Long weekend of joy

This weekend has been a long weekend here in Queensland. This is the first year we've had a public holiday in October, and I have to say it rocked having the extra day off. How did I use my weekend? I hear you ask. Well I spent one day cleaning, one day eating and one day sewing. So, all round, pretty blimin' fantastic.

As we are here for the quilting joy I'll share my sewing, and leave the thrills of cleaning for another time.

I have been working on a quilt for my big sister. We had a bit of a tiff a couple of weeks back, but we made up, and I wanted to do something that says how much I love her. So I have finished the top of my gorgeous yellow and grey quilt.

I think it's pretty cool. Quite different to what I've done before. I like the colour mix and the use of black, which is not something I've tried before this. I'll tell you it was a bugger trying to line up the squares as I sewed it together. (I should have taken photos, but I was sitting on the floor surrounded by pins so that wasn't going to happen)
A thinks it's cool too, but he reckons it's a boy quilt. I think it's just because it's dark, and linear. He doesn't think N will like it. I'm a bit anxious now that he might be right. It is very dark... Oh well, I have three months before Christmas, so I might come up with something else that suits her better before then.

I also made myself a cute little makeup bag. I've never tried this before, but I need something to hold all my girly rubbish while I'm at the gym. I went and bought myself a second makeup set (just cheap Woolies makeup) so I can keep it at work and always have what I need. If you'd asked on Friday it would probably have been kept in a snap lock bag, but everyone out there in blog land is making bag or cases at the moment and I got inspired. The fabric is from my pile of scraps from my owl quilt. I have to put some buttons/snappy things on them, but otherwise they're good to go. Unless there's a way to make the fabric stronger/vinyl-ly/waterproof?

I have also been continuing with the hand stitching of the baby blankie (Noah's Ark).

I actually really like the way the stitching looks. It makes the clouds all puffy and yummy. I still think the back is boring, but I don't care today :-)

My next mission is to bind Noah's Ark, I have the binding cut into strips now I need to see it into a long piece and attach it, simple! I am tempted to try machining it on... Have never done this, I've always hand bound my quilts, but I saw a blog about using the serpentine stitch to attach the binding, and I think that could possibly work on this one. After all it's for a baby, so he won't notice if it's a bit wonky.

Next project is basting and quilting the owls. Everything is there ready for it, I just haven't gotten to it. I think I want to lay it down on the bak deck to baste and it's too dirty out there so I have to clean first. That means this can obviously wait! Lol

I bought a cute charm pack with a matching pack of hexies, so I started playing with that and would love to finish something off. At the moment it's a medley of triangles, pinwheels, hexagon flowers and I don't even know what else. I do love the righteous colours and I think the random mixing of different types of techniques works a little bit. Or maybe I'm just being too lazy to design something properly...

I also bought a cheating piece of fabric that was basically a patchwork panel and I intended to stitch in the ditch and have that done in a day. After all there was no real work to it. But it has become my nemis. I hate this thing. The thread catches in the back about half way through each seam and then I have to go back and unpick and reset and it takes six passes just to do one row! I hate it! I think it's because I bought fleece as a backing. I thought it would be warm and delightful and it was cheap, so I could justify buying an extra project, but not worth it at all. I'm blaming the fabric but it could be anything. It could be that my needle is dull or the thread is crappy. I don't know, but I'm voting fabric issues.

Oh! And my other project on the go is Bluey. I am thinking I want to do the babies name across the bottom. Add a little interest and texture. Only problem is parents haven't picked a name yet... Baby's due in five weeks so I need to get this done. A reckons just do it as is and add the name later if I want to. I think once I bind it, I'm never touching it again.

So that's FIVE works in progress that I want done over the next few weeks. Oops, I forgot my class quilt as well. I haven't touched that, and don't really intend to for a little while, but technically that's six on the go. And I should show you the pile of fabric ready for the next lot of quilts jelling in my head. I wish I could just stay home and see for the rest of the month!

Hope you all have had a marvellous weekend. Talk soon!

E