The Treehouse

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!

Tail Feathers top finished!

Finally, all of the borders are on. It just needs checking over for rogue threads and a good pressing and I can parcel it off and put it into the post. This is the best photo I can manage without assistance.

I'll be reading a book this afternoon!

Tail Feathers Progress

I've been working on stitching my Tail Feathers top together this weekend. I mentioned before that I've booked it in to be long arm quilted as I don't want to make a mess of it...that's a lot of embroidery on there to wreck with my amateurish quilting efforts. I may need to use the services of a long arm quilter more often for large quilts I think as it's now become impossible for me to baste large quilts on the floor. I did Catherine's wrap on Christmas Eve and spent the rest of the Christmas holiday in quite a lot of pain and one leg shorter than the other I discovered when I went to my chiropractor! So, I'm hoping that this long arm quilting adventure will go very well for more than one reason.

This is where I was up to this afternoon. Silly me hadn't stitched all those little 1" squares as I went along so I've had that to do and I had 5 log cabin blocks left to make as well. All done now and ready to assemble. There are 3 borders to this quilt - the first is just a 1" cream border, then the 7" log cabins and then another border...I think about 3" wide. Need to pop to the LQS once all done to buy a backing and then I can put it all in the post and look forward to its return :D It was a bit tricky to photograph as although it's been a beautiful day today it's also been rather windy - good job I have a patient helper :)

I'm hoping to show some progress on my Aunt Grace blocks this week, I have the first month's work almost done. I'm also looking forward to making the next Civil War block as well as another Pennsylvania Dutch block...my plan is to do those in tandem with the Civil War blocks until I've finished them. If I manage to stitch them together nicely into the finished quilt top they may take a trip to the long arm quilter!

I'm hoping that the postman will arrive with some charm packs that I ordered...I'm waiting to get started on the Birdie Stitches block and I have a new ruler to try out on them as well.

One Flower Wednesday

I've missed my weekly flowers but I've been so busy concentrating on getting some of my stitcheries completed that I've neglected them...although I did make the 3 snowflake flowers last week for Dawn's sweet block of the week (there is another one available this morning). Here's the first flower in a while for my garden posing in the lovely smelling mint!

 

I finished this off last night - the 8th Tail Feathers block...I have one block left to stitch which is all made up and ready to go and then 4 little cornerstone type blocks that are similar to the small robin block here and then I am done with the stitching. I have some of this quilt stitched together already from my endeavours before school finished and it's looking very exciting indeed...I can smell a finished quilt here, lol!

 

 

 

Tail Feathers Determination and Lovely Post

First of all I would like to say a big, big thank you to Saskia. Saskia had a giveaway on her blog of some absolutely beautiful Dutch themed fabric and I was the winner :D I also have a cute little Dutch clog keyring...I think I may hang that from some scissors instead though. I have a few ideas of what I would like to make with this fabric, one being a pincushion and maybe a little bag too.

 

This is the fabric and the clog posing amidst my Winston Churchill fuschia the first bloom of which opened over the weekend.

I had made a list for this week last night but when I woke up this morning I awoke with a determination to work towards completing the top of my Tail Feathers quilt. I don't really have that much left to do. I'm half way through stitching block 8 so that leaves only block 9 and the corner blocks for me to stitch. I laid it all out to give myself a bit of encouragement to keep going. It's a bit crinkled and needing a good press but at least I can see where I'm up to and that there's really not much further to go! I'm going to concentrate and this quilt this week doing the machine work when it's cool enough in my sewing room and the hand stitching when it isn't!

 

 

I put together a couple of the star blocks for the Christmas quilt as well but I was melting and just couldn't stitch inside any longer. I'm glad I did it because I can now that I'm happy with my fabric.

 

We spent a really hot day at a bowling competition yesterday and I did a little bit of hexie stitching - I was glad not to be playing as the heat was sizzling, the poor children were melting. Thanks goodness there was a covered shelter or I think we would probably have suffered heat stroke it was so hot! It's another beautiful day here today although I think a bit of rain is forecast for later on - the plants will be mighty glad of that!

 

 

A little update...

I seem to have been AWOL for a while :o In my spare time, I've either had my nose in a book or been stitching away like mad just lately. 

I've worked on my Tail Feathers quilt - I can see the end in sight now and am glad I didn't leave all of the log cabin blocks until the end! Not much has happened with the Bluebird quilt at all, in fact - I've decided that I'm going to concentrate on finishing Tail Feathers before I launch into anymore Bluebird blocks.

Matthew's quilt is finally all quilted. I was finding it such a chore of a job and really wished I hadn't started stippling it. However, it's all done now and does look nice...just need to sew on the binding. He keeps asking me if it's finished yet and finally I can say...almost!

 

Dear Jane has taken a bit of a back seat lately. I'm itching to sew some more of these little blocks though, I love them. I did make a triangle a couple of weeks ago but that's all the progress I've made this year :o I quite enjoy making the triangles :) I treated myself to the Dear Jane cd and have played with it a little - printing out foundation patterns. Gosh, it makes things much easier! This is TR2.

