And the winning colour....

 So here was my pattern design. You can't see all the rough scribbles just off the page. It was fun playing around with different block ideas. Some where just one off type blocks, others were how combinations of blocks would work. It was fun.

 I went with the blue. It was funny, I got some comments on the last posting, they came after I had started cutting and blue was the winner there too. Blair was the only person who "voted" for the white. I am debating about putting a blue border or leaving it as is. It might over power it. I will have a think about it.

I have come up with my next design already. Have started working on it. Hopefully I will get to make a start on it a bit later tonight. I am quite excited about it, it is going to match the bunting I made a week or so ago. I think it will make the perfect gift. Well to be honest I have sort of made a start, done all the cutting and a bit of paper cutting and sticking. I do like to finish one project before I start the next. Well finish the top before starting another top.

I think I am going to sweet for when these babies all start arriving. Dr Seuss has gone to its home. The mum was very happy. I was sad to say goodbye to it. At least it is only to next door so I can visit.

Tx

What to do????

 Over the last few nights I have been pottering away, laying out fabrics, looking at them and today I sewed them together. But I only sewed parts of the strips together because I can't decide what colour to put in the middle for the big squares. All along I thought a cream of some sort. Then I remebered I had this blue.

Then I went back to a light colour, not white, but something light. Now I am completely unsure. The blue is different to what I have been playing around with so I quite like it, but I wonder if it will make the quilt a bit dark. The wee blocks have a bit of brown in them and well I just don't know any more. The blue, in its positive side is I have it. Right here and now so I could finish the top off tomorrow. If I went for a lighter colour I still have to work out what colour, then find the shade and then find time to buy it.

Just not sure....

This week is busy already, have another blood test 2 hours this time, another growth scan and an appointment at the hospital as my care has been turned over to them. I am not phased as I do believe intervention and a live baby is a much better outcome than standing back and things not going well. So not sure when I would fit in time to do a bit of fabric shopping, plus we have parent teacher interviews this week, Blairs working days, both working this weekend... The list seems to go on a bit. Plus I really want to finish this quilt, I think it will be cute what ever I end up do I guess. I should just start cutting the blue.

Tx

Sad Day

I knew I had to do it, there was starting to be a silly amount of quilts slowly building up. I have listing one on Etsy.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/105228728/cot-quilt-wonky-9-patch-brights-and-pink?ref=pr_shop

It is hard as I don't really want to part with it, the fabrics are all things I have made for Adele. At the same time I love creating and want to create more quilts. I may have even cut out another one today. AND if I sell this quilt I can buy more fabrics. Plus I guess I did make the smaller quilt out of the same fabrics so I still have a quilt of memory fabrics. Plus it would be great if someone else got a little happiness out of one of my quilts. So really a happy day.

Moving on, Adele has been using her new quilt. I really love it, but I can not for the life of me get it to photograph all that well. So please do take my word that it does look very nice.

There is a lot of light colours so hopefully it doesn't get too dirty. She is three so I am guessing it will.

So as I mentioned I did a bit of cutting today. A whole bunch of 3 inch squares from my Amy Butler fabric. Did you know if you google graph paper you can print out an A4 of well a grid. I was very excited about this. I have printed off a few and been trying out some ideas I have seen on the net. I have my plan, to scale now, and have started cutting. The little geek in me was super duper excited about this. My son was doing his home work and I got his pens and was drawing away too. It is only going to be a 34 inch quilt. I still need to work out what to contrast the Butler fabric with, but I am pretty excited about it all.

I might just go start sewing some bits together. There is a bit I can do without the contrasting fabric. My husband is at work, so makes perfect sense to me!

Off to the midwife tomorrow. Get the results from a scan. This baby is on track to be bigger than the other two (who were pretty huge) so we might just be meeting her a little bit sooner than her due date. I am really hoping to get a bit more information at tomorrows appointment. I am worried but not worried if that makes sense. I know she will be healthy, just worried the logistics of her coming out. Ryan needed a lot of help, all I can say is his poor head, lucky it didn't get pulled right off! But no point in worrying about it now, I have a quilt to make!!!!!

Tx

Intervention Required

I made another quilt. And I have fallen in love with it, so now the baby has another quilt. I could give away the other quilt but I am rather fond of that too. Plus I have a kids quilting pattern book on the way and of course I have my lovely fabrics, plus I may have been trying to recreate a couple of designs I saw on the Internet. Complete with graph paper and all.

