Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge Week 38: Walking Feet

Good morning from a cool but still Hastings day.

As you know from my posts over the weekend I have spent my time quilting.  Then I realised how slow I was.  A couple of weeks ago Cee gave us the challenge of finding feet/shoes for her Fun Foto Challenge. I used photos of a bird, butterfly and bee.

That was when I had my light bulb moment.  I have lots of feet.  Feet for my sewing machine.  This one is called a walking foot.  It is specifically for quilting and allows the machine to move several layers of fabric and batting to stop the puckers.

So I am using it today.

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: Week 38

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/cees-oddball-photo-challenge-week-38-midwest-oddballs/

Thanks for visiting.

Advertisement

The Daily Post: Achievement

Good morning from a grey Hastings morning.  Apparently we are to have a rather hot day today.  Which is not really what I want as I have to quilt today.  The heat isn’t good for my sewing machine.

It is rather apt that I am quilting today for this challenge by The Daily Post.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/achievement/

Just this week I posted this photo of an antique quilt that I have just finished – it took about 18 months to finish.

So I thought I would show some of my other achievements.

The top photo is a McKenna Ryan quilt which also took about a year to do – it was a block of the month but that took 9 months to get so I could be excused there.

This is a chalk board that I quilted with a special fabric.  My daughter is going to take it down to Wellington next year when she goes to university and moves in with her friends.

My daughter is absolutely nuts about cats.  So I made her bed cover with cats embroidered on it.  Ex-hubby took the kids away for a long weekend so I took advantage of the alone time and spent the whole weekend embroidering all the cats.  I had just brought my first major embroidery sewing machine by Husqvarna, along with the software.  It came with a lot of clip art so I just went through and found all the cats and worked on those.

Some more details.

Even Ruth could cuddle up to her cats with her pillow.

This is Ruth’s achievement.  I taught her to embroider with the machine as well so she made this cute little pillow.

She still uses this, about 7 years later and it is still in good condition, considering it is white.

The next project I did was this Holden cover for my son.  At the time he was crazy about Holden.  He was given a Holden jacket which he constantly wore.  I went to a car show and took photos of the Holden motives and then used my programme to change the photos into embroidery.

Some of the details.

He is so over this cover, but still uses it.

For those who don’t know what I am talking about – i.e. those outside of Australia and New Zealand, Holden is a classic car indigenous to Australia and New Zealand.  It is marketed as Vauxhill in England.  There is a fierce rivalry between Ford and Holden in the Super V8 car races – such as Bathurst.  No I am not a car fanatic but I do have a Holden raincoat myself – it is a really good coat, that is all.

Here is some details of another quilt I did for myself.

Now it will be an achievement for me to actually finish a quilt in a matter of weeks, and not months.

This is what I will be quilting today.  The kitchen table has been reserved and hopefully my children will be out all day and I can do it in peace. This was my first real pieced quilt so I am proud of this achievement, and that I worked on it diligently to get this far.

I will post a photo of the finished quilt.

http://esengasvoice.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://hopethehappyhugger.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/more-a-desire/

Victory is Mine!

Churchill’s Greatest Achievment

Thanks for visiting and I hope everyone achieves something good today.

A Photo a Week: My bucket list

This is an interesting prompt from Nancy this week:

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/a-photo-a-week-challenge-bucket-list/

When I was still at school I had a bucket list of sorts.  I loved history and being in New Zealand we were so far away from where the action was so to speak.  Many Kiwis traveled overseas – it is called the OE – Overseas Experience.  Mine lasted 15 years. So here is some of the things I wanted to do and see.

1. After reading about Bonnie Prince Charlie I had to go to Scotland and see the Island of Skye – done.

2. After reading about the princes in the tower I wanted to see the Tower of London – done.

3.  I was fascinated by Henry VIII so Hampton Court was on my list as well – done.

4. Paris was also on my list – done.

5. Rome also done.

6. After watching all the Cold War movies I was fascinated with the Iron Curtain.  I managed to get to Berlin before and after the wall came down.  This was really interesting – I have quite a few stories to tell from this city.

7.  I was also fascinated by the history of Russia and in particular the Russian Revolution and the fate of the royal family.  Anyway I had a math teacher (the best math teacher I ever had), anyway he was a weightlifter and traveled to Russia for the Olympic Games when they were boycotted.  When we had done all our work he would tell us all about his experience in Russia.  So going to Russia was top of my list.  I got there and it was incredible, especially as it was just as Glasnost and Peristroika was becoming prevalent but it was still behind the Iron Curtain.  I also have a few stories to tell from there.

8. Skiing in Austria – done – but ended up there for 11 years and came away with two children.

That was just a few of my bucket list from that time.

So why have I got photos of quilted blocks?  Well my bucket list is much more mundane these days.  It is more about finishing all the UFO’s in my sewing room – for those not in the know UFO – Un -finished Objects – get it?

This quilt is a block of the month antique quilt I started last year but among all my troubles this year it has never been finished.  So that is my priority.  Part of the reason is that there are 64 small blocks such as this one, and 9 large blocks.  I think the size also tended to put me off.  Anyway yesterday I dragged it out of the closet and started to finish all the applique.  I was actually onto my last 5 large squares.  I had the great ambition to sew all the details by hand.  But I gave that up when I saw it and so headed to the sewing machine.  So I managed to finish those last 5 blocks in a couple of hours.  I would have been at it all week.  Since this is a long weekend – Labour Weekend here in New Zealand, it is a good time to concentrate on it.

So for those who liked my post on the colour of mint here is the finished quilt.

Actually another item on my list is to learn new techniques and I certainly did with this quilt.  Now I have to save up the money for the batting and backing fabric.

https://decocraftsdigicrafts.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/one-word-photo-challenge-mint/

Thanks for visiting.

