January Finishes

 I bought this framed vintage car in an op shop and immediately thought about tearing it out of the frame and making a boys baby quilt out of it. Thank you very much to the maker, whom has painstakingly cross stitched this for me. Colour Inspiration- check, center focus - check , and left over triangles in brights already cut for me. Easy Peasy.. rip up an old sheet and quilt made in two afternoons. Got to be pretty happy with that! I put a running tacking stitch in red to give a little interest in the zigzag. One down , two girl quilts to go!

I riffled through all the bits of printed cottons I had and started whipping up cushions. Some I have crocheted edges to, others left simple.

I have also eco dyed some cloth to get leaf imprints on the fabric . I have then echoed the eco print with either a eucalypti flower or the actual leaf shape. 

 And more printing
magnolia flower and seed pods

Fan shapes

That's my crafted lot!

Star Crossed Love Quilt

5 boiling hot days

3 days off from work and all spent under the air conditioner

Pardon the language - but it was Bloody hot!

Adelaide / South Australia is now officially one of the hottest places on earth

Urrghh!

But the up side is I have spent most of my time quilting the baby quilt which had to be finished Sunday for the baby shower... tick 

I have only just this instance finished the binding and as I did so the cool change has blown in.

What a blessing. hallelujah! 

As you see I have snapped photos at the light is dimming but even if I had finished earlier I would have avoided going out in the 40 degree plus heat
So tomorrow I might attempt some decent shots, but this will do for now.

 For the binding I used the reversed side of the material to get more muted tones to match the natural soft tones of the hand dyed materials.
My quilting is a bit neh! But it was speed quilted... overall I'm pretty happy with it.

 What a relief  - cool weather and a finished quilt!

Quilt As You Go - The Big Reveal!

Its pieced, sashed, bound and bordered - thank goodness.
I've rectified mistakes and tidied the many, many threads hanging off both front and back.
I managed to find a reasonable match for the sashing as I had only enough colour to go one way.  Although I didn't plan the border to be the same colour as the sashing I had just enough for that as well. (My original thought was to do the outside border in the black and white print, so I still have 3 meters of that material left over)
There are multitude of mistakes in this quilt, generally due to the fact that I am a slack sewer. Perfection is not my forte, generally I just want to get the job done. Even so the overall composition is  quite pleasing to the eye and the quilt is masculine enough for a young man.

I actually like the back more than I do the front. Big pops of colour are pleasing to the eye and give a generous audition for the materials to shine in their own right. (Now I sound all arty farty..hee hee)

 Did you know that there is a whole clothes line full of clothes behind that quilt. The quilt does a good job of hiding it.

Just a test run of tossing it on the couch

A a preview of '" in my dreams " you'll ever find a quilt laid this neatly on a young man's bed. If my nephew is anything like my eldest he wont make his bed for three months unless forced to do so. ( I know this because I tested the theory and cringed every time I walked past his room. Eventually I couldn't  stand it any longer and had to attack his bedroom ) Yuck!

Addit : Tutorial Part 1 and part 2 can be found by clicking the link