 So here is my new baby. Well not my really new baby, but my baby quilt :) I used the Charm Park of Good Fortune By Kate Spain. Then I teamed it with the left over cream from Adele's quilt. This made me rather sentimental about it as then the girls can have a matching sort of quilt.

I can honestly say whilst I was making it I was not fond of it. I cut the cream fabric really poorly. So the squares weren't square and then when I started making the pinwheels they were really not square and then when I thought I had squared them and started sewing them together nothing matched up and it looked a bit terrible. It was a bit too far down the track to start again, so I added a 1.5 (so one after sewing) inch border to the blocks. Now you can't really tell that nothing lines up. It did, of course, make it a bit bigger so I was worried that I wouldn't have enough fabric left to make all the prairie points. But I had just enough. Not one left over. So perfect. As I sit and write this and look at it on the ground I can see it is a bit wavy so not really sure how well it will quilt together. I am tempted to take it to the shop and get it done, but really that would be a bit naughty as I am determined to quilt all my own smaller quilts. A bit of a nightmare project that now I love. Funny how that happens! I have no batting at the moment so quilting will have to wait anyway.

So this one is almost finished and all I can think of is this pattern I saw on the net. No, I can't start another one!!!! But, it will only use scraps so does that even count ;)

Tx

A bit of new fabric

I love Etsy, I love just looking at what people make, I love seeing new fabrics, I love buying stuff from there. I just love it.

Been in NZ sometimes the latest fabric lines can take a little tiny bit longer to make it to us. We are out of season with the US and a great deal of fabric is made there. Sometimes I don't want to wait. Plus I really wanted some Charm Packs. I have used jelly rolls and layer cakes. I wanted to try something a bit different. A charm pack is a range of fabrics cut at 5 inch squares. I have been using a lot of 5 inch squares so really I could keep cutting my own, it really isn't that hard. But them come so nicely square and packaged and it is a whole heap of different fabrics, a great way to see a whole range. Plus, I am bad (according to some bloggers), I like to use a matching range. I don't do it all the time, but some times I do and it makes me happy. Sometimes I use scraps and that makes me happy too.

There are lots of fabric suppliers on Etsy, selling bits and pieces to loads! I used

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lilybellafabrics?ref=pr_faveshops

Their overseas postage seemed pretty good to New Zealand. A lot of the time that is the kicker. You can find things way cheaper, but the postage makes it expensive. Using this site it came out under $20, to buy from NZ sites it is over $20. I brought four packs for $59 including postage and to do the same from NZ, although older ranges, would have been $88 plus postage. So I was pretty happy. Very happy!!!

So I brought (top to bottom), Good Fortune, by Kate Spain. Little Apples, by Aneela Hoey. Lucy's Crab Shack, by Sweetwater and Gypsy Caravan, by Amy Butler. The Amy Butler one I believe is a re-release of her first line. Maybe, maybe not but it is lovely and 6 inch squares.

I can't wait to start cutting into these. The problem is now I can't decide what to do with them. I am a bit scare to cut them. What if I don't do them justice!!!!I can't replace them.

Right, I have so much house work to do, yuck, and then maybe I will cut into one of the packs. I am thinking of making

http://www.modabakeshop.com/2009/03/pinwheel-baby-quilt.html?spref=fb

This baby quilt. For my baby. She only has two so far. I was going to make a Dr Seuss for her too, maybe not now. How many quilts does one baby need? And I am sort of being selfish, I don't want to share my lovely fabrics. Isn't that terrible. I could make her two new quilts and give away the old (but brand new) quilts. I think I might be going quilt crazy lol!! No I think i am.

I am joking, I am sure I will share. Maybe

Tx

A quilting sort of day

 Today is an awful day. Wet, windy and cold. Last night I was reading over one of my quilting books, Scrap Republic by Emily Cier and I came across (for the hundredth time) the Plumb quilt. The whole book is about de-stashing and using scraps. Making the most of what you already have. I have liked this one for a while, though parts of it were a bit scrappy for my liking. Don't get me wrong, I do like a good scrappy quilt too, but just for my mathematical mind I need order and exact-ness.

I pulled out all my scraps, even scraps I had forgotten about and found all the bits I needed. I have quite a bit more fabric than I knew about. In fact I could make every quilt in the book and not need to buy any fabric for the tops. Plus I didn't even open my chest I have filled with fabric. Feels good to be using what I have.

