still waddling on!

No pictures togo with this entry! I got a bit of a shock a couple of weeks ago when I went to see my GP. I've been diagnosed with a parathyroid adenoma which needs to be removed sooner rather than later. After a week's wait, I got a date for outpatients, which is May 21st, 9.30am. Initially I was very calm but then began to sress over everything. Now I've got the O/P appointment, I'm less stressed, but still have 1000s of questions. I'm going to write everything I think of down in a notebook to take with me.

The only good thing is the O/P is so close to the date of my next half I'll be able to do that with no medical worries! As O/P is a month away, I'm guessing they don't want to see me for surgery straight away so I'm banking on doing the half on June 22nd as well.

Quilting wise, I'm working on the 1930s Irish chain. Taking it along to H's ballet class means I've had loads of compliments along the "amazing, beautiful, tiny stitches" lines. Should be able to get it finished before the end of May. I've decided to bind it in light yellow marble fabric.

I've planned exactly how to quilt Dear Jane now as well. I was going to do it by hand, but realised this would take far too long. After looking at people's quilt pictures on webshots (great site) I've settled on simple X with > < inside them on each square. To look like a double X, and on the border triangles I'm going to do three smaller triangles. Same idea for the corner kites. All in cream/not quite white thread (must look online to find something I love).

Having the backing fabric already, I need to order some more wadding from lady-sew-and-sew. Fabulous company, prompt delivery, reasonable charges!

Now with Jane sorted, I need to think about Lilibet. back backing fabric. follow the applique pattern round in red. Copy the tulips in the pieced blocks and then FMQ in all the gaps. I'd really really like to get both Jane and Lilibet done for the exhibition in August, but with this operation looming over me I don't know what time I'm going to have. How long to recover from GA and time off work can't all be spent quilting!

Pics to be added later of 1930's quilt, Jane and Lilibet!!

Another UFO done!!

This weekend I finally finished my siggy quilt. I swapped blocks for the 2007 Dear Jane swap, then some more for the European swap and also some that I swapped one-on-one. Anyway, I ended up with a whole pile of 5" blocks in a huge range of colours and styles. I knew I wanted to piece them in a rainbow style, and googled for all I was worth to see how other people had assembled their quilts. The top went together reaaly well, and I had 4 blocks left over which I decided to use in the borders. Because I want to improve my mitred corners, I thought the best way to use these blocks was in the centre of each side, so I could mitre the 5" border.

Because the blocks tell their own story I quilted in the ditch in a grid pattern around each block and drew in a simple rope pattern in the border, using a tool I've had for years but never used. It's a guide for drawing plaits in either large or small curves or points by Angela Maddern that I bought in Tavistock. I'm trying to iprove my machine quilting too, so this gave me a great chance.

If I'm being honest I'm not happy with the puffy way the blocks have neded up but I couldn't press them too hard once the top was assembled in case I damaged any of the embellishments. Still if you don't look too critically, it's passable.

Working hard...

With the show coming up in August, and the sale stall, I needed to make some small items to add to the group stash. Debbie gave us all some pieces of fabric with hearts on in muted colours and the challenge that she'd give a prize to the person who makes the most unusual thing from them.

Here's my effort with the heart fabric.

I was on a roll, so carried on and made some more smaller things using fabric out of my scrap bag.




That's my jeans on the chair in the background!

So...3 heart needlecase, 4 mini Christmas stockings, 3 pin wheels, 8 heart shaped pin cushions and a dozen coasters made from fabric not from my scrapbag, but from a panel I bought at Country Threads in Bath.

Today's shopping

So, I need some orange-y red tone on tone, and some bright clear yellow T-o-T. As I was in town, I tried the only shop in the city centre which sells quilting fabric...nothing, nada, zilch. Lots of garish prints (dogs? cats?? owls????). Some with self coloured patterns, but either too obvious for what I wanted or in the wrong colour. Why wouldn't a major department store which has a unique selling point stock marbled fabrics? Or Fossil Ferns? Or Makower's Spraytime? Or anything I can actually use?

There is another shop which does sell marbles, but it's a bus ride out of the city centre, and on a day when i have grocery shopping to do, I don't have time to trek for miles in search of 2 FQs! Back to the stash, which I've looked through once, just to see if there's anything vaguely close to what I want in there.

On a good note, I bought a pair of swimming goggles from TK Maxx. Speedo, fixed nose piece, white and lilac

UFO #1 of the year completed!!

I finally finished my niece Helen's 18th birthday quilt. I was trying to think how long I've been working on it, and realised it's not taken as long as I'd thought. I designed it way back in summer 07 (using EQ5), then got bought EQ6 for Christmas so re-interpreted it in there. Bought some pieces of pink fabric (Helen's request) between design and re-design, then in January at the AGM of my quilt group I bought loads of cream FQs for the background. Got the 18 blocks cut, and the logs for the outer border, then in February bought the bright bubblegum pink for the sashing, inner border and binding. It pieced up quite quickly, and I started the quilting.

As it has to be ready for May, I machine quilted it, using a pale pink thread and a shop bought design which just fit the blocks. Following a pattern on BQL, I used fancy thread in the bobbin, flipped the quilt upside-down and drew a meandering curve with swirls and swags right along that outer border.

Finally got the binding hand stitched down on Monday night.

First post

I'm looking for somewhere to ramble on about my quilts, running and general family life...looks like this will do. I've been quilting around 10 years, running for 2 and married for nearly 15.

Currently a member of Plym Piecemakers, and we're having an exhibition in Princetown in August. With a bit of luck, I'll have something to send to be shown. Right now I'm working on some small items for our sale table. We're hoping to raise the cost of a coach to the NEC Festival of Quilts next year.

So far, I've made 3 crazy pieced pin wheels, 16 coasters, 4 mini Christmas stockings and 3 needle cases. Some of these need to be hand finished which I'll do in the next week or so.

Picture to follow if I can work out how to post them!