Playing catch up..

Please don't confuse my lack of blogging for lack of activity... I'm pleased to say that we are settled in the new house (although there are still a few boxes haunting me) and the other house if FINALLY not my problem.. it's sold, settled and its new owners have moved in. Thank goodness. There were a few moments during the final moving/cleaning stage that were rather fraught with emotion/exhaustion. Have I mentioned that I hate moving house?

And my new house is unpacked enough that I have been able to sneak a few hours in my sewing room (my husband still thinks unpacking should be my first priority, followed by cleaning... but a girl needs to have some fun!)..

I don't think I ever revealed what I'd received in the QCA Handmade Swap. The lovely Jess from Scrappy n Happy sent me the most gorgeous little sewing kit, complete with embroidery scissors, applique needles & thread. She also enclosed some chocolate (I LOVE the Cadbury Marvellous Creations - it's fully of popping candy fun!) and fancy coffee sticks so I could sit down and check my gift out properly. The sewing kit has a matching needle book - both using a print from Bonnie & Camille's Ruby line.. one of my favourites! I especially love the measuring "tape" on the front. Jess, you'll be pleased to know that I could not live without those embroidery scissors!

All kitted out! Aren't I a lucky girl?

Speaking of swaps, I posted off my #talknt Handmade Swap gift.. and it made its way to Utah to live with @catann40. I made a mini quilt using a Swoon block, and this time I remembered to add hanging tabs! I really liked the way the mini turned out - it was incredibly hard to send it away.. good thing I've got lots more of that fabric! (I've actually decided to turn "my" Swoon quilt into a quilt for my Granddad... hopefully I can get that finished in time for Christmas!)

A closeup of my stippled quilting

I am dreadfully behind on my Craftsy BOM blocks.. I haven't done the July blocks yet, but if it makes any difference I used the tutorial for one of the August blocks to make Anorina's July QCA Bee block (which I made last week. In August. Woeful.). Anorina asked for a 12.5" star block of our choice, in grey/black/white/orange. I found some gorgeous black swirly and "galaxy" print fabric at Textile Traders, and used some orange from my stash. Bean really liked the block, he thought it looked like a Harry Potter star (whatever that is!).

I also made a start on McKenna's August block today. McKenna asked for a 16" feathered star block in the patriotic red, white & blue. So far I'm about halfway through cutting 48 1.5" HSTs.

I also finished piecing the nine patches for the quilt my husband wants me to make for a friend of his.. 64x 6.5" nine patches! Next I get to cut 64x 6.5" squares from my white background fabric so that I can turn all those nine patches into 128 nine patch HSTs. This quilt pattern is somewhat more labour intensive than the last two patterns I made out of Pam & Nicky Lintott's Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts. I think it will look really effective once it's done though.

6 down, 58 to go...

64 nine patches complete!

 And the last thing I've been working on is my project for the Practically Paper Piecing blog hop that Kristy from Quiet Play is hosting. I've actually finished my paper pieced block, and all I have to do now is turn it into a finished product. You'll just have to wait until next week to find out what it is!

Here's a sneak peek for you...

Linking up to:
  

Quilt Club Australia Handmade Swap Reveal!

Photo Courtesy of Caz @ The Accidental Quilter

Caz and Kristy from the Quilt Club Australia group recently coordinated the inaugural QCA Handmade Swap. For the last couple of months we've all been secretly working on our swap projects and posting the occasional sneak peek in the QCA Handmade Swap facebook page.. but the time has come and projects are being received left, right and centre! 

My secret swap partner was coordinator Caz herself.. who said she would like a doll quilt or a table runner, and loved "Aqua, Teal, Red, Grey, Purple, Orange (not all necessarily together, lol)". As far as stalking goes, Caz and I are both part of the QCA Craftsy BOM Support Group so I already knew that after doing our April hexy blocks that she had fallen in love with EPP... and she'd presioulsy mentioned on her blog that she was making a quilt for herself using Kate Spain's "Good Fortune". Well hello! Good Fortune pretty much ticks off all those colours (except red) AND I just happened to have a bag of GF scraps from Kate Spain herself..

So I prepared myself a little take along pack (I'm not quite as organised as Caz, I haven't gotten around to making myself a Zakka sewing kit for my EPP... still using a ziplock bag!) to take to the markets with me so that I could be productive during the quiet moments.

As you can see, there were enough quiet moments for me to pin and baste almost all my hexagons... infact there was enough time to baste them all, but my poor little needle clearly couldn't take the pressure and snapped in half with only 2 hexies left to baste! (insert swearing here - that will teach me not to carry a spare needle!)

Once I got home, found a new needle and basted the last 2 hexies I divided them out into orange/purple and then played around until I got them in an order that I liked before whip stitching them together. I knew that I wanted to put them on a grey background, and as luck would have it I had just enough left over from when I'd made my bee blocks.

Naturally I appliqued them onto the grey using my sewing machine! But how to quilt it? My hexies were mirror imaged, so I couldn't echo the zig zag because it would clash in the middle, and I didn't really think an all over FMQ design would suit... luckily Phillipa provided me with some inspiration. The week before she'd made her sister a table runner for her birthday and she'd quilted it using a wavy stitch that her machine offers (sooooo need a new machine! Mine only has 21 stitches, and for a start, buttonhole is NOT one of them!).. anyway, she very kindly let me use her machine to quilt my table runner using the same wavy stitch. I wanted it to be fairly organic in that aside from drawing a line down the middle of the table runner to mark the centre point, I just eyeballed the distance between lines and didn't worry about whether the waves were matchy matchy. I didn't want to quilt over the hexies, which I think was definitely the right move.

I cut some 2.5" strips from my GF scraps to make binding, and made a little label for my table runner using Daisy my embroidery machine (I remembered to applique that onto the backing - using Phillipa's buttonhole stitch - before I quilted it) and voila! It was complete!

I forgot to take any pictures of it all laid out nicely before I sent it off to Caz because I was trying to go with the whole sneak peek thing, but luckily for me when Caz received it she took some gorgeous photos of it and said I could share them with you all!

Photo Courtesy of Caz @ The Accidental Quilter

I am pleased to say that Caz was very happy with her table runner, and plans to use it on her dressing table to complement her Good Fortune quilt - how perfect was that?! I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and even more thrilled that Caz really likes her gift.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting ever so patiently for my postman to bring me my very own surprise gift.. stay tuned!