Life is beautiful

Here are some pics of my life is beautiful quilt. Ready for binding. But you know that will have to wait till Quiltober is over!

 I am really happy with the quilting. It finishes it off nicely.

this is the quilting design. The open spaces are where the circles are appliqued on.

Had a great catch up on my quilting last night. I can't believe I am down to the last 20 or so. One thing I did forget was the borders and quilting around the butterflies hopefully they will quilt quickly. So close now I can count how many are left.. Somewhere along the line I have miss counted how many I had done and the completed number is more than I thought.

 Lots to Happy dance about!!

20 flowers to go- 84 completed

4 leaves to go- 27 completed

Have a great weekend!

marina

ps. and it's ok my quilting arm doesn't look like this now! 

Thursday Day 4

Well here it is Day 4 and I wish there were so many more to come but there are only 6 days left (not including weekends)
Here are two pics of my Life is Beautiful top and my Heart and Home quilt top. The H & H was yesterday delivered to the quilters. In eight weeks I will have my lovely home again. I am so excited about it being finished!
Here is LIB with the border.  Spot the fur ball princess deciding to walk across the top as I took the photo.

and here is the H & H quilt

Have also done some of these.....

cream hexies to go around my flowers....

1 baby blanket finished, one quilted and one basted to quilt.

This one is on a flannelet fabric it is quite thick, as thick as blanketing but softer. It is lovely to touch. It is backed in a cotton and I hand stitched some pearl cotton around the border and around the bunny just to hold it together. Sweet I think.

My list should be going down nicely.
Note to self make sure items are not covered in dust before photographing. To prove that I dust occasionally Last week I vacuumed  my teddy collection, I won't confess when the last time I did it was but .....my wool embroidered bear was a sickly grey colour before I vacuumed, but now looks like this...I think he enjoyed the freshen up.

Bye for now
Marina

It is done!!

Last night I had a final all out effort at some sewing as next week it will be back to normal.
I have managed to finish my top for the Life is Beautiful quilt!
I was not leaving that sewing machine till it was done, or mostly done.
When I was sorting out the blocks for the background blocks I was so careful to arrange the colours so that there weren't any two together and that the colours were balanced, blah blah blah. Well after I had sewed the rows I realised that my blocks must have been mixed up in the process of stitching and restitching the medallions. I was so disappointed but I wasn't undoing every thing. Just will have to deal with it! (I feel borderline obsessive)
I did undo one row of sashing as the blocks didn't align properly and it was so 'captain obvious' I just had to. So this morning I unpicked and then resewed and sewed the last row on.
My top is only 7 X 7 rows and I am going to add a border too as I just like it to be framed like that.
so Ta Da, without further ado......
and Yes! Life is Beautiful!
Have a lovely weekend
Marina

LIB progress

I have been managing to spend some time productively on my Life is Beautiful blocks in between Easter weekend socialising and eating. Am almost over the cooking bug...thank goodness.
The most daunting part with putting the blocks together for me was how to cut out the circles at the back of the embroideries. Once that was mastered there was no stopping me.
I hand appliqued the stitched medallions onto the four patch blocks then ran the sewing machine around the edge with just some straight stitching as I couldn't seem to master blind hemming on my machine, I used the kiss principle-keep it simple stupid.

Here are all the cut out circles tacked to sew onto the alternate four patch blocks. I think they look quite cute. I tried hard to keep them circular.

The process of hand stitching them onto the blocks is quite time consuming but looks quite neat. I will have to work out whether I will machine stitch around them.....
It is great fun and quite challenging.
If there is some spare time I will start to cut out the sashings.
It is coming together quite nicely.......
Have a great day
Marina

LIfe is beautiful......

Well the title is true on quite a few levels. All is good in my universe, I have two weeks holidays, I am healthy, happy most of the time, have a wonderful family that I love, good loyal friends and did I mention I have two weeks holidays! Oh sorry about that, I did didn't I?
I have managed to finish my stitcheries for the Life is beautiful quilt and so these holidays I can start to attempt to sew them together. Now comes the hard part! I am looking forward to that.
I am only going to make it 7 X 7 rows as I would like it square so have not stitched all the designs.
If you check out the life is beautiful blog and go to 'show and tell' you can see some other colour combinations being used for this quilt. They are just wonderful. If you take a look at Ingrids blog she has made the most incredible quilts. She has a translator button which helps as her blog is in Dutch. It takes a bit to work it out as I think it translates literally so it can take a bit to decipher but it is well worth the visit.
I must admit it was the colours used by Helen that drew me to want to do this project but the other fabrics used are just so inspirational, I wish I had that talent to convert colours used like these other crafty ladies have done. I am not always very adventurous in my colour selections.
Here are some pics of the latest finished stitcheries....


(not sure if you can see the fabric clearly for the pineapples.... it is a fabric I chose for the background squares but it has a design just like the pattern of the outside of a pineapple. Just meant to be.....)
Well it is time to get off the computer and start some housework (shudder) and put out a tonne of washing, then off to shop for groceries, try to fit in a walk for the dogs, yada, yada, yada...... I don't know who calls this a day off? I think it is called a woman's day off-I wish I had a man's day off!
Have a good one!
Marina

Plodding along....

Monday is here again and I am getting to spend it at home. I have swapped my day off so that one of the other girls can take Friday off instead.
Feels a little strange being home on a Monday. I have flitted around tidying up and what to do next....... I know-catch up on blogs, obvious wasn't it?
I thought I would post my latest Life is Beautiful finishes...

I couldn't add much applique to the daisy block as the pieces would have been a bit small so I used a contrasting colour to make it a little different.

