Tah Dah - DWR quilt

So, here is my 'Tah Dah' post about my DWR quilt : which is finally finished:

The quilt has been made entirely from scraps and each little bit of each ring has been hand pieced by EPP.  I machine stitched the rings on to the quilt

My main memory of making this quilt was sitting on the train from the Lake District to Glasgow, which gave me about 2 and half hours sewing whilst watching the world go by

The scrappy border is courtesy of my friends from the Bee a Brit Stingy Bee.  I asked them to send me the orphan blocks from the pineapple blossom blocks that they made.  To have them involved in the quilt too is so great
In keeping with the scrap aspect, the back of the quilt is an old duvet cover

I had so many ideas of how I was going to quilt this - none of which transpired because a) I wasn't clever enough to do that kind of fmq and b) hand stitching what I wanted, which I did try, looked truly dreadful.  So I quilted around each ring

 and did a double cross inside each one, with a bit of hand quilting on the four blocks in the middle

This is a quilt that I am really proud of: I always love my quilts, but this one I am also really proud of making.  It feels like a real 'old time' quilt....how it was done in the pioneer days....
I am also entering the quilt in to this competition run by the NYC Metro Mod quilters.  I have no grand ideas of winning - there are some amazing quilts over there (go and have a look).  But hey, having taken two or so years to make the timing seems very serendipitous.  Thank you to Leanne for pointing it out to me.

The quilt measures 60" x 60" and is also another FAL finish

Now..... where can I put it............

Stingy geese

Today wasn't the day I was planning -Beccy was poorly last night and we saw every hour between midnight and 5am :-( so I have been on a go slow.
Anyway, I managed to get Charlotte's Bee a Brit stingy block done

Charlotte chose a fabulous block made entirely from flying geese and gave us a palate to work from, so I hope I have got it right!

And now, this is happening

......binding going on my DWR - finally

Weekend plans

I have been doing my fair share off Christmas sewing and this is my latest effort

 It will become a Christmas tree and the fabulous tutorial
 can be found HERE

This is how they start out:

My weekend needs to be spent finishing my DWR quilt

 Just the binding to go on now!

Tomorrow I am shopping with Jenny then hoping for a lot of sewing time

November Mama

My blogging has taken a real back seat recently-mainly due to not using my computer much, as  I prefer my tablet (poor excuse!)
We have also all had our birthdays these last two weeks: I am a year older and also appear to have a 17 yo as well as a 20yo! How is that possible.
November is my month as queen bee in Hipbees-this is the block I went for

It's from Quiltville and is called Jared takes a wife. Very easy to do. I wanted to use the charms from the rainbow charm swap

and this was just the block.  Here are Reene's and Rachels

There are others popping up too but I havn,'t been able to 'borrow' those pictures yet. I can't wait for them all to come home to mama!

Chilled out

Well, this has been a lovely relaxing few days off.  Starting off with a spa day on Tuesday: a few of us from work decided to treat ourselves and we had a great day chatting and being pampered - all in gorgeous surroundings.  I can definitely recommend a spa day to anyone!

I have used the week to get ready for my turn as queen bee in the Hipbee group - it took me days to decide what I was going to do and get all the fabric together and cut out.  I have chosen a block that will use up my charms from the Rainbow charm swap a while back: the pattern is over at Quiltville

 

We have had a birthday: Beccys was on Tuesday.  My baby turned 17 and had her first driving lesson, which she really enjoyed.  Her birthday marks the start of 10 days of family birthdays: it works out to be about one every other day!

And there have been various amounts of sewing too, although not as much as I would have liked (there was a lot of diy needed doing too)
These are from the fabulous 500 quilt blocks, which I am making in to a table runner for my dad and step mum - as per their request

 Back to work tomorrow, and November is going to be a very busy month - lots of evening training that I have to go and do: I hate driving in the dark :-(