4OT

Finally, after months of waiting, I can reveal the finished 4OT quilt that I made way back at the start of the year. I made it for my sister's 21st birthday, which was yesterday, and the quilt has been happily received. Therefore, no need for me to keep it hidden!

Some of the quilting detail:

A peek at the back; I ended up using a cream thread on the front and a blue on the back, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

I also whipped up a couple of cushions out of the left over squares and strips, and used the left-over backing fabric for the backs...

On another note, tomorrow is the deadline for my lighting giveaway, so if you are an Aussie and would like a $100 voucher to buy the lighting of your choice, check out this post.

Falling into Winter

Autumn is on the way out, and winter is definitely approaching.

I've just collected the first big lot of Feijoas from under the tree; the funny thing is I don't actually eat them, but I'm finding there are plenty of people willing to take them off my hands.

The broad beans have sprouted (and the peas are all planted):

The silverbeet is finally taking off:

The rhubarb is huge!

The creeper on my chimney is a beautiful colour:

Bella has taken to "hiding" inside the hamper I got earlier in the week:

And 4OT is all finished, trimmed, and ready to be bound.

I'm off on holidays tomorrow, to sunny Queensland. I shall see you all in a week!

Still Here!

I've been a bit quiet this week, but I've been slowly making progress. My back problem from my fall in Feb flared up, so I've been quilting in small lots rather than going for it for hours on end, and working on my scarf when it gets a bit much. However, I have finally finished all the centre blocks of 4OT!

I've still got the borders to go; 24 triangles with feathers, then I need to decide what to put in the other blocks. I'm thinking I might use a larger version of some of the patterns from the centre blocks, but I'm not quite sure yet.

I'm also looking forward to this quilt being done so I can get onto "Catch a Falling Star"; it's been sitting, neatly folded, in the lounge room for months! I want to be able to quilt that one a bit faster than 4OT, so I was thinking maybe a spiral stipple...I've been practicing and it's not looking too bad, just need to get the size a little more consistent.

Super Saturday

I'm being my own version of a domestic diva today.

I've got 4OT in the machine, working through the outer blocks:

Quinces in a jelly bag, draining so I can make quince jelly tomorrow:

Vegie seedlings; broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, and seeds of broad beans, peas, carrots and snow peas to plant tomorrow:

I made Chicken and Lentil Korma with pulao for dinner:

And I've got apple pie in the oven for dessert:

Hope everyone else is having a fantastic, productive weekend!

Slow and Steady

It's been a week since my last post....but I have been busy, I promise! But first, thank you to everyone who left lovely comments regarding my graduation. It was a long process, and I'm glad it is finally official.

First, some good news. My lovely friend Christine had her baby on Friday, a little boy called Noah. I havent seen him yet, but I'm sure he is gorgeous. I'll be catching up with them once they are all settled at home, and delivering the sheep quilt.

I've been working away at 4OT; I've finished the 9 centre blocks, and have been doing most of the free-motion quilting on all the outer blocks. This is one of the completed centre blocks:

I've also been making a pile more bibs, and I had a go at a soft cube toy with a bell in the middle. I'm going to see baby Sophie in a little over a week, so this will make up a lovely parcel of goodies to take, along with the quilt I made a few months back.

And...I've been doing a bit of shopping! The weather is finally getting too cold/wet for sandals, so I've had to bite the bullet and buy myself some sneakers. I settled on a pair of converse...and also got myself a bit of a bargain. I found a shop selling Terence Conran bakeware at a fraction of the cost, and snagged a few pieces to tuck away for when I move out of home (hopefully at the end of the year).

New Arrival

The first of the new babies arrived yesterday; my boss Belinda had a baby girl in the early hours of morning, named Sophie Grace. She was a rather large bub, 9 pounds 4oz, and a week late. Now I can label up the quilt ready for when I get to go and see them.

Bought myself some wool this morning; I'm a wanna-be knitter. I've been working on a knitted wrap for the last two years (it takes a back seat to quilting...), but it shouldn't take too much longer. It's made with alpaca wool which varies between a deep pinkish colour, and a light pink, and is so soft.

The wool I bought today is a "prism" wool; it's pink, purple, red, and brown. Unfortunately the colours don't show up well in the photo, but its nice in person. It's 30% soybean which I find interesting too.

Not much else to report; quilting of 4OT is coming along well. I've almost finished 5 of the 25 blocks. Pics will come soon.

So Long, Summer...

I couldn't possibly have picked a worse weekend to go to the beach...I haven't been that cold in a long time, nor that wet! It started out ok on Friday, 30 degrees, and I arrived early enough to get a swim. But then the fog rolled in, and that was it. Friday night, and all of Saturday was pretty much consumed with rain, wind, and even hail. But I still managed to have a lot of fun.

At my work, we all go to the beach for a retreat weekend every year; it's a good chance to get to know the new students, and have a bit of fun. It usually involves a reasonable amount of drinking, and a lot of fun and silly activities, such as a table-tennis compeition, then team games with crazy skits (usually involving a lot of cross-dressing on the part of the guys), the limbo (in pairs!) and the like. We also had one guy shave his head for the "Shave for a Cure" fundraiser. The big thing I learnt this weekend it that summer is pretty much gone...

This poor guy had to BBQ in the rain last night...

I also think I've eaten several months worth of chocolate and chips in the last 24 hours...I made my way home around lunch time today; I needed to get warm, go to the gym to burn off all that choccie, plus wash away all traces of smoke from the bonfire we had in the early hours of this morning (yep, I only made it to bed at 4am, and was up again at 9...). I had to fit some sewing in now that the weather is finally "quilting weather". And I solved the problem of the quilting pattern:

One block down, 24 to go!