Bug in progress but I just love the fabric for the body. The original had stitched circles making up the body but I knew I wouldn't get them perfect so I thought a nice paisley would look good.

I am still waiting for an oppurtunity to sew up the four patch blocks that go behind the stitchery medallions, they are cut. This Saturday I should have to myself so the old Janome will be out and purring. I also have gotten behind with my Heart and Home bom. The last pattern should be out next week and I have to catch up. All the pieces to be sewn from last month are cut and safely put in marked zip lock pockets. I felt a little obsessive compulsive doing this but there are so many little pieces of different sizes. Just to get that machine out....
If I could have the rest of the week off, perhaps. I can imagine asking my boss.. could I please have the rest of the week off as I need to catch up with my bom's. ????
Well best get fired up and get ready to go hunting and gathering or there will be no dinner in this place tonight! What a waste of a day off.
Have a great week.
Marina

up and down like a yo yo........

Last night I couldn't be bothered focusing on anything in particular so I thought I would go through my stash and cut some squares to make yo yos. I got quite carried away and made heaps. I don't know what I am going to do with them but they were a lovely time filler and I do love them all together. I will add to them when the mood strikes, in the meantime they will just look prettiful.......

I also have been working on my Life is Beautiful stitcheries so here are some update pics . I have got some ready to applique onto the 4 patch blocks.........
My stash for the blocks just needed a few more colours to add to the browns so Mum and I headed off to Harmony Quilts in Lancefield. They specialise in Thimbleberries fabrics so it was only fitting that the first and last fabrics for the stash came from there. Some of the other fabrics were a birthday present from Els in the Netherlands. Tonight I will attempt to make a start on cutting the squares. I can feel it coming together...

These are the medallions ready to applique .........

I am a bit of a collector not always by choice but sometimes by default!
You find one thing that you like and you display it, then everyone assumes you just have to have many more! With biscuit tins more is definitely not less.
I had a few lovely biscuit tins (and they were a lovely small collection) and then they just multiplied. ...
So here is part of the collection that sort of grew on it's own. Every year another Anzac tin is issued for Anzac Day and we just don't want to miss out on it so they have started to pile up....if we don't buy one some one else makes sure we don't miss out. Each tin has a small leaflet explaining the significance of the picture on the front of the tin. Some are quite touching.
I use them to store things, one may have cottons, one a project on the go, another crochet cotton.. and so. Thing is I have to remember which one has what in it.
My Jemima Puddleduck tin is now storing my yo yo's (in pic above).
I will show some of my other tins in future posts and show another collection that grew on it's own without much input on my behalf. You gotta love it.

So off to cutting 4 1/2 inch squares.

cheers
Marina
ps. not long till Dorothy's new stitchery pattern for February!

some alterations and some newbies.....

I am half way through my first batch of traced Life is Beautiful stitcheries. I am going to do all the stitcheries first then put them together on the blocks as that also gives me a chance to get some extra fabrics for my stash. They will be 'holiday' projects.
I have added some 'extr'a to the owl as it just seemed to not have a complete body. Now I am happy.



todays agenda will include cutting and ironing on applique pieces for my Heart and Home border. The shop accidentally sent me block 5 instead of block 4. So I have missed a house block. I am not fussed as I have been busting to do the first borders. They have appliqued trees with cute rabbits at the base. So cute!
Have a great day!
Marina
(only two more days of stress free bliss to go.....)

chillin' with my boys

This morning I had a doggy 'play date' with a work friend who has a golden retriever.
We went to the local reservoir and coffee and monty showed miss Sophia how to swim. Sophia just couldn't commit to swimming no matter how much she wanted to go in on the inside. She did fall in once and had a good swim but she just wouldn't go back in. Coffee and Monty fetched their bumpers for about an hour. They had a ball. Today the temp is due to get up to 35 degrees so they have had a big chill out to survive the day.

I received two goodies in the mail this week. One is some fabric I bought on e-bay to start my Life is Beautiful stitching. I have cut out some squares, traced 7 and done the applique. I just have to decide on the stitching colour.
Helen recommends a fusible wash away stabiliser. The one I have found on the internet is quite expensive and I am not sure whether to use it or not. Has anyone used this Floriani stitch and wash?
My brown and cream stash is ready to use for this project too. I just want a few more colours to contrast....

The background fabric for the stitcheries is from the Aviary range. I just love it.


I am looking forward to starting but the more I read the pattern the more daunting it seems. Nothing like a challenge!


My second mail treat was a lovely card from Kymberly which had a pattern in it.
It looks great and could make a dent in my fabric stash or I could just get a heap of new fabrics to make it!

Isn't it great.
Have a lovely weekend
Cheers
Marina

Life is beautiful give away

Helen Stubbings is having a great giveaway for her new pattern 'Life is Beautiful'.
It looks divine and I would love a new project to work on. It includes the most beautiful stitcheries. If you click on the photo it should zip you over to the post on Helen's blog about it.
There is also a blog just to do with this bom.
All you have to do is
1.leave a comment with a quote on Helen's blog.
2.put up your own blog post with your quote, a photo of the quilt and a link to Helen's post.
3.stop for 5 minutes and think…

My quote is

A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.

A good friend gave me a card with this quote on it and I really love it. I think of her when I read it. Memory failing is a sensitive issue for me.

I haven't been able to post what little I have been stitching as it is for my christmas swap gift. I have traced Dorothy's new block for Summer nostalgia and am itching to start it but I am stressing about meeting the swap deadline so that is priority project for now.
cheers for now
Marina