 

The latest Snowbound block was posted at the end of last week. I'm itching to get started on this - it's a skiing snowman, lol! Also, I spotted a lovely new BOM on the blog of Erin Russek - I just cannot resist hand sewing you see :) It's on my list of things to get around to.

I've done quite a bit of crosstich that last couple of weeks. I finished another Blackbird Designs stocking - I love these. This one though, I wasn't so keen on really when I started it but now it's done...I really like it! 

 

Here's the first one that I finished - it's called Winter Carnation. Once the first 3 are stitched, I'm going to have a little stocking finishing session.

 
I have started the next one which has a birthday cake on it and then stopped stitching it while I contemplated whose initials and date of birth should go on the stocking...these are serious matters after all and one must ensure not to stitch too many of one person's initials and not enough of another person's initials otherwise war may break out! While I was mulling this little dilemma over I did some surfing...big mistake! I stopped by at Annette's lovely blog and while I was perusing all her lovely stitches I spotted a link...to a SAL...with birds and hearts. Of course, I clicked upon the link and it took me here to Sylvia's blog. I visited a few times. I looked in my tiny stash of crosstitching fabric. I visited again. I looked again at my fabric and low and behold I had a piece of 28 count evenweave in cream that would do the job nicely.

 

This is how far I've got. I had thought to finish the boxes this weekend but I didn't get that far...that was Stephanie Plum's fault! Or maybe it was the Library's fault for calling up to let me know that they had a couple of Stephanie Plum books ready for me to read :cough:

I did finish off my FaLaLa a few weeks ago though :D I did a little frogging on the ladies. I had stitched them plumper than they should have been and I didn't think that was fair at all so I whipped out those extra stitches and finished them off. It's quite a big ornament but I really like it. I would have preferred braid to the pom poms really but couldn't find it in the correct shade. The pom poms are quite fun though.

 

I've taken a photo of this twice now and both times it's come out blurred but you get the general idea :)

As I mentioned, I spent a lot of quality time with Stephanie Plum this weekend. I've seen people say these books are not so good but honestly, I laughed until I cried! A very good bit of light hearted humour along with a good bit of detectiving and a few hunky chaps thrown in for good measure. Just perfect for in between some serious reads. I've read the first 5 and will be going on to read more as soon as the library can provide! Last weekend I spent some time with the new Jasper Fforde...it took a bit of getting through to be honest but I was determined to get there. There are more books to come in this series and I'm thinking that a lot of time was spent setting up the new 'world' in the book so I will definitely give the next ones a go. I also read a book by LL Bartlett yesterday - she writes the Booktown mysteries under a different name. It wasn't bad at all...a little bit 'Medium' like but with a hero as opposed to a heroine. I do have the next one in my pile to read and look forward to seeing how Jeff gets on with his new found abilities. I have rather a fine stack of books to read at the moment....I spotted the new book by Elizabeth Kostova while I was in the library the other day...that may be next to get devoured!

I've promised myself NOT to spot anymore SALs or BOMs or the like, I must surf with my eyes closed. Particularly as I'm feeling the need to make a bag...it's been a while since I did the last one, lol!

 
 

Happy New Year

I'm a little late with new year wishes now that we're five days in to the new year! After one day back at school/work we find ourselves to be snowed in again! Schools are closed, salt boxes are empty, dustbins are overflowing and so we're having another day of holiday :D

 

and as you can see - it's still coming down thick and fast. The sleigh is being ridden but I'm staying indoors where it's all warm and snuggly and am going to fire up my sewing machine in a short while in order to work on my Tail Feathers quilt. The end is nearly in sight for this quilt and I'm so excited about that...just worrying now that I'll mess it all up with the quilting :o

Lots of sewing plans for this year and I had just finally convinced myself to take on no more new projects when I checked on Bunny Hill's blog this morning. There is a lovely new applique BOM full of snowmen, called Snowbound (how appropriate) just beginning and of course, I have downloaded the pattern!

 

I think I may squeeze it in somehow, I do happen to have some pretty white fabric that would be just perfect for the snowmen, lol!

I joined a SAL in order to get my Blackbird Designs stockings stitched now that I've found somewhere to supply me with small pieces of the fabrics used and have started the first one from the January set. I think they'll stitch up quite quickly and have enjoyed the sewing on this first one so far. I'm doing the one with the pink flowers on it first...very pretty.

 

I'm also in a SAL for the Little House Needleworks monthly ornaments and am awaiting the arrival of the second one - these are lovely to stitch although they do turn out quite large...good job our tree isn't a small one! Next year's Christmas tree is going to be decked out in a fabulous fashion is the stitching stays on course :D 

 

The last SAL that I'm in is for The Library, also by Little House Needleworks - I had that on my list of things to stitch and when I saw that there was a SAL beginning it was too hard to resist, lol! 

