I wish I was a doodler

I checked google to see if doodler was actually a word and it appears Doodler is a serial killer in San Francisco.  I don't want to be that kind of doodler!  I've always envied people who can just sit with a pencil and doodle random shapes onto a piece of paper.  These kinds of people make the best freemotion quilters and I'd love to be able to freemotion quilt like them!  But, alas, I'm useless at doodling and freemotion quilting.  I did try a few times with apparently easy meandering quilting but I boxed myself into a corner and it was rather unpleasant to look at when I managed to break free!

I've recently bought a Gold card to go with my quilting frame.  It has useful things on it which I believe should really come with the machine as standard but hey ho.  Amongst other things, such as being able to place borders and corners easily and multiple pattern placements, it has an eclipse function. This means that if you have an appliqué or embroidery you want to avoid quilting over you can set the machine to stitch around those shapes.  A freemotion quilter can do this with ease.  And now with my Gold card I can too!  Although my way involves a billion button clicks!

So, I decided the first thing I absolutely had to do was quilt a wholecloth quilt...with a difference.  I'm using pictures from an adult colouring book as my template.  I've been busy making quilting patterns on my program and this is one of them.

The next thing I've been busy drafting is the wedding quilt for Jâc and Erin.  They both love Lego and Jâc loves Star Wars so, with the help of AI, I've combined the two.  There's still some work to go but I'm happy with how it's looking so far.

I've not been so happy with my crochet wrap.  I've unpicked it so many times the yarn is ragged so I've started again.  It shouldn't be as difficult as I'm making it out to be!

I found my Christmas quilt project box and the pattern I'd lost and I no longer like the pattern.  The designer was rubbish.  Oh!  That was me!  Well in that case, the designer was brilliant but my tastes have changed ;-)

I threw some finished half square triangles up onto my design wall and decided that I'd like to do this kind of pattern.

I drafted this and think it's what I'll go with.  I have small half square triangles already made that I'll find a new project for.

I have lots more projects started that I should be getting on with but the less said about those the better I think!

It's on my bed!

I went to retreat this weekend and had a lovely time as usual.  The ladies are lovely and it's fun to chat and laugh together.  The less said about the early morning wake ups the better though.  Yawn!

I stitched binding onto the lazy Susan topper whilst wearing my blue striped pyjamas...

And stitched the binding onto my star quilt whilst wearing my grey striped pyjamas!

Here it is on my bed.  Yeah!  Another quilt finished!

I started thinking about quilts for both of my sons and their partners while I was away. I have a wedding quilt and a housewarming quilt to make.  I haven't worked out what yet so that'll give me chance to work on other things in the mean time.  I'd like to get my Christmas quilt finished for this year.  Last time I saw the box with the project in it the pattern I drew was missing.  Wish me luck finding it!

Diamonds aren’t this girl’s best friend

A friend asked me to quilt this diamond quilt for her.  It'll be a thank you gift for another friend who was with her every step of the way whilst she was in hospital for six weeks recently.  I wanted to get it done before I went to retreat so I loaded it onto the frame and straight away I could see it wasn't going to sit right but sometimes all these types of quilts need is a stern word and a tug or a smooth here and there.

I got it set up and started making binding for my star quilt.  All of a sudden I heard an horrific noise and came back to this mess!  The foot had got caught inside the quilt top and ripped it apart!  It's not my quilt!  Panic!!!

I got the foot free and realised it had just pulled the seams apart so it was fixable.  Phew!

Ta da!

I finished that row and while getting the next row set up I found this hole.  And quickly realised what had happened on the previous row.  The seams hadn't caught in places and my foot found the hole and it didn't go well.  So I fixed that and inspected the rest of the quilt top and found seven more like it.  I usually look for these mistakes before I sew but I didn't this time.  They're much easier to repair when the quilt isn't stuck to the frame!

It all went ok until I started getting to the end of the quilt.  I'd been using the points of the diamonds as my guide to keep things square so imagine my bewilderment when I noticed that one side of the quilt was 2 inches longer than the other!  I can fudge 1/4 - 1/2 inch difference but not two whole inches.

I then noticed that the border wasn't sewn straight.  The one side it's sewn kind of in the middle of the diamond...

