I just finished a little quilt. Well, almost finished. The facing is now in place waiting to be hand stitched. I just blogged about it to see if I could get a blog to upload. Apparently, there were some technical difficulties with posting blogs. I wanted to try Cathy Miller's Mock Mola technique and I had fabrics I needed to use in a Guild Challenge so I killed two birds with one stone so to speak. There are more pictures and a few more details on my blog.



After that I was back to work on one of my Laura Nownes Quilts. Yes, I am making two. One top is done but not quilted and the paper pieced shashing on 22 out of its 35 blocks of the second are done. While I was busy listening to CE courses during the last month, I did manage to get some knitting done. I finished 2 sweaters that were nearly done but sitting in bags for a few years. I wasn't looking forward to sewing them together. My daughter is wearing one and I am now wearing the other. Forgot to take pictures. I hate it when people don't take pictures. Sorry!

Hi Maureen, it sounds like you have been keeping yourself busy. I look forward to seeing the charity quilt. The celebration day sounds like it will be interesting. Photos please if you can?

Our quilting group -'The Sew'n'Sews' - is also making a charity quilt. My friend Hong (sitting beside me in my profile photo especially for Chinese New Year!) wanted to make a quilt to raffle in our children's primary school the funds of which she wants to go towards a PA system. She is a music teacher and wants to leave the school (it's her daughter's final year in primary school) with a decent system before she goes. So we are making a quilt of her design. We have only just started it but the plan is to have smiley faces between 9 patches. All we have done so far is to get the smiley faces fused. I will post a photo when we have the top finished. There will only be one of our group with a child in primary school after that. We all met through the school and have been quilting together for about 11 years now. We have made many quilts which were raffled in the school for various charities.

Apart from that I have been working away on the BOM and finally got all my sashing strips finished. That was a lot of work. And today, in between various household chores I made 2 tote bags. I signed up for a free class on Craftsy.com and learned how to make reversible totes. This is what they look like. The brown one is for my daughter the other one is probably for me.

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Well that's enough out of me, what about everybody else?

Anything happening?????? What's the news where you are??????

Every year my group Helensburgh & District Quilters (guild) make a charity quilt, sell raffle tickets and usually make approx. £1,000. This year the charity that was voted for is the local Riding for the Disabled. It is usually a group quilt but this year there was only five of us making it. It is finished now and for the first time we have got it long armed quilted. I have just started putting on the binding and when I get a photo of it I will put it up on the forum.

On 2nd March we are having a 21st anniversary Celebration day in a local church hall. We have invited three other groups to join with us. We will supply the lunch in two sittings, as one group has lunch the other will be taken across to the church where they have embroidered panels by Hannah Frew Paterson. There are also beautiful glass windows as well. We will have a trader and this will be the first outing for the charity quilt. There will be quilts from the founder members, which should be very interesting. We will have a few ice-breaking games at the start so people can get to know each other as I will have the groups all mixed up in different tables. In the afternoon we have a speaker from England.

I am just putting together the timetable and the rota for the helpers. Once I get the actual numbers with their names I will make up the badges. I think we are going to have a great day.

Rosemary..I'd love to see a photo of the blankets you're covering !! ?? A pretty common practice
in days gone by in our part of the world.

Reetzbobeetz wrote: They certainly did. I've now finished everything I can achieve with the walking foot and have 16 large leaf shapes to fill with sprial patterns, so I am trying to work up the courage to go for the fmq, should be interesting.....

The blankets are not as heavy as they could have been - seeing as they are ancient and inheritated from my gran's, actually they are part of the reason why I took up quilting instead of beading when I did, I wanted to cover the old blankets so they looked nicer on the guest bed for visitors and now it is thought of as 'green' and 'recycling' where as originally it was 'what have I got that I can use and it won't cost too much?'

When I was writing my latest post I was on my brand new Nexus tablet and it did nor work well to write in English, because the language was set to Danish. So I minimized the post.
The embroidery pattern comes from Lynette Anderson's book It's Quilting Cats & Dogs
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quilting-Cats-Dogs-Lynette-Anderson/dp/0715337572/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1360434923&sr=8-5

Be aware, this is the UK section of Amazon

Here is a link to Lisa Lam's website. I have her book The Bag Making Bible and was wondering how you make those frame purses. Then I found her tutorials and there the instructions were found. This is from UK as well

http://u-handbag.com/content.php?content_id=1009

It is very easy to make. I hope you get inspired

loise98 wrote: When I went onto Lynette Anderson's website she had a button for stockists here http://gbr.lynetteandersondesigns.com.au/stockist-list does that help?

Rosemary I am sure your biceps are getting a good work out trying to put that quilt through your DM. I can't wait to see it when you have finished. The purse is so pretty, what a lovely present.

Zarah wrote:
I looked over Lynette Anderson's website but couldn't find a retail outlet for patterns or kits. Does anybody have any suggestions? Now I will check out Lisa Lam.

Oh, I did not expect photos of the purse. Surprises to me also .
The pattern for the shape of the purse is made by me with the help of Lisa Lam. She has instructions om her website on how to make purses like this.

Your quilt is looking great! Keep up the effort and it'll be finished in no time! When I'm working on something like that, I just keep telling myself that every stitch gets me one stitch closer to the end. And, before you know it, it's done!

Lovely purse!!

Nancy

Lovely purse and happy birthday Rosemary, hope you get spoilt rotten

OHMYGOODNESS! Rosemary, I can't imagine quilting on a domestic machine using a thick blanket for the wadding!! :shock:
You are a brave woman!

And that little purse from Norma is absolutely darling!

On the note from Norma, the pattern is by Lynette Anderson, and the threads from Laura Wasilowski. It is worked mainly in stem stitch, lazy daisy for the flowers & leaves, french knots for eyes, some cross stitches on the cat, and satin stitch on the reels of thread. The dogs could possibly have a bullion knots rather than a french knots for their eyes. Lined with soft blue cotton with initials and the year written on.