Mad May

This month has been rather up and down for me. All great on the sewing front - I accomplished goal for May by completing my Antiquwe Wedding Sampler quilt top for a Year of Lovely Finishes .

It took me hours days playing around with the layout but it definetly helped having it vertical on my 'temporary' (still there) design wall (just a flanellete sheet). It's now been packed off and taken to Katrina's for quilting, I can't wait to see what she does with it.

I have been lucky enough and so thrilled to have this quilt selected to be part of the Applique Guild of Australia's display (not to be judged) at this year's 

Victorian Quilter's Quilt Showcase in July. 

It was difficult to just concentrate on AWS to get it finished in time so now it's been fun getting back to other projects like Gossip in the Garden. This is my next quilt that I want to get finished.

I don't know why I left these Dresden plates to the end, they were easy to piece by machine and then needle-turn applique the embroidered centres and the whole plates to the backgrounds. I'm very happy with how these turned out, just one more to go.

Last weekend Judy and I went to the Applique Guild's Applique-in down at Mt Eliza on the Mornington peninsula. It was a really great day, Irene Blanck was the guest speaker. She gave a trunk show of all of her quilts and spoke of her recent teaching trip to France and the launch of her new book - Focus on Applique.

Botanica

Irene spoke about the importance of making a beautiful label...

Irene pointing out the finer features of Eva Grace

Miz Kelly

Green Acres

 

Tribute to Lucy Kemper

 

A gorgeous new quilt by Irene - not sure of the title but I'm pretty sure I want to make it!

Mosaics

Interesting to see these diamonds are appliqued - not pieced.

 It was great to see Auntie Green again, Irene's favourite. 

Auntie Green's Garden

I took mine along and have been inspired to keep working on the top left-hand corner this week.

  I was also extremely lucky to win the complete set of Victoria Park fat quarters.This beautiful range is Karen Styles' first collection and was generously donated by her as a door prize - Thanks Karen!!!!! I'm having a lot of fun planning and plotting what I will do with these...stay tuned.

  

So this is all the great sewing stuff that has happened this month but unfortunately it's time for a career change as I'm losing my day job at the end of June. Now I'm on the hunt for a new job - wish me luck!

April/May Goals

Missed it by that much... as Maxwell Smart would have said. I almost finished my Antique Wedding Sampler top this month but didn't quite get there because:
a) it's been a very busy month 
b) I ran out of the sashing fabric and 
c) I can't quite decide on the final layout.

The busyness started with helping my sister to sew some of the decorations for my niece's wedding. This involved turning piles of inherited doilies...

...into table runners for the reception tables.

I used some gorgeous linen coloured Aurifill thread to sew down the doilies together - the stitches were virtually invisible.

This is what they looked like as the centrepieces for the vases of flowers...

It was a beautiful wedding that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Chris from Quilting at the Farm came to Melbourne from Canada to visit the AQC - but that deserves it's own blog post.

I've been on what has felt like some kind of broderie perse marathon which involved a lot of cutting. 

I ran out of the background so I've had to use a different fabric for the triangle blocks. I actually prefer this as I think it has added more interest. Somehow I managed to cut double the amount I needed, one of the G'nT Sisters could benefit but Judy has first dibs.

  

 
I had to spread out into my new kitchen (almost finished - yay!) to finish this task.

I wondered how I would get the same placement on each block and then I had the brilliant idea of using the light box.

All 16 blocks finished - double yay!

I did also manage to the last square block - there was a lot of work in that one, no wonder I left it to the end.

AWS Block #21

After cutting out over 40 od the sashing pieces I ran out of the sashing fabric (I detect a bit of a theme going on here...) I was beginning to despair as the fabric was really hard to source when I purchased it over a year ago so I knew I would have to get an alternative for the triangle blocks around the edge (another interesting point of difference!). Luckily the wonderful L'ucello had a beautiful alternative that I managed to score on sale due to their 5th Birthday celebrations. I even got a little bouquet and a treat to eat after I rushed in there after work today.

New sashing on the left, original sashing on the right

Now to the layout (see my shiny new kitchen floorboards?)

it's different to the pattern, I wanted to put the broderie perse vase in the middle. I'm still pondering.

My goal for May is to finish the top so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow, I hope you can get some sewing time this weekend.