Rob Peter to Pay Paul Quilt

I finished the Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt today. This was a quilt top I pieced almost 2 years ago - it is a 'stash buster' quilt using all kinds of scraps of Asian fabric I had. I cut it out with the GO! cutter.

I free motion quilted double continuous curves in the concave squares, and open heart feathers in the arcs. The batting is Hobbs Heirloom Wool. I used 50Wt cotton thread with a #80 regular needle for the quilting.

The backing is 'Plush' - a polyester backing. It is incredibly soft and light. I like how on the back you can't see the thread, just the design - I can see why people make whole cloth quilts with minky.

After washing the quilt came out all lovely and 'krinkly' - I think it might have to do with the backing because I washed the quilt I made last week the same way and it didn't shrink at all (it had wool batting as well, with flannel backing I had pre-washed).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Free Motion Quilting!

FMQ - bliss!

The birds seemed to be enjoying the sun.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Another Quilt

I prepared another quilt for quilting - the Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt top. I used spray baste for the first time. The backing is 'plush' - a knit backing similar to 'minky', and I was told that I needed to glue it so it wouldn't stretch. Hopefully it will be easy to quilt.

I had a few comments on the wool for my hat - it is Green Label from Tanis Fibre Arts, and the colour way is "Super Tartan",  one of the OOAK colours Tanis offers for sale a few times a year on Etsy. The yarn is lovely - I have used it a few times, and it is very good quality, plus this colour way is amazing, but all of her colours are wonderful.

The wind and snow has left beautiful snow drifts in the yard.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Quilt Tops

I finished piecing the Double Wedding Ring quilt
Now I have three quilt tops waiting for quilting.

A Rob Peter to Pay Paul,

and a Storm at Sea.

It is time for me to start quilting!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

July Roundup

This month I managed to finally finish the Rob-Peter-to-Pay-Paul quilt top (Yeah!!).

It is 56"x70". It will stay a top until I am ready to quilt it in the fall.

I spun everyday for 24 days (and then cleaned my spinning wheel and put it away for a while).

This is all that I spun during the 2013 Tour de Fleece - 600g of yarn in total. The brown yarn was fibre from SweetGeorgia yarns, and the rest are my hand dyed fibres. Now I have some knitting projects lined up!

Speaking of knitting, I finished up two pairs of socks this weekend.

The blue ones are my first pair of toe up socks (the pattern can be found here). The grey ones are the July 2013 Mock (mystery socks), from the Ravelry group Sock Knitters Anonymous.

I finished my Blocks of the Month this weekend too -

Pieces of Time BOM blocks.

Ostrich BOM - this month "Seminole" was chosen.

Art Quilt of the Month - the piece of fabric was cut from a piece of sun printing I did last week (it didn't quite work like I thought it would, I think it was too hot and dried too quickly). The quilting is a spinning design, since I did so much spinning this month. I added a painted sun after it was quilted, just to represent summer (it is in contrast to my January art quilt which represents a blizzard).

Last week I spent some time at my parents home, and only went down to the lake once (we were busy working).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Knitting and Dyeing

I haven't been spending much time on the computer, but I have been doing lots of other things.

Summer is finally here and I have enjoyed working outside!!

Things are growing and blooming, which is so nice after that incredible long winter.

I have done a bit of sewing on the Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt -

I also finished knitting a sweater -

This is The Seamless Artemisia Sweater from Craftsy.

It is such a great way to knit a sweater - from the top down with no seams, so I tried it on as it grew to make sure that it fit just right (it is 30°C/86°F today and hopefully it will be a long time until I need to wear a wool sweater!).

The only thing that I did different than the instructions was to knit the sleeves two at a time, using the magic loop technique (like I knit socks).

Yesterday I dyed some wool ready for spinning.

It is the first time I have tried this and it went very well (I used acid dyes - just need vinegar to set the dye, and I steamed the bundles in an old canner). The top pastel one is wool and nylon for socks, it came out lighter than I expected. This is the fibre before steaming -

This Saturday the Tour de Fleece starts - it is a month long online spinning challenge (runs the time of the Tour de France), so I am all set.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Another Stash Buster

I cut out another stash busting quilt -

This time with Asian fabric (I did buy 3 metres of beige to tie it all together, and to be able to make something a useable size - so not a true stash buster). I just had lots of little pieces and so it is nice to be able to make something with it.