The top is meant to have a row of yellow as well, but I have no yellow scraps or yellow fabric at all. So I added pink. The book also had a row of purple, which I could have done but decided to do blue and turquoise, it is meant to be a neutral quilt. But I guess it is sort of more girlie.

This baby quilt, well, I did a count up and wrote down due dates of baby's of friends that are due soon. There are six!!!! All before the 21 Jan. It is a little bit crazy really. Some I will make quilts for, some I wont. One friend quilts herself so I am sure she will go nuts making one once she finds out what she is having.

I am happy with how it has turned out. The idea is that you start with the light colours and go down the strip until you get to the dark colours. Not sure what to back it with and the binding yet. I hope to sort that out this week. I need some batting so will have a good look round Spotlight for something that will work.

I am really enjoying making these baby quilts. Hopefully people will enjoy recieving them as much.

Tx

The Abbey Skirt

 This has to be the easiest skirt in the world!! I called an Abbey skirt as my friend made one for her daughter, Abbey. We sort of knocked one off a skirt she had brought her daughter from Farmers.

So all you do is measure a thick elastic around the tummy, lay the elastic across the width of fabric and cut the fabric about 10 cm longer than the elastic to a length that suits your wee miss. Join the elastic to make a circle, do the same with the fabric. I over locked the top of the skirt. Mark and match quarter measurements for the skirt and the elastic. The fabric sits flat inside the elastic. Then stretch the elastic to the fabric and sew together. I sewed it together with two rows of stitching.

It takes maybe 20 mins from start to finish.

The fabric is from Spotlight I think. It has been sitting round for a while. It is a nice winter weight denim and embroidered stars. Adele calls it her twinkle twinkle skirt.

Striking a pose!

I put the last of the binding on MY quilt. I am so looking forward to going to bed tonight.

School holidays finish this weekend. I know the kids are ready to get back to their activities, I love having them at home with me. Back to being busy, rushing and not as many crafting "things" done. I certainly enjoy the more relaxed feeling of the holidays.

Tx

Finally...

I finished this ages and ages ago. But because wanted to get in quilted at Donna's I knew I had to save up a whole heap of money. It is a huge quilt 2m by 2.4 m I think. There is a lot of over hang off our bed AND I wanted in backed with cuddle fabric and that is about $40 a metre and again I was going to need a whole heap of it! So part of why I set up Silly Goose is so I could pay for my quilting and fancy fabrics without having to use the household budget. We live on a newish lifestyle block, there is heaps of work that need doing, toughs, trees and fencing to name a few. So there isn't a lot of money for me to spending on my hobby. Being fair it is my hobby and if it is a choice between farm stuff and hobby stuff, farm stuff wins. Sooooooo Silly Goose was born and a few more quilts have been produced, I am happy, Blair is happy, a win win really.

 As it is a quilt for our bed all I asked was for the quilting not to be floral or too girlie. The fabrics are pretty, well, pretty so I tried to tamed it down a bit. On the back I put a dark navy cuddle. Again trying to be a bit more boy like.

I have started the binding, I used the same white as the squares. I really wanted to see what it looked like on our bed. I need some new linen now. Gosh those pillows are yuck! We have black curtains so the colours look really vibrant and I really love it. The cuddle fabric makes it so so heavy. I asked for it to be a nice winter weight and it certainly is! Today I hope to finish off the binding so we can use it tonight.

Now to make one for our bed over at the beach.... Going to have to sell a whole bunch of leggings xx

Tx

Family Free Day

My in-laws have a teaching background and since it is the school holidays, they are on holiday. Well at least not going into work for a few weeks. Every holidays,if it suits, the kids going to their place for two nights. Both sides look forward to it and I think both sides are super exhausted after the two nights. This time, as both Blair and I were working on the Monday, I asked if they could please come for three nights. They said yes, wahoo!!!!!!! This meant I had Tuesday ALL TO MYSELF! Blair was working a day shift so he leaves pretty early and would get home about 4 ish. I moved my sewing machine and all my stuff to the kitchen table, put E TV on and started sewing and cutting. And catching up on a bit of gossip.

