What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 At our last Sew Wot get-together, Heather had a table of free stuff she wanted gone.  I swooped on two teddy bear cushion panels that took my fancy.  Just the thing for a couple of cushions for kids in care, I thought. These are now layered with batting, and pinned up, ready for me to do big stitch quilting around the motifs.  

Two cushion panels from Heather, ready for quilting

I've made a start of Father Teddy sitting on the window seat, reading his book.

Father Ted

I've also hand stitched a label on two secret quilts I ...

 This was a busy week with lots of activities every day, so, not much sewing happened.  I did manage to add more stitches to the sky in my cross stitch project and discovered that I was going to run out of one of the colours. I purchased a skein at the local craft shop and I'm ready to keep on stitching. Someone asked last week if there are sunflowers in the picture--the answer is yes...there are several sunflowers in a combination of stitches and beads as well as a button at the bottom of the picture.  I will ...

I can't believe this run of calm, mild, sunny weather we have been having lately.  No complaints of course, but Winter is starting tomorrow 1st June!  I've been sitting outside for an hour or two, once again, making the most of the gentle warmth.  Gemma joined me too, once she woke up from her afternoon nap.  She is always very interested in this small bark garden when she comes outside, especially in the far corner.  I can't see anything which would catch her attention, but maybe there are some tiny ants running around in the bark, who ...

Well, we certainly can't complain about the weather today.  It was warm and sunny enough to get the washing dry outside.  And pleasant enough for me to sit outside on the patio, under our Arch-gola.  It's hard to believe it's almost the end of May, and it makes me wonder just what Winter will have in store for us all.  Just have to wait and see, I guess.

So, this afternoon, I took my New Zealand panel outside for a couple of hours to do some more big stitch quilting.  Today, I was working on a heron ...

 My quilting club had a "Stitching Day" and I tool along this big bag of slow stitching to do.  I made this bag in a class  many years ago when we lived in Upper Hutt, and I think it might be called a pumpkin bag.  I can't manage my heavy sewing machine these days, it's much too heavy for me to unplug, put in the case, carry it to and from the car, then the return trip home.  So I always take some hand stitching along instead.  Plus a packed lunch - that's most important too.

A couple of weeks ago, I started to make a little folk art doll for a 5 year old's birthday.  This week, I finished it.  It has black hair, just like the five year old.  Purple is her favourite colour. 

I continue to work on my Mill Hill cross stitch on perforated paper.  It's coming along nicely. The green line of stitches on the right goes all the way around the picture. 

I spent a couple of hours working on handquilting my pineapple log cabin quilt this week.  The blocks were made a couple of years ago for ...

 Christine and I spent last weekend at Camp Kintail at the crafter's retreat.  Others were making paper crafts, scrapbooks, knitting and painting. Four participants were quilting.   It's always fun to see what everyone is making. The food and snacks were plentiful and tasty too. 

My first project was an open wide zipper pouch that I had started at home. This one may just stay here for me to use.  This project was a good place to use the large scale print that I loved but would not be good to cut up into smaller pieces 

 Welsh Quilting Designs 

Hearts, Swirls, Leaves, Welsh Pear (Paisley Pear), Scissors, Crosshatching, Echo Quilting etc... 

When you break them down the Designs are simple and homely. Using what they had to hand to create the wonderful sculpted Patterns.

 Years ago, maybe 2013, quilt sisters Holly and Sarah turned me on to Marcia Derse and her fabrics.  Three in particular caught my eye,and I made a bed quilt that I had long armed.  I used a big block design and have loved the result.  It has been washed over 50 times at least and perhaps could use new binding.  But it remains a favorite.

 I've been slowly hand quilting these three panels of teddy bears sitting around enjoying watermelon in the sunshine.  This fabric panel was looking for a good home at one of our Sew Wot meetings so I took it home.  The quilting had already been started so I worked on it off and on, a little time here and there when the mood struck me.  The idea was to finish the quilting then make three cushions for donation.

Three teddy bear panels quilted

Planning ahead, I had three cushion inners ready and waiting for this project.  A quick look through ...

 Sadly, not a single finish and just a little time working on my craft projects this last couple of weeks.  I picked up some sort of nasty lurgy from my recent coach tour and after two seeks I'm still not over it.  Cough, cough, coughing, generally in the evenings, and luckily I'm no longer trying to sleep propped up on pillows at night.  But I am feeling tired so need a Nana Nap most days.  Would you believe I have purchased three different types of cough lozenges - two from the chemist and one from the supermarket.  One lot ...

 I have a collection of completed quilt tops waiting to be quilted.  Sometimes, I just don't have inspiration on how to quilt them and other times, I just don't have time.  This week, one of them yelled "pick me" for hand quilting so I got started.  This pineapple log cabin was one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts a few year ago.  Each block is foundation pieced on a printed fabric so the finished quilt will have three layers of fabric as well as batting.  I am big stitch quilting it with gray 28wt thread.  I am starting ...