The Treehouse

Consider the Lilies part 1 and My Garden block 8

After I had sworn not to begin anymore BOMs until something was completed, I happened across Val Laird's lovely BOM called Consider the Lilies and was instantly smitten! I could have used stash but...I'd been looking for a reason to buy some of the lovely Robin Pandolph fabric! It took a while to arrive and I was in the middle of making the birthday pillow when it finally landed so it had to patiently await some attention. This is the first part of block 1, the 2nd part was released on 15th February so I have time to get on track with this one before part 3 is available.

I also managed to get the stitching and borders done on the 8th My Garden block - definitely one of my favourites. Only one block left of this quilt to arrive now - I don't think it will be too long before it's here. The new button club begins in April I think - with a Christmas theme! I'll be getting mine from Bev at Fobbles again, hopefully with some fabric.

We've two discs left to watch in our week long marathon of 24 -season two viewing...no wonder I got so much stitching done this week! I took a break last night and did some sock knitting for a change.

It's another self patterning yarn, this time in my favourite colour :D there is nothing quite like the feel of hand knitted socks - shop socks although a fraction of the price and far less time consuming just don't come anywhere near this level of comfort!

Henrietta Whiskers block 2

I finished off block 2 of Bunny Hill Designs Henrietta Whiskers BOM last night - this is Henrietta's friend Sophie. I had planned on a woollen pumpkin buy my piece of orange felt wasn't big enough so I used some Moda orange crackle and I like the result with the subtle tone on tone pattern. I see a lot of patterned wool around on the web, it's lovely but sadly none of it seems to have made its way to these shores yet.

We have borrowed the dvd set of 24 season 2 from the library...need to view it all quickly as somebody else is waiting in line for it so I can't renew it after a week. Not sure how we never got into watching 24 when it was on the television but we're enjoying it now...just need to do a lot of viewing in a short space of time - perfect for some hand sewing :D I've almost finished the first part of the Consider the Lilies BOM and it's turning out beautifully - I went with the same fabric as the original design because I really like the fabric and had been looking for a good excuse to buy some of it! Hopefully I'll finish it tonight with a few more episodes of 24 to watch. 

Friendship Birthday Pillow

I finished the secret stitching project yesterday just in time for Wez's 40th birthday celebration crop. I hope she likes it :) The stitchery design is taken from a friendship project by Helen Stubbings The original idea was that you stitched the centre design yourself and then 3 friends would stitch and add the borders. When I was thinking of what to make for Wez's birthday gift I wanted something special that celebrated friendship and this design came to mind. Instead of making a wallhanging, I've made the finished stitchery (minus the final border) into a pillow. I picked the thread colours from the fabrics that I chose for the little hexagons - I think they really add to the design, I'm always happy to be including hexies in something.

*Happy Birthday Wez*

More Hearts and Flowers Progress and a Homecoming

My Tailfeathers quilt came home from being quilted on Tuesday. I've been looking at it ever since! The quilting has been beautifully done by Christine Marriage of Father's Heart Country Quilting It's lying on top of our bed at the moment and just needs its binding stitching on - that might be a job for today. I've taken a few photos, they're not brilliant as it's a dark, cold day here - it's actually trying to snow.

It came home with all the edges beautifully trimmed - I'm relieved about that as trimming isn't one of my favourite things to do.

A couple of close ups of the quilting next.

I've made quite a bit of progress on the Hearts and Flowers centre this week. The squiggles are finished - I'm not scared of those anymore! I've also appliqued the next two layers of the heart on top of the squiggles. Progress will most likely slow down on this now as there are choices to be made and I'm a fine procrastinator!

Hearts and Flowers Quilt

This is a Kim McClean pattern from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance book that I started last year. I like most of Kim's designs and was awaiting the release of the pattern for Stars and Sprigs. I was desperate to start making something in Kaffe fabrics though and in a rush of blood to the head I decided that I would make this quilt while I waited for the Stars and Sprigs pattern to be published. Well by the time the fabric arrived and I had found somewhere to enlarge the patterns for me quite a bit of time passed by. I decided to try the back basting method and set to work tracing the pattern for the centre block onto the back of the fabric. I basted the fabric onto the front and I think I even got as far as needle turning one of the squiggles. It was at that point that I realised I had rather a lot of projects on the go and really ought to finish something off. Plus I wasn't convinced about the back basting method and those squiggles were looking intimidating. The result was that the whole thing was wrapped up and put away. 

When I was making the Henrietta block last week I yearned for more applique to do and there was my heart sitting waiting for me. I got it out over the weekend and made some pretty good progress on it given the amount of sporting and whatnot that was going on. I overcame my problems with the back basting by drawing over the stitching line with my white pencil - I think I need to use a thicker thread for that if I do it again. I'd like to finish the squiggles off this week and get the next layer ready to take to the crop with me on Saturday.