I had brought 9 fat quarters I think and wasn't 100 % sure what I wanted to do with them. All I knew was large blocks to show case the beautiful fabric. I looked through books and complete quilts on Etsy and came across this pattern. I think that jelly rolls are quite commonly used to make the pattern, instead of the 2.5 inch jelly roll size I used 3.5 so all my blocks came out at 15.5 inch.

The photos don't do the fabrics justice at all! They are beautiful shades of purple and greens with a tiny bit of grey. The back ground is cream. So from Spotlight I found a cream with a printed cream pattern on it, sort of a paisley design. I had been talking through my design idea with a lady from work, she pretty much told me it wouldn't work. I think it does! Thankfully!! I am going to put a boarder around it but can't think what to do. I have a bit of the fabric left over so thinking cream, then 3.5 inch blocks randomly around and then a final cream boarder, so an additional three boarders.

I was a bit gutted about the lady telling me my idea sucked as I wasn't asking for her help, I was telling her what my plan was. I am finding that a bit lately, you tell people a plan or idea and they are quite happy to tell you they don't like it. Usually you are telling them with a bit of excitement and it sort of deflates you. When we would tell people that we were naming Adele... Adele, the amount of people who told us they didn't like that name, I thought rude. Especially as I usually had told them the whole reason behind the name before I even said it. Oh well lucky I have thick skin most of the time!!

This is my morning. I over filled my tart pastry and it went every where. At least the skirting boards in the kitchen are clean now.

It better taste good! It is the first time I have made so who really knows until it is out of the oven.

Tx

A bit of Dr Seuss

A friend is about to have a baby in the next few weeks. So really any day now. So I thought I better get myself sorted and get a present made for her and the new addition to be. Her and her husband didn't find out what they are having and usually I would wait and make something once the baby is born. But since I am two months away myself I thought I would make it now and not have to rush.

I have seen this Dr Seuss fabric all over the net and I thought how lovely it is and very much unisex. I love it so much that I am rather pleased I have enough to make another quilt top the same.

I think it is call a stacked Coins pattern or something. So what I did was 6 fat quarters of different fabrics, cut them into 3 inch strips. With the strips cut them into 6 inch blocks. So each little block was 3 x 6 inches.  Then I stacked the "coins" on top of each other so I had four piles of twelve. The white is three inches wide and the boarder is the same. It ends up about 32 by 36 inches I think. I bit bigger than a bassinet size but a bit smaller than a cot. So a perfect pram or day type blanket.

I love the bright colours. Like I said above I have enough to make another quilt like this. I have another unisex baby to sort a gift for. I thought I could make one for that baby too, but now I have seen it finished I rather quite fancy one for my baby.  I don't know what to do.

There is some really nice stripe of these colours. The shop assistant tried talking me into getting some, at the time I wasn't that fussed. Now I think it would make perfect binding so I might go get some tomorrow. Not sure what to use as the backing. Maybe some nice blue fabric, something plain I think.

See, getting loads of projects sorted.

Tx

My new Baby Bag

 Ages ago (as per usual at the moment) I saw this pattern on Etsy. I really liked it, just for a bag, I even had fabric for it. But the mood never really took me to make it. I carried the pattern and the fabric round with me for ages, just waiting for the mood to take me. Never happened!

Then for some reason I thought it was time. Then the problem was I didn't like my fabric for the bag any more. I still liked the fabric, just not for my bag. Since it was time to make it, I went into town, it was a Sunday, the store I wanted wasn't open. I had to go to Spotlight. I don't have an issue with Spotlight, I just wanted to treat myself to something a bit fancy. No worries I thought I would hit the quilting fabrics there. In the end I found three fabrics I loved and even better, they were all on special. So really ended up being a complete win win situation!

I really struggled with what fabrics I was going to use in each place. I love the pop of red of the flowers but didn't want it to be the main focus of the bag. But I really loved it. In the end I think I got the colours round the way I liked the best. I think, I am pretty sure. I guess it is done now so I have to like it.

The inside has a few pockets, I wasn't going to put them all in, since it is a baby bag I thought I might need them. I did make the pockets into more sections. Nothing worse than the need for wipes and you can't find them.

I have a little bit of this fabric left over, not a whole but I think enough to make a change mat. I have seen a really cool one that folds up with the wipes and nappies as part of the mat, but I can't find the pattern for it. Pretty sure I could wing it though. I am also thinking of maybe using the remaining fabric to make a small quilt as I have a few friends about to have babies. It is a hard choice. I am sure I have time to think about it. Maybe.

Tx