blue diagonal quilt - a finish

I finished hand-sewing the binding of the blue diagonal quilt last night and sewed on the tartan bee label this morning. I love it!

My quilt holder obliged me by turning the diagonals the other way.

And then he suggested he held it on the diagonal. Why? No idea. I photographed it anyway! :oD

The diagonal quilting shows up quite nicely on the blue fleece.

And this photo shows the quilting on the front and the stripey binding. And you catch a glimpse of the Farmer's Wife quilt on the wall behind it. (Posts about that can be found here. Be warned, there are a lot of them!)

I have plans for what my next quilt will be. I've even got the bits cut out for it but I don't think I'll start it for a wee while. Unless the urge takes me, of course! :o)

nearly there

I got a lot of work done on the blue diagonal quilt today. First I pinned the top to the royal blue fleece backing.

Then I quilted it in blue thread, ¼" away from the seam lines only quilting on the white fabric so that the blue thread would show up.

I used white thread in the bobbin - I like how it shows up on the blue fleece but isn't shouting out that it's not the right colour.

I then searched my piles of fabric for the blue and white stripe that I knew I had for making the binding. I looked through all of the piles 3 times and it wasn't there. I don't remember using it but I must have. Anyway, it wasn't there so I had to choose something else. In the end, I think it's an inspired choice and probably better than the blue and white stripe would have been!

I machine stitched the binding on to the quilt top -

And then started hand-sewing it to the back.

It's not quite finished but hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow.

no zigzagging here!

Over the weekend, I decided to do the layout of the blue zigzag quilt. As I was laying it on our bed - who needs a design wall? :oD - I kept mistakingly putting it down in diagonals instead of zigzags. It was almost as if the quilt was telling me it wanted to be different from the pink version so I went with the idea.

I spent some time on Saturday and some time today sewing each of the rows together.

Then pressing them:

And then I joined them all together to finish the quilt top.

All I need to do now is put it on the blue fleece I already have lined up for the backing, quilt it and then decide on, make and attach the binding.

Now, the way I've written all of that makes it seem like everything went swimmingly, doesn't it? Well, let me show you this picture of a small dog who obviously didn't care for the lovely layout I was making! I'm sure you can see she's cackling in this photo! Silly Tilly! :oD

a blue zigzag quilt

Back in June, when I was making this pink zigzag quilt:

(blogged about here) ... I knew I wanted to make a blue version too. I got down to starting it last week. First I cut out 72 x 4½" squares in blue fabrics.

Then I cut out 72 white 4½" squares.

I drew lines down one of the diagonals on all of the white squares:

And sewed a blue to a white square sewing ¼" each side of the drawn lines.

Then I cut them all apart on the drawn lines:

Then pressed them open:

And cut off all the dog ears:

And that's as far as I went. I've decided I want to do some dressmaking this week so they'll just sit tidily in their box waiting until I can be bothered to do the next bit! :o)

sewing for Maple & Thistle

Last week was spent with my nose to the grindstone sewing machine sewing things for Debbie & Jason's Maple & Thistle shop in Perth. They were running low on tartan bee stock so I sewed and sewed and sewed.

To save posting the 19 photos I took of everything I made, I played around in my Photoshop and made combinations of them all. First of all, more calico and tartan appliquée bags:

8 shopping bags:

In total I gave them 19 shopping bags of one kind or another.

Then there were the 18 pinnies - there are 2 pinnies of some of the designs:

I was really pleased with how much I got done and Debbie and Jason were delighted to have more of my stuff to sell. Let's hope the good people of Perth and summer visitors think so too!

Debbie's birthday tea

We had a birthday tea for Debbie yesterday. I do love a good birthday tea! :o)

We had sandwiches:

Fruit:

Lots of sweeties:

Sticky krispie cakes:

Sausage rolls, more sandwiches and more sweeties:

Sausages and cheese on sticks:

And lastly, Debbie's favourite sweeties - dolly mixtures.

There wasn't much on the table that was good for us but that's why birthday teas are so great. Eating junk food is okay as long as you don't do it every day - even if you secretly wish you could! LOL

tartan doors?

A while ago I got a surprise parcel from my friend Freda. I took my time thinking about what I could send to her as a thank you and finally got my act together last week. Freda's told me she's received it - and she loves it all - so I can show now what I sent to her.

A shopping bag (made by me, of course) with birds on the outside - very approriate considering it all started with me admiring some birdy fabric on Freda's blog.

I also sent her some fat quarters which I thought would be appropriate coming from Scotland.

2 tartan ones - Royal Stuart (red) and Black Watch (green) which, again isn't showing up well in the photo. I thought she might be able to use some of those to make doors for her latest project - a small village.

I also included a version of the UK flag in fun colours and a hand print one which I thought was quite appropriate for a friend across the pond - hands across the ocean and all that. As I said, Freda is very happy with everything I sent her which makes me happy too. :o)

Next, I got a bit of a shock when I switched on my computer this morning. According to my yahoo messenger, I had 1147 e-mails to read. Yikes!

I actually had 3 e-mails in my inbox. I was very relieved! LOL

And last but not least, for Debbie. Happy 34th birthday!

lights out

The Royal British Legion asked people across the UK to switch off their lights between 10pm and 11pm BST tonight and to light candles in a mass act of remembrance to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.

We should never forget!

tartan appliqué bags and a denim dress

I was playing around with some bags earlier in the week - needless to say, they weren't any of the 49 I have cut out all ready for sewing! *eyeroll*

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could come up with some appliqué designs I could use in tartan on a calico bag. I am chuffed to bits with the way they all turned out.

First - a scottie dog:

Then I made a Loch Ness Monster:

I drew the Nessie myself in Photoshop. I am no artist but I think it turned out okay. The tartan on this one is Black Watch which hasn't turned out too well in the photo.

Next I made Scotland's flag: (It's usually a white cross on a blue background.)

Next I was back in Photoshop trying to make the map of Scotland out of parallelograms - once a Maths teacher and all that! LOL

That one was way too finicky to make so I don't think it will be repeated.

And then I made a thistle:

Again the Black Watch tartan on the lower part doesn't show up too well.

The Scottie dog and the flag bags are lined in the red tartan - Royal Stuart.

And the Nessie and thistle bags are lined in the Black Watch - this photo shows the colours better.

After all that bag-making, I got down to sewing the denim dress I'd cut out last week. I used this pattern which I'd made in the 90s.

This photo is so fuzzy it's almost not worth showing - and I have a grumpy face!! - but it's the best one of a very bad bunch.

I'll need to see if I can get Douglas to take a better one of me in it!

And, please admire the buttons. These are the exact same buttons which came off the denim dress I made (and wore to death) in the 90s.

The dress is really comfy so I suspect I will be wearing this one to death as well! :oD