 

I really should make a WIP list I think as I also want to stitch the Beatrix Potter sampler. Reading that list I also need to stop sleeping as I've not even started to list my quilty things yet and that is really quite a long list. Good job I like to have more than one thing on the go at once really :grin:

I bought some Rouenneries fabric during the Christmas holidays - finally. I had been wanting to buy some since I first saw it but when I went to my LQS the lady there had decided not to order it as she wasn't keen on it. The need was too great though and I finally succumbed to a layer cake (it was a bargain price too so even better!) and am going to make Drunkard's Path shapes with it using Inklingo. I've never been keen on the Drunkard's Path pattern until I saw them in a different arrangement on Cathi's blog and then started giving them a little more thought. Originally, I was going to make octagons from the Rouenneries but now I have a whole new design plotted out in my head involving the Drunkard's Path. I'll need some yardage at some point so hopefully it will continue to be available for a while and in the meantime I'll enjoy sewing these little curved pieces together once I've printed them out.

I had been hoping that the postman would come today but that's not looking too likely with all this snow. I'm awaiting delivery of Jinny Beyer's new book, The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns from The Book Depository I had been waiting quite some time for Amazon to have it in stock but it still wasn't there just after Christmas so I went for a mooch on The Book Depository and there it was, just waiting for me to come along and order it up. 

This is quite a long post so it's probably time for me to go and sew now!

p.s. vampire book fans - see my Just Read list for some rather good vampire reads by Jennifer Rardin. Lent to me by my nephew over Christmas and both Catherine and devoured them in the space of 2 or 3 days, lol!

 
 

A couple of diversions...

I mentioned yesterday that my Tail Feathers parcel for the month had arrived. Now I had good intentions of working on this next week however...it was bugging me that I was a month behind. I vowed not to get behind on this project otherwise I could see that I would fall further and further behind and not finish it off. Due to a mix up with fabric in the kit, I had been unable to start work on any of last last month's kit and the correct fabric arrived with this month's kit. It was playing on my mind that there was two month's worth of sewing to be done so...I thought I would just cut out the pieces for last month's block before taking DD to the library and DS to football. I cut out the pieces for both month's kits! Football was cancelled due to the pitch flooding. We went to the library where I collected the 6 - yes 6, books that were waiting for me.

Now I had some free time because of no football. I thought I would just sew together block five.

 

I went a little further and did  the applique and ironed on the stitchery designs! Those little dots were a beastly to cut out. I thought about the pieces sitting there all cut out for block six. I thought I could at least sew on the borders.

 

So I did the lot! All that is required now is the stitching and they're complete. Next week I intend to put some effort in on the log cabin blocks.

My to-do list suffered a bit because of this other enthusiasm but at least I don't feel so far behind now.

1. Print hexagons DONE

2. Finish Bluebird block (some serious effort required) - NO PROGRESS AT ALL HERE

3. Finish off cardigan (not much left to do) - NO PROGRESS AT ALL HERE EITHER

4. Make this week's DJ block - FREEZER PAPER SHAPES ALL CUT OUT AND WAITING TO BE STITCHED TOGETHER

Back to the cardigan next I think...I'm avoiding the Bluebird block as there is a boo boo that needs correcting!

Tail Feathers block 4 and a bit of Bluebirds...

Finished off the fourth Tail Feathers block yesterday so I'm all up to date with the stitcheries for that - just need to make a few log cabins next week. I love these blocks, I think my favourite so far was last month's with the treehouse on it, lol!

Another quilt that I have on the go is the Quilt Aid quilt which is called Bluebirds of Hope - I couldn't resist it. I started preparing blocks in August and have one waiting for the stitchery completing, one waiting for me to complete all the lovely blanket stitch on the applique and this one which is applique with a bit of embroidery - it's not complete yet of course but it's progressing. I'm stitching the cute little basket down at the moment - this was made using English Paper Piecing and I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. It was my first time doing EPP and I enjoyed it...that is a good thing as the finishing kit also makes use of this technique. Both this block and the finishing kit were designed by Sue Daley.

Tail Feathers and Fun Yarn...

Last weekend I finished off block 3 of my tailfeathers quilt - number 4 is half stitched so I am well and truly up to date with that again now. Next week I intend to crack on and increase the number of little log cabin squares for it.

I know there is a border missing off the right hand side - the silly person who did the cutting out wasn't paying proper attention when she did it and cut those long borders 1" too short! Fortunately, the girls at Buttonberry are super accomodating and are going to include a green map print in my next month's supply :D That will teach me to cut out in a rush just before I go on holiday won't it!

I had a little trip up to my local thread/yarn shop this morning for some embroidery silks that I need for one of my stitcher's angel projects. Of course, it's not possible to come away with just 2 embroidery silks is it? No! There was some woolly goodness hanging up in the shop and I had to bring some home with me. One skein knits up a scarf...on needles that are reminiscent of chairs legs! Huge fun and only took me an hour to complete it...I will be making more of these I think :D