And the other side it's almost at the bottom of the diamond.  My first reaction was thank goodness it wasn't my fault and then I thought Yikes, how am I going to fix this???

I spoke to my friend who said "Funny you say that but when I was measuring I kept getting different measurements"  Ha ha!  I gave my friends two options...leave as is and you'll probably never notice or I could take the border off and reattach it correctly.  We went for the second option and I have to admit  I love a good challenge so it was a fun repair!

Again, this would have been a lot easier if it wasn't on the frame!

This is how I sewed it back on.

Doesn't it look great though?!  If I didn't know how annoying diamond quilts are I'd be tempted to make one myself!

The quilting design is pansies from Urban Elementz.

I'm going to retreat tomorrow.  I have lots of wine binding to do.  I'm looking forward to it!

When is a circle not a circle?

When I make it!!

I needed a quilt topper for my large lazy Susan on my dining table.  I wanted to do some custom quilting but thought that it would be too hard and I'd end up doing an all over design.  I told Judy to kick my butt if I turned up at retreat with an all over quilted topper!  My butt will be kick free woo!

My quilt needed to be 32 inches and my frame can quilt 16 inches in one pass if the quilt isn't too large.  If it's large, as you roll the quilt up it makes the space for quilting smaller.  As my quilt is small it meant that I could quilt two 16 inch half circles.  To get these half circles I had to go into pattern CAD in my program and turn a full circle design into a half circle design.  I felt that the negative space inside the teardrops in the outer circle would be too large so I added the circles inside each one.  In the end I completely "redrew" the design and I think it turned out well.  I also added a small diamond shape in the very centre which looked lovely in the pattern but if I'd realised how small it actually was sewn I wouldn't have bothered. 

I ended up with three quilting patterns and these were the outer half circle, a half circle line and a complete circle in the centre.

My next learning curve was working out the placements for all of these designs so first I spent a long time drawing them onto the fabric only to find that once loaded onto the frame I couldn't get the lines straight!  So then I used my channel locks, things that lock the machine's wheels in place so they quilt straight lines vertically or horizontally, to mark the pattern.  That worked a treat so I must remember that method for future quilts.

I made a mistake with the quilting because on the first outer border I chose "Fit" instead of "Stretch" but once I went to place the second outer border the machine reverted back to "Stretch" and I didn't notice.  Of course I did notice when the two half circles didn't match up but I managed to fudge it.  I think this is the reason my quilt is a wonky circle.  Also,  I ever do another circle quilt I'd use the machine to sew a large circle on the outside of the design so I could use that stitching to trim the quilt into a circle because doing it afterwards with a marker and a piece of string was an absolute nuisance!

Anyway, here is my topper!

And when it's on the lazy Susan you can't see how wonky it is!  I'll be hand sewing the binding onto the backside when I go to retreat this weekend.

After quilting the star quilt last week I had excess fabric and wadding so I quilted a few designs and I'll cut them up and bind them to turn into teensy stillborn baby quilts.

I have been asked to quilt another quilt for a friend so I'd like to get that done before retreat and I also have binding to make and sew onto the star quilt so that I can hand sew that at retreat.  I'm going to be very busy!

The star is quilted!

I loaded the star quilt onto my frame and chose a simple all over design.  I probably should have made it slightly more dense but I do like it as is.

My outside borders were a bit wavy so that was annoying trying to keep the quilt square.  I have some puffiness in some places which looks worse to the naked eye than it does in this picture. Oops!  I've noticed on past quilts though when this has happened, once the quilt is off the frame where it's being stretched flat the puffiness and any tucks and whatnot aren't very noticeable so let's hope that's the case for this quilt!

Do you know how annoying it is to spot a dark thread through quilted layers?!  I used a fine hook to ease it out.

Once I finished the quilt I couldn't do the Ta Da moment as there's enough backing and batting left over to quilt some teeny baby quilts so that's what I'll do next.

While I was quilting, I prepared some EPP shapes for my Sue Daley quilt. That little iron is very handy but it gets very hot!

The fancy crochet I'm doing isn't going well and I've had to unravel 6 rows!  I'm getting good at unravelling ha ha!

Santa's naughty list

I finished all the cross stitches on my Santa picture and decided to wash away the print before doing the backstitching.  My theory behind this was that I could stretch the fabric back on the frame while it was still damp. He looks good as is but I'll be adding highlights and glasses.

