Strip patchwork quilt top finished

I finally added a few more strips to make this new patchwork big enough for a single bed. I have the batting purchased and now just need to sandwich it together. This will be another quilt for the orphanage - Hope Homes International.

This quilt has now emptied one of my scrap bags, finally!! The bag was for strips of material only and now, with three quilts for the orphans, it is finished. I love being able to say that!

When I was out and about recently I found these gorgeous leather pieces at the dump shop. Exciting things to make with these. Am already channeling the thought of leather and wool! 

Linking to these places and Crazy Mum Quilts.

A finished scrap quilt

I have finally sandwiched, quilted and bound this patchwork. Another quilt ready to be sent to the orphanage at Hope Homes International. This quilt I made totally improvisational. But to give it some structure I used a 1 inch strip of red in random places. It has a lovely flannelette back to be snugly on a bed. Pleased to get it done as it has been sitting in the wardrobe for a wee while.

I just stippled it as the batting was a lot of leftover bits, so stippling for quilting keeps it altogether. I am trying to do all my mending and bits lying around. I have a new overlocker I have not yet used because I just cannot start another project. But have cleared it to the point that there is a space to put it. So when I come back from my work trip I will have some fun with it. In the meantime my mending meant I had to learn a new skill. 

I taught myself how to do shirring. I love shirring but have just been too scared of it as it looks so complicated. But it really is not. The blue is the practice and the shirt is now mended. Four not quite even or straight rows, but I am pretty pleased.

Linking to these places and Crazy mum quilts. and 

One quilt leads to another...

In my last post I showed a scrap quilt made of my big bag of strips. Thrilled that the patchwork was finished, I completed a blog post. The next day I found a pile more strips from that same scrap bag that in my sorting I had put elsewhere.

So all inspired, I thought I should crack on and get all the scraps used. 

I sewed them as before but into a long oblong that when folded in half created two squares. Then I put the squares right side together,. sewed it as though I was doing half square triangles.  

And I got it wrong!!! I wanted the stripes going the opposite way. 

So a bit of unpicking and some resewing and I ended up with a different pattern.

I had seen this on someone else's blog but can't remember whose. If I find it then I will add the details to this post. 

In the spirit of using every single one of my scrap strips I then sewed the remainder around as borders. It still needs to be a little bit bigger. So as I cut things wrong in the next few months I will add them on to finish the quilt. So another quilt for Hope Homes International. And a finish enough that this can go into the cupboard until later.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Scrap quilt for charity.

 In October I finished this scrap quilt top for the Orphanage that we support - Hope Homes International. I am calling it "red line". Most of the materials are donated bits and pieces from people who I quilt with on a retreat once a year.

The red material was cut to 1 inch strips and I nearly threw it out. But then sometimes scrap quilts need some sort of item making it cohesive and I decided that would work. Now I need to sandwich, quilt and bind it. But really happy with the outcome.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts

A Whole lot of unpicking going on.

Well I have been redoing a quilt for Hope Homes International. I had pinned this out but when basting (stitching in the ditch) the back all puckered, the front tucked up. Disaster. So I took a deep breath and seam ripped the whole lot. Re pinned and now stitched in the ditch all over to secure. But am struggling with how to quilt it. Hmm.

Linking to these places.

A bright quilt finish

My sister and I spent another Saturday night completing quilts for Hope Homes International. 

 

Thanks to Hazel for the quilt top. I made a backing and pinned the quilt, Anna quilted it and then I finished it on Saturday with the binding.

When I was in Dunedin last week I discovered a part finished quilt in an Op Shop (Charity Shop), amazingly it had all the material to finish it off. So Anna got busy on that while I backed and pinned the quilt that Jennifer donated.

We were both a bit tired but a great night. Now well on the way to another two more quilts being finished for Hope Homes.

Linking to these places and Crazy Mum Quilts

Working on more charity quilts

Thanks to some very generous people we nearly have two more quilts for Hope Homes International.

Generous people alert - Jennifer J - sorry no blog to refer you to. Jennifer contacted me as she is downsizing her home and wanted to giveaway some part completed quilt tops. The cat quilt and the dolphins above. I got them in the mail yesterday.

Hazel has given me a pile of material as she is sifting through her stash of what she will use and finish and what no longer interests her. Wow a whole finished top ready to go.

So last night my sister brought her sewing machine over and we cut, ironed, sewed and pinned. Jennifer your quilt looks amazing all bordered. This photo does not do it justice. It is actually a lot brighter than that.

I spent my time making two backings for the quilts out of bits of flannelette I had and pining out the bright quilt. Anna put borders on the cat quilt and then quilted the bright quilt together. Another sewing night and we will have two finished quilts. What a satisfying evening.

Linking to these places

I have a weekend to get a quilt made

On Friday night I went to hear William Thompson from Hope Homes International talk at a local church. This is the orphanage where I sent a pile of quilts over a year ago (6 years work). When questioned William advised he had room in his suitcase for some quilts. But I only had one made!!