One Word Photo challenge: Mint

This week Jennifer has come up with the colour mint.  I love this colour though I don’t tend to take a lot of photos of it.

Then I realised that I did have some of this colour around.  I am starting to feel better – maybe the warmer weather is helping.  So I have started this quilt for my step daughter and her husband.  It is a joint house warming and Christmas present.  Though I have taken an easy way out – most of the fabric is precut which makes it a lot easier for me, as well as quicker.  Christmas is just around the corner.  It is not my first quilt I have made but this will definitely be my biggest.  The block shown is called the Rose Crown

Lisa really wants a pink  quilt but she also uses mint and teal a lot in her nail art so I hope she will be happy with it.

This is the Fanciful quilt which I picked up from our Spotlight store, with 12 large blocks and patterned stripes around them.

I hope that I can finish it in time – if I do a block a day I will be happy.

One Word Photo Challenge: Mint

One Word Photo Challenge – Mint

Thanks for visiting and I will catch up with you all tonight.  The iPad has some awesome emoticons which I think some of you have noticed.

Fair and Square

 

Good morning from another glorious Hastings day.

Time for my weekly update on the quilt I am slowly doing each week.  This week it is the Fair and Square block.  This one is a very easy one to do as it is just the basic square and triangle pieces.  It only took about 10 minutes to do.

I like the fact that I am making blocks that have been used for centuries, such as this one which is found among the 19th century Amish community in Pennsylvania.  They used this block as a single large one as their quilt, but is really affective as a repeating motif.  It is also known as diamond in the square.  The square, when rotated 45degrees stands on one corner, or en pointe as they say in the ballet world.

This is the 18th block so far.  This is such a great way of learning about the traditions of quilting as well as improving my imaging skills.  I was explaining my love of quilting to someone early in the week.  I have just recently finished reading the Anne of Green Gables stories (never did read them all as a child).  In the turn of the century in that corner of the world quilting was a big part of their lives.  There was a quilting group in every town and everyone got together to make quilts for the needy, or whoever was getting married.  Commercial blankets did not exist back then.  A sign of social standing was indicated by how well the quilts were made.  But it was also a sign of love as well.  It was known as a comforter as well.  There is something in making by hand an item that will bring warmth and comfort to your loved ones.  But it was also a means of socialising, no doubt gossiping as well.  This is so sadly lacking today.

Enough of the philosophising.  The above image is from iScrapbooking. Then I decided to photoshop it and see what I can do with the same images.

This is using the same images but this time I turned the image of the block into an PNG image and turned it around to make it more natural, that the girl is holding it up to present.  Again the machine embroidery is by Sue Fox.

There are a couple of new embellishments from last week as well.

 

I think I will take some more photos of the original quilt and see if I can tweak it a bit.

So it is a beautiful day, time for some breakfast and then another photo hunt.

Cheers and have a nice day,

Raewyn

 

Nelson’s Victory

Good morning from a windy Hastings this morning.  The spring winds have arrived to play havoc with my photography.  It is hard to take a photo when the bush is moving frantically in the wind.

So I moved indoors for this weekly quilting block.

It is called Nelson’s Victory and commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar and the flagship of Lord Nelson – HMS Victory.  It was first documented under this name in 1906. A century later! As the triangle and small square make up a larger square it can be changed around to make different designs including a three dimensional affect.  As you can see I am getting better at the set in squares and joining the points accurately.  This is a really great way of learning new skills with out the pressure of a full quilt at once.

So for the scrapbooking I looked at another hanging quilt I had done some years ago with machine embroidery.  The embroidery design is by Sue Fox.  I just love her designs as they are so accurate and well filled in.

 

I then took photos of various designs of this and then edited them very slightly to make them into background paper.

This one is just to the left of the first photo of the quilt.  I just love this little kitten worn out from playing with the wool.

Then I thought about what tools are needed for quilting and took photos of them.  I then spent all last night working on making the into embellishments in Photoshop.  Finally I managed it.

 

I added the iron as that is  so important to get good lines and makes it easier to join the seams.  The unpicker is also crucial.  I use it constantly.  Sometimes the seams don’t join up accurately so of course it has to be undone.

Then I just added some lace at the bottom.

The cream font is ‘Discover Beauty’ while the writing on the journal is ‘Noteworthy”.

Have fun with this block.

Time to brave the elements and go for a quick walk before my family get up.

Cheers and have a nice day.

Raewyn

 

 

The Art of Quilting – weekly blocks

I love quilting and have made four so far and have about 4 others on the go.  I decided I would love to know the history of the different blocks while sewing them into a quilt so joined up with the weekly magazine The Art of Quilting.  I found a really good iScrapbooking kit called the Vintage Quilt kit with these papers and embellishments.  Another kit I used was the Seamstress kit.  It is a great way to keep the information about the individual blocks as well as showcasing how I am progressing as each block gets more and more complicated.

Here are the other pages I have done so far.

The ShooFly block.

Basket of Flowers.

Windmill Sails.

The Trafalgar Block.

The windmill block.

The Cactus Pot

The Diamond Square.

The whirlwind block.

The Sailboat.

The Chequer Square

The Double Four patch.

The Sawtooth Star.

The Sawtooth Star.

The Windmill Sails Square.

As you can see some are more similar than others.  In the beginning I begun with a blank page and then built up the image.  Then I discovered the smart template that made things so much easier.  The layout was already there.  It was just a matter of clicking and dragging the photo over and then the papers and embellishment.  I could be pedantic and go back over the first ones and use the template but this is just as much about improving my scrapbooking skills as about the quilt blocks themselves.

I will set up a new blog and explain each one but that as they say is another matter.

Time to log off.

Cheers and have a good night.