I'm excited about this project again now that I've overcome the problem with the back basting and I'm very happy to have some hand sewing to do.

Henrietta Whiskers - January

I finally managed to choose fabrics for Bunny Hill's new free block of the month quilt Henrietta Whiskers. I settled on using a couple of Awesome charm packs supplemented by some other fabrics from my stash. Fortunately I had enough wool to make Henrietta for the first block but will have to buy some more for the rest of the months. In the pattern, the leaves are also done using wool but I didn't have any in the colours that I wanted to use so my leaves are in fabric and needleturned. Henrietta has blanket stitch around her and the stems of the leaves are chain stitch. I thoroughly enjoyed making all of the this block and am looking forward to seeing what Henrietta will be doing on the February block.

The charm pack for the Birdie Stitches quilt finally arrived yesterday and I have almost all of the stitching completed for that so I can cut and sew the borders tonight I hope. There is only one more block of the month that I would like to take part in now and that is Val Laird's 'Consider the Lilies' and I'm just waiting on a little delivery for that so it could be a while before I start it if it takes as long to arrive as the charm packs did! 

I spoke to Chris as Father's Heart Quilting the other day and Tail Feathers should now be in the process of being quilted, I can't wait to see it when it's done.

Tonight is Friday Night Sew In and I've planned to do some piecing. I have an Aunt Grace block for month 1 all cut out and ready to stitch, I already put the pinwheels together. I also have a Pennsylvania Dutch block cut out and ready to stitch as well and I should really get another one of those ready to stitch if only to have a bit more variety in the next Civil War block!

Happy New Year

We had a nice quiet New Year with just the 4 of us - we had a chinese meal out early in the evening and then came home and relaxed until Big Ben did its thing at midnight. Christmas holidays always seem to speed by so quickly and tomorrow Twelfth Night arrives! 

I have a couple of things that I finished last year that I've not shown yet. This is the wrap that I finished at the ver last moment on Christmas Eve...well actually by the time I finished it was actually Christmas Day! I had to beg for this photo! I long to make things in pink but the preferred colours is blue so I used Sweetwater jellyroll of Pure (same as in the tutorial on the Moda bakeshop as it happens) and for the back I found some rather wonderful snuggles fabric with quite a deep pile on it - it's very luxurious indeed although I think I inhaled a good deal of it when cutting it as it shed like mad! I was glad to find the snuggles in the UK at Minkyland as otherwise I think shipping would have been prohibitive...very good service too.

I've one more finish from 2010 to take a picture of and that is My Little Heart - I'm amazed that I kept up to date with it and finished it on time. 

 

 

 

 

My first finish for 2011 is block number 6 from Lynette Anderson's mystery button quilt project, I think this one is called Window Box - the button is a ladybird, very sweet but will be sewn on at the end. I've enjoyed this BOM and noticed that Lynette has a sneak peak of what is possibly the next mystery button quilt on her blog today...it looks Christmassy to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've thought about stitching plans for this year and have a very loose 'plan' in mind - as soon as I start being too formally organised about it I'm turned off doing anything at all. My current loose plan involves working on some projects that are already in progress and actually finishing them off as well as a few new starts.

Already working on...

Tail Feathers : I've stitched all of the blocks for this and have the top partially sewn together...as soon as it's completed I going to make a start on either Leanne's Down in the Garden or her Vignette in Stitches quilt. I've arranged to send this quilt out to be long arm quilted - something of an extravagance but I really want a good job making of the quilting on this one.

My Garden : I'm up to date with the stitching on this although I think the next block is due soon, there are only 3 left to stitch, I'm looking forward to seeing what this will be like finished.

Scandinavian Christmas : oh dear, I didn't get very far with this at all in fact, I have yet to finish off one block. I'm going to get that one finished before the end of this month and try and get the applique cut for the rest of the blocks. I've already done the tracing for another two blocks so I just need to give this project a little bit more time and hopefully get it completed in time for this year's Christmas.

Theresa's Garden : love stitching the hexagons and I will be carrying on with this as and when the mood strikes me throughout the year, I'd like to finish it this year. (I'd also like to train myself to cut down on the number of projects on the go at any one time!)

Green/Black Pinwheels : I've formulated a plan for this quilt and bought a bigger ruler to make trimming the blocks easier. I've thought up a quilting design and hope to get it done and dusted this year.

Folk Medallion : another lovely project which once I've finished doing the stitcheries will go together very quickly.

Life is Beautiful : I'm making progress on this one and have worked on the blocks since Christmas. I have all of the fabric cut out for the actual blocks and have them half sewn together. Once I've finished the stitcheries for the Folk Medallion I'll resume stitching the lovely little designs for this quilt.