Not only that but as I am away for work this and next week, there was only this weekend to get more made. So I looked through all my half finished stuff. So Saturday I started at 10am. I found these cut - scraps cut into pieces ready for a Plus quilt. (I like to call then Cross quilts) 

I worked out the size and had to cut another 10. Based on a finished 4.5inch size. Selected fabric and cut. 

By 11am I was laying them all on the floor getting ready to sew in lines. 

1pm and I was starting to flag. Plus needed to go to the shop to get batting as the shop closes at 2pm. Organised the boys and did a bit of gardening.

At midnight I was pinning all the quilt pieces together. I was at the point of giving up as the quilting and binding takes a long time. Then Kerryn messaged me from Australia to see how it was going. When I told her she gave some excellent advise, that I followed. Just stitch straight lines to get it done.  

I thought about that overnight and realised she was right but was still not sure if I would get it done. So stitching around each cross. But that still left quite a space in the middle of each piece which would wear. So I freehanded hearts, stars, flowers etc into each centre.  

By 3pm I had the quilting done and the edges trimmed. 

Oh my goodness, I finished!!! Patched, Quilted and Bound - finished at 5.30pm on Sunday.

Now I am spending a day catching up on my housework etc. 

Linking to these places

Finished, another quilt for charity

First finished item at retreat. Completed the star last year as a paper piecing experiment and loved it. But was stuck with what to do. Now really pleased to have made it into a quilt for an orphan at Hope Homes International.

Was not that happy with the quilting of the coloured star but love the straight line quilting of the grey fabrics.

I link to these places

The quilts have made it to Africa

Yay - finally all the quilts that I parceled up have gotten to the orphanage just outside El Dorat in Kenya. The older girls have started choosing their quilts and they have named them "forever quilts" as this is the first thing they have to keep forever, even when they leave to study or get married.

Getting them to Kenya was expensive and rather stressful as the Kenyan border kept them in holding for two weeks and we were very concerned about the spiraling cost. 

When shipping them I almost gave up as but thanks to everyone who prayed and helped. Now the look on these faces makes my heart sing. 

Number 21

Yes this is charity quilt number 21. Off to Hope Homes in the package. A real kids quilt. The centre Winnie the Pooh and the alphabet are a panel. The rest was some matching strips which I have added. But it all looks like it is one panel. I made this when I was on my quilting retreat recently. Started it, cut it, patched it together, sandwiched it, quilted it (some straight line quilting, some stipple and some outlining) and then bound it. All in about 4 hours. Yippeee!!! Was so intent on getting it finished that I forgot to take process photos.

Linking to these places.

19 quilts ready to go

Finally we are organising sending all the quilts off to Hope Homes International for the orphans beds. There are 19 quilts completely finished, which has taken about four years!!

I pulled all the quilts out of all the little hidey holes around the house and am busy labeling who made them, who donated material etc. They are all going to get displayed at church on Sunday so I am hoping the everyone will be impressed and maybe be inspired to send a bit more to this place.

So many people have donated so much for this to occur. A huge thanks to Hazel who is clearing out her house for earthquake repairs and called me to pick up all this wonderful material, books etc.

I am still praying and hoping to get a few more or have some donated as there are currently 23 kids in the orphanage and another 5 living with the directors of the orphanage. But it will happen over time.

I link to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Low Volume quilt - for charity

Yay another quilt completed. My attempt at low volume quilting is not as low as some. But compared to my normal choice of heaps of colour, this is muted! Finally getting to try one of the style of quilts from a blogger I follow - Crazy mum quilts

I have been following Amy's quilting adventures on how to free motion quilt. This is challenging me but I am also finding that new patterns and ideas are not as hard as they look. So this months challenge was grid quilting.

I drew all the lines on the quilt with taylors chalk at 60o angles.

It took me a wee while to work out how to continuously quilt the pattern, so I used a rough piece of paper to practice in pen before getting the quilt near the machine. I think next time I would do the pattern smaller. I love it though.

Super happy that this is another quilt for Hope Homes International.

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

Nearly there

Yay another quilt for charity completed. The goal of one quilt per child at Hope Homes Orphanage is getting closer.

This quilt was started by Jeanette at church a long way back when we all started quilting for charity. Before the earthquakes and before the storms. So Jeanette finished three of the rows and had sewn a lot of other blocks together. She used all donated material and just mixed up what came into her hand. I finished putting all the blocks in rows, sewed the rows together and then quilted and bound it.

I started the quilting on Thursday night, finished it on Friday night and bound it tonight. I tried a completely different quilting pattern to anything I have done before. I follow a blog by an amazing machine quilter Amy and she has been doing monthly challenges. This quilt pattern was last months (I chickened out on the last quilt and just put flowers) and I am thrilled to have done this as an all over pattern. My quilting is not good enough to worry about stitch length or regularity, I struggled to keep it all the same and even, but with practice things will get better.

I link to these places but especially Finish it up Friday and  and