My first festival quilt

This is the first time I've joined in the fun of the Blogger's Quilt Festival! My quilt is the one I made for Craig for his birthday this year. It's made up mainly of one of my favourite fabric lines, Simple Abundance by Bonnie and Camille. Craig had already taken a liking to the large floral print (I know! Got to love a man who appreciates fabric) which I had used in another quilt for a friend. So I knew I had to make one for him that included this fabric. It's a very simple pattern which I designed myself, and the neutral strips are Carolina Chambray - a beautifully soft fabric, I wish I could find some more of this!

I'm so proud of this quilt, and it's now on our bed!

For more beautiful quilts - the thumbnails altogether look spectacular! - head to Amy's! Thanks for hosting, Amy!

There is progress in the world...

My world, at least, if not the world at large. But let's not go there. The two pillow tops for my boys are complete (apart from, in the case of the monster one, a teensy-weensy bit of hand embroidery of details - procrastinate, procrastinate). And the fabric and zippers for the backs are purchased. I'm going to do invisible zips. In the vain hope that this will prevent (or at least discourage?) little hands from prying. Am I kidding myself? Probably.


It was a funny experience with these projects, quilting-wise. With the beep-beep one, I decided to go with the swirly quilting, because, well, I've had a bit of practice recently. The whole time I was doing this, I kept thinking, it's not working, it's not working, it looks terrible. But weirdly, it doesn't. In fact, it looks pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself! But for some reason I can't put my finger on, I just didn't feel comfortable with it, not in the way I did with Willow. Anyway, it's done, and it looks good, so let's just move on, shall we?


With the monster one, I thought I'd try something a bit different, given that the three panels seem to lend themselves to something a bit different! So, a little stippling in the yellow section, and in the main top section, some pebbly quilting. My first time trying this and I have to say I'm really happy with it. This went so fast - particularly in comparison to the swirly quilting, which takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r. And it has a slightly, errrr, organic feel to it. If you look closely you'd see what I mean - kinda messy, but it works! I love the texture to it, and I think it really suits the monsters.

I'd love to know - what kind of free-motion quilting backgrounds do you like to do (or if you're not into the doing, do you have any favourites you like to see?)

Speaking of the doing, I've had a few people contact me asking for tips on the swirly quilting. I'm planning to put together a little tutorial on this in the near future - stay tuned!

Tip-toeing through the tulips

Spring has sprung! On the weekend we took a little drive out of town to the Tulip Top Gardens - a private garden on several acres and boy was it impressive. Beautiful trees, lots of blossom, and more tulips than you could poke a stick at.

The kids seemed to like it too (though maybe that was just the sausage sizzle and chocolate cake). Finn is totally into the over-exaggerated smile at the moment - every time the camera comes out it's a big cheesy grin and nearly-closed eyes. Funnily enough though, when we ventured a portrait session with a professional photographer on Saturday, he wasn't having a bar of it - I'll be amazed when we get the pictures back if there are any where you can't just see him disappearing into the background or off to the side....




No sewing pictures to share with you today. I'm working on a plan for my Modern Swap partner, trying something I've been wanting to try for ages and so far it's coming together quite nicely!

Busy bees

Can you believe it's October? I can't. Does that really mean it's nearly Christmas, and the end of 2010? Yes it does. Eeek. Anyway, the good news is that October is my month in the Fresh Modern Bee 2. These girls are a hugely talented bunch and I feel completely inadequate amongst them. So I agonised for ages over what to set as the month's project. I decided not to do something prescriptive because I think people like to have the flexibility to show a bit of their own creativity. So I asked for squares, square-in-squares, rectangles, grouped, single, whatever - but preferably no wonkiness.

My fabrics are mainly from my precious stash of Wonderland, but also some Tweet Tweet, Hunky Dory, Sweet and a little bit of Flora and Fauna and Joel Dewberry Stamen. Plus Kona Ash to pull it all together. The top photo shows a few of the sample blocks I did (because I kept doubting myself and was scared that the fabrics wouldn't go together).



Lynne was the first to show her wares - and as noted by one of the other bee members, she set the bar very high! What an amazing block!

Next up is Alison with these beauties - I love the fussy cut Wonderland tree, and the little rectangular strips. This is going to be so cool - I can't wait to see what the others come up with!!

My creative space

More works in progress - some long-promised pillows/cushions for my two little boys. These are based on patterns by Kellie of Don't Look Now - she has whole quilt patterns for the cars and the monsters which I would love to tackle at some point in the future! Hopefully before my boys get too big...

Kirsty's on holidays this week, so no other creative spaces to share - but you know as well as I do there are creative folk galore all over the web - so go exploring.

A finished quilt, and a started quilt

It has taken me a few days to get to this post. Blogger was doing weird things with my pictures and I gave up in the end. Luckily he seems to be behaving himself tonight so hopefully this will post without any further ado!

I finished the pink half-square triangles bonanza and whizzed it over to my friend's newborn last week. I was in such a rush to finish that I didn't quite make it - I literally had to sit in her lounge and finish hand-sewing on the label, while gooing and gaaing at the baby of course (so it took me forever!!) Unfortunately I didn't get any more photos of it. I stipple-quilted this one - my first attempt! Looks pretty good, but I thought I would need a bit more practice, sooooo... in a few idle moments on the weekend (yes I surprise myself too - idle moments, I'd forgotten they even existed!!) I whipped up this one:

The truth is, about 10 months ago I purchased a Birdie charm pack, and that very same night I chopped all the charms in half and sewed them back together again, yielding a pretty stack of double coins. Then they sat in one of my fabric bins. Until a few days ago. Out they came, combined with a few charms from some extra Birdie FQs I'd picked up along the way, some sashing strips were cut, extra bits added to either end of most of the rows to make them appear as if they're floating, and ta-da. A finished quilt top.

Would you believe I have even got the batting sorted for this one, and another Birdie strip to use for the binding. The backing is another matter, but I'm sure I can cobble something together pretty quickly. I am not terribly fussed - I had intended this would be more of a 'practice' piece that my daughter might use as a cuddle quilt. It is pretty big though - more than big enough to cover her cot.

Some more works are in progress, including a big pile of cutting which awaits me in order for my month in the Fresh Modern Bee 2 to begin - how exciting! But more on that later....

Works in progress

FMB2 Blocks for Jessica - September
Originally uploaded by Petitselefants

This blog has sadly been a bit neglected of late. Very little time for sewing and consequently even less for blogging! A rare break from the two oldest kiddos (6 and nearly 4) gave me some much-longed for sewing time. First up, my Fresh Modern Bee 2 commitments for this month. Jessica asked for rectangular based blocks in solids, along with a black and white dot. I love the combination of these colours - one of my favourite combos, but I hadn't ever thought of putting them together in a quilt. Who knew?? These were a lot of fun to make.

Next month (October) is mine in the FMB2 and I'm yet to decide what's going to happen. Must get cracking on that this week as the post will have to go out.

But for now, I'm so tired I can barely type without making a mistake - Not ideal!! So, more on my weekend sewing adventures tomorrow!