Pennsylvania Dutch : I love this and should have had it finished last year - the blocks are so easy to make. Definitely on my list of things that I will work on this year and would like to finish.

Bluebird of Hope : progress totally stalled on this quilt. I'm leaving it for now until I feel excited about it again which I know will happen when I've ticked a few other things off my list.

Dear Jane : oh dear, no action on this one for quite a while but I'll get back to it eventually.

Clamshells : no action here either as I still wasn't liking the colours and then I decided that I need some nice creams to go with the blues in this quilt...I think it will look altogether different once there is more cream in there. Won't be working on it just at the moment though.

Kim McClean's Heart quilt : I was going quite well on this but have stalled - I may take it along to the next crop and get going on it again.

I think that's all my WIPs in the quilt department...rather a lot :blush: Of course, I keep stumbling across enticing designs on the web which tempt me no end. The 3 that are currently tempting me the most are...

Birdie Stitches by Little Miss Shabby : I'm waiting for my charm pack to arrive for this - I'm going with the Sweetwater Sunkissed, it's gorgeous and lets face it I won't get to use it for my lovely but pink-hating daughter and I would love to use it for something! I'm going to make it smaller though - I have printed out the first month's picture at 50% of the size so my block will finish at 4.5" instead of the larger 8.5".

Henrietta Whiskers by Bunny Hill Designs : first block made available today - how cute is Henrietta? I'm very tempted and may look for some wool.

Barbara Brackman's Civil War Quilt : irresisitible...little 6" quilt blocks plus tales of history every week for all of this year to celebrate the American Civil War Sesquicentennial. 

I am also committed to making Leanne Beasley's Down in the Garden and Vignette In Stitches quilts because a) I love them both and b) have bought the fabric to make them with! I won't start one until Tail Feathers is in the post to the quilter though. I have the pattern for Susan's Garden, a Dresden Plate design as well and Kim McClean's Stars and Sprigs quilt pattern.

Oops - not mentioned any cross stitch :o I have LHN The Bookshelf, a Blackbird stocking and Mary Wigham's wardrobe in progress. Won't be starting anything new until one of these is finished.

That's my sort of plan. No doubt something will leap out at me and demand to be made in addition to all of this. There is no way I'll finish it all this year of course but I'll have fun trying!

Merry Christmas

Poor neglected blog! Some serious family illness and Christmas preparations have meant that my blog and blog reading has taken a back seat lately. I have a couple of finishes to show off though so made the effort to take some pictures while it was light enough the other day. I was determined to have these two quilts hanging on the wall this year as I thoroughly enjoyed making both of them.

This first one is from a pattern by Jennifer Reynolds  and is called Christmas Story. I have shown the finished top before but now it's all quilted and bound and has been hanging up for the last week or so.

I love it and was rather pleased that I managed to use all stash fabric to make it!

The second quilt is Frosty Flakes, a design by Dawn Hays Dawn offered the blocks and finishing instructions for no cost - what a wonderful treat. It was a pleasure to make and I thoroughly enjoyed every single stitch. The snowflakes I made from my scrap basket, the red border fabric had been languishing in my stash for several years and the squares are from a Basic Grey Fruitcake charm pack that I bought recently.

I have almost finished making my Tail Feathers quilt - it's been a long time in the making but I am determined to finish it off very soon as I have a couple of Leanne Beasley's quilts that I would like to start making...I have the fabric to get going too so plenty of incentive for me to finish up the birdies!

Wishing everyone who stops by here a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. We're looking forward to our Christmas celebrations which will be a little quieter than usual but hopefully still enjoyable.

 

My Garden blocks 4 & 5

Just a quick post to show these two blocks - I'm a bit ahead of the game here (sorry Simone). I was finishing off the stitching on the block with the bird table when the block with the butterfly arrived and I decided to just keep going. I'm going to spend November trying to get up to speed with Scandinavian Christmas and finishing off the last Tail Feathers block...I hope :)

 

 

I'm hoping to do my books read post early this week - a couple of this month's reads have been rather disappointing so I'm currently engaging in some very pleasant comfort reading with some cozy quilt mysteries :)

Beehive Sewing Book

This turned out beautifully, I love it! Would it be considered a new project altogether if I were to make the scissor holder this week? Hmm, lol!

 

Here's the finished cover - I didn't have the bird button on before. I used the same fabric that I used for the door to bind it in - I wasn't sure about it at first but now I think it's just right!

 

Here's the inside - filled up with a little Blackbird Designs cross stitch that I've got underway.

I may be forced to stitch again today as the rain has put paid to all of our outdoor activities. I'm so very tempted to join in with Jenny's bird cage weekend

 

  

but that would be a new project wouldnt it? I may need to make a little adjustment to this no new projects rule, lol!