Land down under

 I was very brave and put the camera quilt on the frame!  The automation I have can come with this wonderful program called GOLD.  One of the best things about GOLD is that you can tell the machine where to quilt so, for instance, if you have an appliqué shape you want to avoid you can tell the machine to sew around it.  GOLD is a wonderful tool.  But unfortunately I don't have it!!!  I have to start and stop the machine myself and for some reason every time I press stop the machine continues sewing for longer than I want and then finishes off by sewing a billion stitches in the one spot.  It's a nightmare but the look is what I want so I'll have to persevere.  This is going to take quite some time I think!

I started making another quilt!  We have a new great nephew, Noah, so I'm making this little Irish lad an Australian quilt! 

This is The Land Down Under quilt by the Red Boot Quilt Company

I already had some fat quarters left from the sheep baby quilt so I bought similar ones and the basics to make the animals.

I started tracing the shapes onto appliqué paper.  This pattern has 25 pages of instructions so quite a bit of tracing needs to be done.  Look how blunt my pencil is!

I've helped quite a few people with appliqué over the years and I always tell them to try to use the paper wisely but at the same time to make sure there's a clear gap between the shapes.  I don't follow my own advice!  I've crammed this sheet full of shapes!  More paper was the one thing I forgot to buy while I was at Spotlight buying fabrics.

I have a few blocks I can get started on before I need to rush off and steal Judy's appliqué paper buy more paper.  

Oh and guess when this quilt needs to be finished by!  May!  Yep, not the quickest design to make hey? Wish me luck!  Or as Judy said...I'm going to be very busy at retreat soon!

Boring

 Four posts in January and I've barely done a thing since.  I haven't touched my scrappy Irish Chain quilt except when I picked it up off the floor after it fell off my design wall!  I'm going to retreat soon so maybe I'll take it there.  It's either that or the greyhound cross stitch and as the one involves carting a table, chair and heavy machine and the other just a frame and a small bag I suspect I already know which one I'm going to be working on!  Yep, I'll definitely be working my way through that bottle of wine! Oh, I mean, I'll definitely be taking the cross stitch!

So, my sewing this month.  A button...  

A dog bed...

 

Big ugly stitches but it worked.

I woke up one morning to find my greyhound embroidery thread torn to pieces.  

And here is what I'm up to with the cross stitch.  I did a lot of the stitching recently whilst listening to a Jack Heath audio book.  It's about a consultant for the FBI whom is "paid" whenever he solves crime with a body...that he eats.  It is a strange yet humorous and compelling series!  I did a lot of sewing!