Drum Roll Please.......

Ta Da!!
Two of the nieces quilts - Quillows actually - are finished!


The pillows above open out into these beauties...

These photos were taken before I had a chance to wash the blue quilt. There were some rare rays of sunshine yesterday, so I quickly cleared away the boys things to finally take some pics for you. The blue one was just quilted "in the ditch" although I quilted a heart in the top left corner where I added the label.

The pink one has been washed and has wrinkled up lovely! I was trying to get a picture of the back so that you could see the quilting on this one but The Little Fella had other ideas lol! As this was the first one I quilted, I was a bit adventurous and choose to quilt hearts & butterflies all over. However, in reality it was a right PITA to do on my poor Old Girl of a sewing machine. Hence the blue quilt being stitched in the ditch lol. However it does look really fab!

To do the quilting, I googled some heart & butterfly shapes & printed them off, then made some paper templates. I gave up on all the different fabric marking pens/chalks etc and used an Ikea pencil (as recommended by the lovely teacher at TikkiLondon). It has quite a soft lead, so doesn't stretch the fabric and it all washed out.

I then drew around the template. After stitching each shape, I went around it again using my foot edge to follow the stitching. I used my walking foot and had to stop quite often to pivot and also to go round the corners I sometimes had to turn the fabric back round the other way (ie instead of turning 90 degrees right, you turn 270 degrees left.) I did attempt to drop the feed dogs and use a darning foot but my stitches were going all over the place and were very uneven - think I need a lot of practice to develop that skill LOL!

So two down and one more to go!

Half term next week, so fingers crossed that I get the final one done! However, I am also in the middle of making a scrapbook/wedding album for my cousins wedding in March. She lives in NewZealand and unfortunately as her wedding is in term time, I wont be able to go :( My parents will be going however, and bringing the book with them!

Still - I could win the euro lotto tonight and be able to give up work & craft all day long! (and book that flight to NZ)

I love Blogland!!!

Like most of you no doubt, I have quite a few blogs that I follow. Mainly craft or teaching based in my case. I have hundreds of tutorials, and links from the various blogs that I have visited/followed. All waiting for "someday". lol And one of my favourite time wasting activities (usually when working on my planning or some other school-related admin) is to click "next blog" on the bar thingy at the top of the screen. It is amazing what people will blog about!

I set up my blog so that I could share my projects with the others in The Sewing Room at MSE. As a newbie on MSE, you are unable to post links for sometime, but I could add a homepage to my profile and share my makes that way.

I also follow lots of the others that use The Sewing Room and the other crafty threads in the MSE forums. One such person is Penny


The painter of this lovely piece of work, which now graces my living room shelf (still hunting for the right frame for it)

When I saw it, it reminded me of my little family - the eldest holding hands with Daddy & the little one with Mummy, as is the usual case with us too.

So Thank You Penny!

2 down...

one more to go!!

I have finally finished two of the three quilts that I was making for Christmas! 2010 that is.

All quilted, binded, washed and ready to go! (I read somewhere that you should always wash a quilt before giving so it has that lovely crinkly texture and also you can check your workmanship is up to scratch lol)

I do still have one to do before I gift them however, as I want the nieces to recieve them all at the same time.

I will post pictures tomorrow as I keep forgetting to bring my camera home.