The scary moment when it went in the bucket of water.  Fingers crossed!  Can you imagine if the printing didn't come off after all that work?!

Ta da!

This is the frame I use for cross stitch.  I love it!

In crochet news, I started a new project.  While I was on retreat a while back some yarn jumped into my basket while I was grocery shopping so it would have been rude not to take it home.  I wanted to make a blanket and realised I didn't have enough yarn so I scoured the internet for more and purchased three more balls.  I made my chain long enough that the blanket would cover my lap but once I started crocheting the shell design it grew and I realised I probably wouldn't have enough yarn to finish it!  Oops!  So luckily I found what's probably the last two balls and have just picked those up from the post office.

I have a billion balls of yarn now and I've only done about 5 rows of my blanket so far ha ha!  It doesn't look very impressive.  I used this tutorial for the pattern.  My shells are less defined because my yarn is thicker but it should look good in thirty years time once I've finished it.

You know that yarn I painstakingly searched for?

Wellington and Missy are on Santa's naughty list for sure!

So if that wasn't enough work to be getting on with, I started ANOTHER crochet project!  I did always intend on working on both at the same time but it does feel a bit overwhelming at the moment.  The blanket is easy repetitive crochet that I can take along anywhere.  My new project requires a lot of thought so it has to be done in peace and quiet.

Here's a sneak peak.  I have a feeling I'm going to be making this one again sometime in different yarn.

Welcome Missy

Just look at this beautiful face!  Missy is the latest member of our family.  She's almost ten years old but thinks she's a spring chicken!

I haven't done a lot lately.  Story of my life ha ha!  I'm trying to muster the enthusiasm for decorating another bedroom.  I was quite enthusiastic until I realised how much repair and prep I had to do before even starting on the "fun" part!  Bloody kids!

Here's baby Emma on the quilt I made her.  Isn't she cute?  And so tiny!!

I finished making this crochet virus shawl.  It fits!

I made it with cotton yarn form the Bendigo Woollen Mills.  It probably needs blocking but that's not going to happen.  

I've been taking this to my sit n sew sessions for what seems like forever and now I need a new project to take along.  Meet Sue Daley's Rouge Provence quilt!  This one has a bit of a funny story as I spotted the kit up for sale very reasonably priced on Facebook Marketplace.  I ummed and ahhed and then noticed that pick up was at Wollert, and what a coincidence, I was going to Wollert the very next day!  I scrolled down to message the seller and lo and behold it was my friend, Kay!  It was meant to be!

The kit comes with lovely fabrics, templates and EPP papers.

I started cutting out the fabric and was annoyed when I saw a few of these marks.  I'll have to be careful to avoid them. I started with this cream fabric and it requires rather a lot of teensy weensy triangles.  Perfect for prepping  with the triangle template at sit n sew.  Or so I thought.  It was so annoying!  Especially once I realised I could have just rotary cut strips, subcut into squares and then cut diagonally into triangles!  Arghhh!

I'm not a fan of the centre design.  It's fine, but not me and I also like there to be no direction on these kinds of quilts so I can throw them any way up on my bed! So I started designing a new centre.  You can see I messed it up but this is the look I'm going for.  It uses elements that are already in the original design.

I also need a new crochet project for my social crochet group.  I decided to do a shells blanket and started it at home before the group so I could get into the swing of it in a social setting.  I appear to have a problem counting even to three when I'm chatting!  The blanket was not working out for me and I was so frustrated I threw it in the bin!  I really like it though so I'm going to give it another try.  The pattern is by Donna Wolfe from Naztazia and she has a basic written pattern an a video tutorial.  Once I worked out I could play the video in slow motion I started jotting down what Donna was saying in picture form and it's all starting to make a bit more sense.  It turns out that the binned version was actually correct and I thought it was wrong because the pattern isn't as symmetrical as I want it to be.  So I'm going to try to change it so that it works for me.  Wish me luck because I have no idea what I'm doing!

I've almost finished Santa.  He's looking good!  I have a small amount of cross stitches to do and then there's a lot of backstitching.  I'm tempted to wash the washaway printing before I do the outlining.  Decisions, decisions...

No, I haven't finished the star quilt Annie!