Progress on the circles quilt

Today I managed to find some time to dive into the sewing room and get some more done on the circles quilt.  Yes I can hear you all saying "its still not finished!"

Today the pieces that I removed last time were "darned" back into place and it was time to start working on the borders.

The idea was to have "floating" bits in the borders however Im not sure if I like it and I'm not too crazy about the black border either!

Maybe I have to think some more about how I am going to do this....

Time now to practice my mandarin lessons

zai jian!

Circles continued

Today I added the backing to the circle quilt.  Then I actually "handbasted" it together...something I haven't done in years but seeing that this quilt will have a lot of quilting I really didn't want things to shift while quilting.

I have discovered that I cannot baste in a straight line and so had to draw lines using tailors chalk! Very sad!
Thankfully I still have some of that dutch basting thread (rijgaaren?) and that is better for basting than normal thread as it breaks easily when it comes time to remove it.

Then it was off to the machine to start the quilting...and unpicking...and quilting...and unpicking!

About a quarter of the quilt is done...still plenty more to do. I am enjoying trying out different stitches that I normally don't use.

This week I have friends staying with us from New Zealand and they are busy sightseeing around Singapore and are planning to spend a couple days in Indonesia as well.  Only a 1hour boat trip from here.

Tomorrow I am hoping to check out the ANZA quilting group here in Singapore.  Very exciting!

Happy Quilting!

My Go Go Day!

Today the aircon repairmen were coming to service our aircons and I figured that once they had gone I would head into the sewing room and work on the circles quilt.  What was supposed to be a half hour service turned into a 3 1/2 hour pull all the airconditioners apart and major servicing. Grrr. 

With the aircon pulled apart above my sewing machine I thought it was a good idea to try some more fabric dyeing.  I had bought Linda Johansen's book "Fabric Dyer's Dictionary" a while back and hadn't quite managed to get my head around it yet.

Well today was the day and I dyed 12 fat quarters of fabric into the colours of the rainbow.  They are now outside nicely baking in the sunshine.

I will post photos of the finished products later.

It is already after 2pm and I only managed to do two loads of washing today,

I still need to:
Go to library and pick up daughters reserve book
walk dog (x2)
pick up children from school
Go to mandarin class today
drop 1 child off on other side of singapore (& probably pick her up)
cook dinner
attend parents night at school
Figure out why my photos wont load on my blog! (server rejected...huh?)
and be pleasant to all around me........

Its just as well it's a public holiday here tomorrow !(Hari Raya)

Circles quilt

Not much to blog about today.  Had a slow start this morning....must have been the weather!  Big dark thunder storms this morning with lots of surface flooding on the roads.

My DH  (aka tall, dark, handsome) hung up my Geisha quilt in the hallway today.  Looks good but very small compared to the big white wall.

Added the batting to the circles quilt today but then found that the batting didn't want to flow smoothly through the machine and so the circles ended up wonky!

There is some unpicking to be done and then I will add the backing fabric first using the escape hatch method by Melody Johnston.  Hopefully this will then glide through the machine better.

Will keep you posted.....

Going round in Circles!

There hasn't been much opportunity to sew much the last few days as general household things have gotten in the way.  I did manage to do some sewing today and here is a photo of the progress on the circles quilt.

Today I cut away the excess fabric (light squares) from the back of the quilt and added some more circles.  This is now ready to be made into the quilt sandwich and more circle quilting added.

Its been fun trying out some of the stitches on my machine that I normally don't use.

The "Geisha" quilt is still waiting for "tall, dark, handsome" to help me hang this up in the hallway.....

I've also joined the Artful Quilters Blog Ring.  Check out the link on the top right hand side of this blog to see some more great art quilts!

Today I also had my first "conversational mandarin" lesson.  I enjoyed the class but I know that it will be a challenging  language to learn!  Lots of practicing/homework before my next lesson on Thursday.

Until next time...happy quilting

crop circles

Today I spent the day "playing" with my circle maker on my sewing machine.

I layered the light squares under the dark squares from yesterday and pinned them together trying to make sure that all the seams matched.  There are about a million pins in this and I kept pricking myself on them during the day. Ouch!  This quilt has my own hand dyed fabrics in it.

Then I made lovely circles and cut away the excess fabric to expose the lighter colours underneath.

The small picture that is hanging next to the quilt top is a quilt by Libby Lehman which is my inspiration for this quilt.  I saw  this on the Quilt show and just loved it!   Not that my stitching would come anywhere close to be as good as hers as she is an expert!

I used to religiously watch the show "Simply Quilts' in NZ and was completely gutted when they cancelled it.  Imagine my delight to find that I could subscribe to the new show "The Quilt Show" online with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims! Its shows like this that really promote our craft and I have learnt so much from these two shows!

Last night Hennie and I booked our classes for the Houston Quilt Festival.  Yippee!

Anyway thats all for now

Happy Quilting!

Just Do It!

It's time to get serious about this quilting thing!  The last week I have managed to get a couple of hours each day in the sewing room and today I was in there 9am on the dot!  All of this has paid off as I finally finished the Geisha quilt today.  The centre panel is from a Lonni Rossi pattern.

I even had time today to start on a new quilt:

Dark squares

Light squares

Whoops!  Just noticed a boo boo in the light squares.  Guess I will be starting my day tomorrow unpicking the mistake. 

Anyway for those of you who are surprised that I would be making something so traditional.... never fear, it won't stay that way!  Hint: I will be trying out my circle maker on my sewing machine.

My "Marina Bay Bridge" quilt is currently in NZ and has  been entered into the Wellington Quilters Guild exhibition which is on at the St Patricks College in Kilbirnie from 1-10 Oct. How exciting!

Marina Bay Bridge

Tonight I will be talking to my friend Hennie on Skype to try and decide what classes we will be doing at the Houston Quilt Festival.  The only problem is that there is so much to choose from!

Well thats all from me...happy quilting