Advice...

I need a few expert opinions, please. I've started to quilt 4OT (and already wondering what I was thinking; it's so big!), but I still haven't decided what to do in some parts of the block. The block I'm working on at the moment is the star block (the quilt is made of star blocks and "alternate" blocks). My plan is to cross-hatch the 9-piece blocks in the middle, then echo around the inside of each of the star points. The corner blocks are getting a flower (shown below) in them.

But I just don't know what to do in the triangle part of they flying geese. Any suggestions? Something simple/easy preferred. The larger star points (which you can just see in the red) are going to have a feather pattern in them.

Bossed around...by an iron?

Does anyone else own a bossy iron? Or is everyone reading this thinking I must be crazy? We bought a new iron recently, and if I leave it alone for too long, it beeps at me. And beeps some more, and some more. It beeps until I come and do my ironing. Bossy thing.

Anyway, I've finished off all the Winter blocks for the Boxed In quilt. The pic is of a handful of the blocks; I need to play around with them to work out how to arrange them before I sew them all together.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts regarding the backing/binding of 4OT. I finally made a decision, blue for the backing, red for the binding.

I've started on my next big project. "Catch a Falling Star", which is a kit put together by The Fat Quarter Shop using Moda's Peace on Earth and Miss Rosie's Simple City pattern. I've had the kit since about April last year, and have been hanging out to work on it, but keep getting distracted by other (smaller) quilts. This afternoon (my day off), I've been cutting out the background fabric...I think I'm up to about 200 squares so far!

I always wonder if Bella gets bored when she is home alone....and I figure she would make the most of me being home for a day, but apparently not, as this is where she spent today, on my bed....

And something that might creep out the non-Aussies....I had a visitor in my room the other night; I was getting ready for bed, and had pulled my doona back as it was a warm night. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and when I came back there was a huge huntsman spider sitting right in the middle of my bed, enjoying the breeze from my fan. He was promptly liberated into the front yard.

First Finish of the Year?

OK, so maybe not quite, but the top is finished. I had the house to myself last night, and again today for my day off, and I've been sewing like crazy. And finally, I present 4OT:

It is so big that it almost touched the ground when I hung it on the line. And yes, it's very sunny out, hence the glowy appearance.

I found the quilt fairly easy to put together; my only problem was that the small star blocks were a tad smaller than the alternate blocks, which meant a bit of a rejig of the "1/4" inch seams. All the points and intersections have worked out perfectly though. My only worry is the star points along the border; some might disappear once I bind the quilt...

What I need now is an opinion; what colour backing should I go for? I'd like to quilt it with a neutral coloured thread, but I'm not sure if that should influence the backing. Basically it needs to be one of the fabrics from the front, but which one?

New Toy

Yesterday I bought myself a new laptop, after about a year of coveting. My old laptop dates back to 2003, and has been through my Honours year (science degree), and my PhD (almost 4 years). It got to the point where it took a good 20min to start up each day.

After price-watching for about a month, I visited a few shops yesterday, found the computer I was looking for, and managed to get such a low price I almost feel bad for the salespeople. It's a lovely, shiny new Toshiba with all the bells and whistles...it even came with a cloth to clean fingerprints off (which I'm going to need!). But I love it. Now I just need to work out how to install some programs I need for work, which may not like Vista unfortunately....

And the best part? Bella thinks the empty box is a fabulous new toy; she spent ages trying to squeeze in, then sat on top and tried to poke her paws through the opening.

I made the most of my first day off, and got quite a bit of 4OT done; all the little stars are finished, as are all the square-in-a-square blocks. Now I'm bordering them up to form the larger squares, and it should be about ready to assemble.

Last off; this is my 49th post. Which means my next is the big 5-0! I'm going to do a small giveaway, so keep an eye out. Hopefully early-mid week. That should give me time to work out what I'm going to give away!

So...

...I've been a bit quiet on here, I know...but I have been doing stuff, I promise! I finished the flying geese earlier in the week, and on Wednesday I finished all the large 9-patches.

I'm about to start the smaller 9-patches. And I made labels for two finished quilts; Crabapple and Wallflower. Yes, I did finish Crabapple all the way back in November, but I'm a bit slack when it comes to labels. And I haven't actually put them on yet, but I'll get there!

I've also been down the beach a couple of days, visiting my Grandma. That always keeps me on my toes. Fortunately the dogs got to come with us, so we got to take them walking on the beach. It's funny though; Jack loves swimming, and Millie can't get out of the water fast enough.

Bella is finding new and unusual places to sleep, like on the tv with her nose on the cable (Foxtel) box.... we think she likes the heat from the lamp.

And my big news? I start my new, first-ever proper job on Monday! Ok, so it's in the same lab that I did my PhD, but it's a proper, paying job, and on a completely differerent project. And the good part is I'm working 4 days a week, which leaves an extra day for quilting!

Oh My!

When I decided to make the 4OT quilt, I didn't realise just how many pieces I was going to have to cut out! So many that it's taken me several hours over two days, and resulted in a very sore shoulder from holding the ruler down.

Ive got big squares, bigger squares, little squares and even smaller squares, anda few rectangles just for good measure!

But most of the cutting is done now, and I've started piecing the flying geese. It's a different method from what I've used before, but so much easier!

Today I got a special package in the mail; a giveaway that I won on Bec's blog just before Christmas! I've never done a stitchery before, so this will be a good chance to learn.

Thanks Bec!