it was too big to eat all in one piece.  So Mr Fixit said "put it on my plate then" when I whinged about it.  Thinking what a chivalrous gentleman he was to break it up for me, I did just that.  Guess what he did?  He ate it!!!!  I could not believe it.

So that's why I said my face must have been a picture.

If you're going to San Francisco ....

.... Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair"  says the 1960's song.  Well, I'm going to have to go and buy some flowers cos I AM going to San Francisco (actually a few miles outside it) in September.

I am going to visit the Lovely Lynn, who blogs over at Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting.  Woohoo.

I have wanted to visit California for ever I think - certainly since Mr Fixit went on business a few times in the late 70's and Lynn has invited me to visit several times, so I have decided that now the time is right. Yippee.

Lynn and I have never met in person, but have become good friends thanks to the internet - you know how sometimes you "talk" to someone, and just know that they are going to become close friends.  Well that's just how it was for us (well it was for me, I shouldn't speak for Lynn should I?)  We have some fun things planned while I am there, including going to the Quilting in the Garden quilt show. I bet there's going to be lots of talking and laughing too.  Whoopie.

Yesterday I booked and paid for my air tickets, so now it's really, really real.

I am so excited, but I don't suppose you can really tell, can you?

Quilting slump no more ....

I hope ....

For the last month or so I've been in a complete quilting slump.  I just didn't want to quilt   I couldn't go near my sewing machine. My mojo had just completely disappeared.  This was made worse by guilty feelings about all the WIPs I have at the moment.

Yesterday I went to my friend J's for the day, and the plan was to sew our little fingers to the bones.  (Don't worry, there was also going to be gossip and food involved!)  I decided I'd quilt a table topper the day before so I could hand sew the binding down while I was there, since I knew that J would want to work on a special quilt she's making.

Anyway, over the coffee and choccie biccies that are an essential start to our days, we started talking, and it turns out that J was feeling rather the same.

That's when we had a light-bulb moment.

We both had the same problem - we were feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of projects that we had on the go at the same time.

So we came up with a solution - we were not going to start anything new until we had actually finished a few things.

So J got out her first ever quilt, which only needed binding, and she cut and sewed binding strips together and then sewed them onto the quilt.  Now she will sew the binding down on the back, and that will be a finished quilt. (There will be photos in a couple of weeks, when it's finished - it's a stunning quilt.)  I sewed the binding on my table topper, then I took it all off cos I had not done it carefully enough, so I had cut off every single point.  This morning I sewed it back on, and now it just needs sewing down.  (I've just pinned it to the back for now so I could take a photo to prove to J that I had done it!)

So now I'll move on to something else, which will probably be my Country Charmer quilt, but may be my Diamond Drops, or I may finish another couple of table toppers.  I don't know yet, but what I do know is that all of a sudden I want to sew again.

Honey I'm home ...

Hello everyone.  Did you miss me?

We had a great holiday, with lots of these

  

loads of views like these

and plenty of views like this (except the plate was not on it's side - thanks Blogger!)

Now all the washing and ironing is done and I'm back to having to cook meals, make the bed, etc.

So now it's confession time.  Today is this month's Linky party for the Country Charmer QAL, where we are all making a quilt designed by Lynn, over here and I know that before I went on holiday I did at least one more block, but do you think I could find it today to take its photo?  Nope.  So no photo, sorry.  However, to have a look at what other people have been up to, then just go to see Lesley, our hostess, over at The Cuddle Quilter, here.

Woohoo ....

Okay, am I the only one? ...

I've cleaned the house from top to bottom, all the washing and ironing is done, I've changed all the bedding and there are clean towels everywhere,

What's going on?

Well, we're off on a steam train holiday tomorrow, and I always worry that any burglars who broke in might think I'm a really bad housewife if I didn't leave the house looking good.

Handy Household Hints 2 & 3....

.... here is the next in my series (well OK, I have written one before) of Handy Household Hints.

Handy Hint 1
If you are planning to pour some disinfectant down the drainpipe in your shower room, do not leave a dark red bath mat right in the firing line, otherwise you will end up with a two-tone mat like this:

Handy Hint 2

Do not simply turn the mat over and then do the same thing again,