Wherefore art thou quilt?

I finally finished a quilt and it disappeared. Only to be found on a certain young boys bed! He is Mr Snaffoo. Everytime I make something he wants it. Which is a fabulous recognition of the love and value he places on items people make.

Voila here it is in all the unmade bed glory. It seems that one of Eli's love languages is to do things for him. Make special food, make his bed (cause he hates doing it). He is also like me, a doer and maker of things, so he appreciates all effort. I started this quilt a couple of years ago, for the big king bed in the caravan. The quilt we had there was just a bit too small. All the quilts have been made using my ethos of recycling again. They are all PJ's from the Op Shop (Charity Shop). Things like "fill a bag for $5" or 50 cent racks. 

I have made a lot of PJ quilts for us and to give away, some for the charity - Hope Homes International - that I support. But also for nieces and nephews. They are warm, fluffly, wash well and don't matter if they get dirty. Quilting cottons in NZ cost so much, especially the good flannel, so this is my way of keeping it cheap and yet having a lovely product.

This is really big - the bed it is on is a queen but it goes up over the pillow and over the end of the bed. I quilt everything myself and once this was finally finished last year at my quilting retreat, I parked it. I did not see how I would be able to get it under my domestic machine.

So this year when I was on retreat again, I tackled it. Pinned it out while watching rugby, basted it well and then just did stipple quilting. That is the quilting I am best at and and don't need to think about, which I thought was a plan as I wanted to concentrate on getting it through the machine. It turns out all that procrastination was for naught. It took time, but was not as much of a trial as I anticipated.

Thrilled it is done for the next camping season.
Linking to these places.

Quilt top and binding done

On Thursday i sewed together all the strips that I had blogged about doing. But when I did the quilt just was not quite big enough. So last night I put a cute little pop of colour border (only 1/2" finished) and then a bigger border on.

Being inspired and not yet too sleepy to turn the sewing machine off, I got stuck in and made the binding too. One of the bloggers I follow is Crazy mum quilts and she had a quilt very similar to this in her book.

Yay for a finish - linked to these places.

Today I finished coating the bathroom shelves, so they will be able to get put in and the bathroom will be done. Phew......

ps - this is another quilt for the Orphanage - Hope Homes International

18 down 7 to go!

Yes I now have 18 quilts for the orphans. Only 7 more to go and all the kids at Hope Homes International will have a quilt. Slowly getting there.

So I made this ages ago but have finally quilted it all. I posted about the making of it here.

As there were a lot of different styles of blocks I decided to quilt in an overall flower and loop pattern as anything that was rigid lines or diagonals would clash with various blocks. I used a quilting pattern that Crazy Mum Quilts had put on her blog one time. I am pleased with the result.

The back of the quilt is in a 1970's flannel that was donated and the binding in a black and white spot. Also donated.

Happy to be finished. 

I link up to these places and finish it up friday with Crazy Mum Quilts.

Finished - the Orphan Block Quilt

I have just had a three hour stint at the machine to finish this. The boys are having their party and they certainly do not need Mum when they are XBoxing. So I got onto the sewing machine. I had thought the quilt was too small so I added another row. Now it is large!!. But it has used up ALL my orphan blocks. 10 years worth. There is not one block left in my bag and as you can see on the top right corner I had to put a piece of material in to finish the row. Yay.

This is the what it looked like last time I did a show and tell.

I even used a leftover binding that I had unpicked a couple of years ago. I used black and white materials to try and give it a cohesive look with such disparate blocks. And it was gifted to me so therefore free. This will now go into the pile of "need to be quilted".

Thrilled to be linking this to these places, and Crazy Mum Quilts.

I tried to "Just whip it up"

I finished this quilt top two nights ago. It is another quilt for the orphanage that I support in Eldorat, Kenya. The material was donated by someone and came to me with all the centre squares cut (5 1/2inches) and some of the outside squares cut. To make it large enough I cut a few more of the big outside squares (8 1/2 inches). But somehow the maths did not work and I think that could be why the person gave up and donated it. I am sure that no child is going to look at it and criticise the red border as not being the same all the way around!! So I just got on with it.

I read so many blogs where the quilt was "just cut and made last night" or just whipped up over two nights. I thought that if that was ever going to happen to me it would be on this quilt where most of the cutting was done. But no, this still took me four nights to sew together. Maybe I am a slow sewer, but I think too that by the time I have the kids in bed and everything done it is about 9pm and so I sew slowly as I am tired and really have to concentrate.

I might get this one finished by Christmas as the wedding is tomorrow and so all the organising and sorting clothes etc , that has been taking my time, will be done.

I link to these places.

A purple quilt

This is another quilt for the Orphans at Hope Homes International. As it is for children it is backed with a lovely flannelette. The quilt blocks I picked up from an Op Shop for $5, the border materials came from Hazel as off cuts from one of her quilts and the outer border and binding came from my stash.

This quilt has been sitting on my sewing table for about 6 weeks. Partly quilted. So I finished the quilting and bound it - as I already had the binding prepared.

Well today started very early with the boys all getting up for a soccer game. Liverpool vs Arsenal. Unfortunately once they got up I could not get back to sleep. I was feeling so blurry that we did not even get to church, though for once we were awake in time. By 9.45am we were all back in bed.

The scallop border I quilted

I only quilted on the cream to make the purple stand out

The quilting on the final border.

So we have had a very quiet day all catching up from lack of sleep. So for once instead of painting or catching up on the garden I spent a bit of time on my sewing machine.

Happy to have it off the sewing table and put in the pile with the others.

I link to these places.