3 Days to Go - Gaining in Confidence

After I'd finished the Take the Leap Challenge quilt (which was given to the baby boy of friends of ours and I haven't seen it since!), I decide to jump from the next diving board up.

The Young One and I started drawing designs for wonky houses and these little houses came into being.

The second one has always been my favourite.  So much so that I couldn't use it in the quilt I was intending to make.  It has been made into a mini quilt and  now hangs with others of the same size, and this picture appears a lot in Blogland and on one or two listserve groups.

The first house did end up in a quilt that has been loved by its recipient ever since.

Remember this from, would you believe, November 2006 - 4 years ago.

Family Houses

If I remember rightly, I quilted it with Baptist Fans and then went over it again with words in stem stitch in various coloured threads, mostly 3 strands of embroidery floss.

It's not as big as a lap quilt and was meant as a wall hanging, but Mum uses it every winter to keep her knees warm.  I bet she's using it at the moment!

More tomorow when I jump from an even higher diving board!

Another Liberated Quilter

We have a new Liberated Quilter in our midst.

Viv in the UK is making some wonderful wonky houses for a quilt for her son.

Click here to see them.

A Finish!

In haste as a houseful of teenagers, but, at long last, Liquorice Lane is on the wall!

Will I ever learn?

Yesterday saw the inaugural online virtual retreat of the Liberated Quilters Yahoo! Group. I've never seen so much energy and motivation. Great fun - lots of chatter and some great work. Throughout the day, in betweeen chores, I hand quilted the borders on Liquorice Lane and late last night sewed the last stitch. This is where I should have stopped, but did I? Did I h**l! Out came the cutting mat, rotary cutter and long rulers to square up the quilt and cut. Oh My Goodness! STOP! Look! The cutter slipped and I lopped off half of the little house in the bottom left hand corner. Despite attempts to square up, left hand side is now definitely wonky. If I cut any more I'll end up with no border so leave it as it is, put the binding on and call it a day. Note to self. Never ever ignore that inner voice telling you to stop. Right Now!

Some Steps in the Right Direction

In between breaking up ice 4" thick on the pool, trying to keep warm and generally trying to keep out of trouble (even though The Young One has been home for nearly a week as the school buses weren't running (and still aren't!),  I have been making strides into various projects.

I took note of most of the comments on the last post and have decided along these lines.

What do you think?  I think it could work, but something is stopping me from actually sewing this together.  Don't know what, but obviously something isn't right.

In between fiddling about with bits of purple fabric and generally creating chaos in the sewing corner, I decided to create even more mess downstairs and have been doing some more sewing.

The Young One went back to school today.  It meant a 7.00 a.m get up as we got nominated to do the school run (well The Old One did :-)).

I'm going to catch up on chores and then knuckle down and get some more quilting done.

Stay warm, or if you are in southern climes stay safe.

Stained Glass or Sugar Candy Houses

This is one of the projects I did for Lazy Gal's Summer Class 2008.

This is the stained glass version.  Pretty isn't it?

But I think I'm going to stick with the original idea.

Question now is how do I quilt it?  I don't want to detract from the houses so perhaps stitch the ditch round the rooves and the house blocks and then fans on the black?

Anyone any ideas?

WiP Wednesday : 20-05-2008

This is the next project for the Lazy Gal Summer Class - Crazy Houses.

I've decided to take out the  original block in the middle and the one to its left.  I'm having fun mixing and not matching fabrics, playing with batiks and brights and seeing which way the rotary cutter takes me °vbs°

A trip down memory lane

Remember this?

I've been rummaging through the bins trying to find something to do. I'm really do need to unpick that batting, but keep putting it off.

So I decided to make this little orphan house part of a bigger top and see what happens.

A start

It is pouring with rain here.  Alex breaks up tomorrow for the 2 week spring break.  Hope the weather isn't going to be like this for the whole fortnight.  We've got plans.

As Alex is on hols, you should know by now that you won't see much of me until she goes back.

So A+