What the $%&*#~ ?

Bertha's feeling much better now.  She had a few days in hospital but when she came home she was worse than ever.  I was very worried about her, but I left her alone with Mr Fixit and his big screwdrivers for a day while I went to play with Scrappy, and when I came home, she was all better.  To celebrate I put this large quilt on the frame and spent the next day quilting it, but .....

....  I got it wrong.  Measure twice, cut once, "they" always say. What a shame I didn't listen.

I actually made this top, and the backing about a year ago, which means I have no more of the backing fabric left so I'm going to have t.o improvise.  The quilt is my version of a Missouri Star tutorial which you can see here.





By the way, I've now joined the current century, and started a Pinterest page where I will show all my quilts. The board is by no means complete yet, but I am working on it.  If anyone wants to see them, they are here

Bertha's been a busy bee ...

... she's also been a pain in the you-know-where, and kept having tension hissy-fits.  I've taken the tension thingies apart several times, cleaned and oiled everything I can get to, changed the bobbin, changed the top thread, changed the needle and even tried swearing at her, all to no avail, so, tomorrow Mr Fixit is going to take her apart to see if he can see a problem.

Anyway, this is what we've been doing.  Do you remember a few posts back I showed you a quilt that Scrappy and I had made together as a charity quilt?  We both loved the pattern so we decided to each make another one.

This is Scrappy's version.  I quilted it with a pale pink thread, and think it looks great.

and this is mine.  I love how we both used different layouts, and they are also both different to the original version we made.

Here's a close-up of mine, showing the quilting that I did in pale yellow thread.

Finally, this is another charity quilt and I used a quilting design that I think is fantastic as it gives a 3-D effect to the quilt.










All-in-all, I'm feeling quite smug that I finished these, despite Bertha's attempts to put the kybosh on it all.

Bertha and I have been busy ....

In the last couple of weeks we've quilted 3 quilts.

 Sadly, I now have absolute proof that Bertha is, as I had suspected, a fabric snob.  The first quilt she did was the pink one on top, and she merrily worked away, forming perfect stitches and we finished the quilt in record time. Then, I put my Country Charmer quilt on the frame, and we set off again.  Well, Bertha just threw hissy fit after hissy fit.  The stitches were absolutely perfect on the background fabric and the red in the sashing, but as soon as she came to one of the other fabrics, which were cheap and not very good quality I'm afraid, she started skipping and forming horrible stitches, then as soon as she got back to the good quality fabrics, the stitches were perfect again.  I am going to have to hope that a good wash will crinkle the quilt enough that it won't show. Then, when Country Charmer was finished, I put Heartfire, which was made with good quality fabrics, on, and once again, perfect stitching.  Anyway, enough of my whinging, here are a few photos of our work.

Here is Country Charmer, designed by Lynn.  I have quilted a sort of curly-loopy pattern in each block.  I did it oversized, so it extended into the sashing and the borders, which I will do on my DSM, will just be straight lines.  I did try to take photos of the offending stitches, but they weren't good enough to show you what I mean.






The third quilt we've worked on is my version of Heartfire, also by Lynn.  This is the quilt that I made after my wonderful holiday with Lynn and Mr Joe in California.  The fabrics were a FQ bundle that I bought while I was there and I have amended the pattern to include some "flowers".  The yellow ones represent the California poppy, and the red ones to represent the red rose of England.  I also made small hexie blocks to go in the corners of the borders, then I quilted it with a lovely all-over design.  I am going to call it Californian Dreams I think cos of all the wonderful memories I have every time I look at it.

Here is a close-up of the front, so you can see the quilting a little better.  I absolutely love the texture this has given the quilt.

I think Scrappy's influence must be rubbing off on me, cos I pieced the backing with leftovers.  The quilting really shows well on the red fabric in this photo.

Just to finish off, here is a close up of the quilting on the back. Can you tell that I love this quilt?

Just to finish off, you remember the quilt that Scrappy and I are making together? In case you've forgotten, you can see it in this post. Well yesterday, when we were together for a playday, we had all the blocks finished, we shuffled them around on the design wall until we were happy with the layout, then took them all off, carefully labelling them as we went, and here they are, all ready to be sewn into their rows and then a top, next time we get together.