I used the Rob Peter to Pay Paul GO! die for the cutting.

This is the layout (I think it will have to remain on the "design" floor until it is sewn together). The design creates circles - I cut out sets of four "melons" for each circle. Now for lots of sewing! It will be 54" x 70".

The last of the tulips from my garden - I planted these ones last fall.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

RPTPP Baby Quilt

I recently made a baby quilt for a work colleague of my husband, and thought that I would share my pattern. The quilt is 35" x 49".

I made it with the Rob Peter to Pay Paul GO! die (one of my favourite GO! dies, it is so versatile). The blocks are 7".

I used -

1.5 m (~60") fabric for the centres of the block
1m (~40") each of two different fabrics for the outside pieces of the block, plus I used another 0.5m (~20") of one of the fabrics for the binding
1.5 m (~60") flannel for the backing
batting (I used cotton - tried Hobbs Heirloom Bleached for the first time, it is lovely and soft. Thanks for the tip Corina.)

I made 35 blocks, with a 5 x 7 block layout. This way the colours balanced.

The above photo shows how I pressed the seams. I don't use pins when I make this block, but use this method (if the link doesn't work, it is how to piece curves with a regular pressor foot and lifting the top piece up), with the centre piece on the bottom, and starting with the outer piece laying about 1/4" beyond the tip of the centre piece.

I quilted it on my DSM.

This seems to be my favourite design to quilt on RPTPP quilts, as I use it every time!
I used an open heart feather design in the oval shapes, and continuous squiggly loops for the centres.

You can kind of see the quilting on the back.
I used Aurifil #50 thread for the quilting (and piecing) - variegated pale yellow for the centres and variegated pale green for the oval shapes (I had the same thread top and bottom), with a #80 Titanium needle (just seems to be the needle that is constantly in my machine at the moment - it is lasting a long time).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

Quilt for Olive

I finished machine quilting (on my DSM) the Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt. This is a quilt that I cut with the GO! cutter. My Mother and I pieced it. The quilt is 82" x 69". It is off the my Mom's for binding.

A few years ago I inherited a stash of fabric, quilting supplies, books and magazines from a family friend, this quilt is for her. Lots of the fabric are from her stash. She is now is a care home, suffering with Alzheimer's.

The centres are quilted with a continuous swirl pattern, that traveled from one block to the next down a row on three sides and came back up the row to finish the fourth side.

The "melons" have an open heart feather design quilted in them. This was also a continuous design

I used two fabrics from the stash for the backing and joined them in a "zipper" pattern. The idea comes from Corina (CW QUILTs...sometimes), she shows her zipper backing here (hers is much nicer, next time I will have to use rectangles instead of squares - mine are 4" squares, 2"x4" would be better). It is a great way to join two different fabrics - thanks Corina!!

Here is the quilting from the back. I used wool batting, with 50wt cotton thread top and bottom.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

Quilt Blocks

I hope every one had a lovely Mother's Day!

This weekend I finished this month's Hop to It block, I made a brown rabbit because the visitors in my garden are brown.

I made some more Dear Jane blocks, some easier ones this week.

30 all together now.

I pinned the Rob Peter to Pay Paul quilt that my mother and I pieced this winter, my goal it to get it quilted this week (as well as some more yard work).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

More Piecing

I finished sewing the Rob Peter to Pay Paul blocks together, and the flimsy is all ready for quilting (just need to get some batting - seems to a constant thing!). These are 7" blocks I cut with the GO! when I was stash busting in December. My mother pieced all the blocks, and between the two of us all the blocks are joined together. The top is 70"x84". I love this GO! die - there are so many options.

The quilt blocks would have looked great on point too.

This little 4" block is this week's Temecula Quilt Co quilt along block.

The two blocks so far.

It was very windy this afternoon and this was an odd sight - 5 partridges all standing still, facing the sun, usually they are busy eating and moving around.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