Bloggers Quilt Festival

The Bloggers Quilt Festival has snook up on me once more.  I was totally oblivious until I saw other bloggers burning the midnight oil trying to get a quilt finished in time.

Earlier this year I finished a quilt that is very lucky it was ever finished.  When I saw that Leanne was running a QAL to make Julie's MOD POD quilt.  I just had to join in.  Two or three years ago, I had saved this tissue box

 
 hoping one day I would be able to work out how to make the pattern into a quiltn.  Then Julie from Distant Pickles came up with this pattern, so I didn't have to worry any more!

Not a bad match.  Having just turned the spare room from an uninspiring office, back to a bedroom, I chose fabrics to go with the new loud turquoise and lime green decor.

 

 There were a lot of tears and tantrums went into this quilt, let me tell you!  I had never sewn curves before and there were many early Sunday mornings where the blocks nearly went out of the window, followed by the sewing machine.  To begin with, they were truly awful

 
 but I tried several methods of getting those curves neat, and through sheer perseverence, I think they were reasonable good.  I developed my own way of doing them, which took everyone else's tips, strategies and methods, incorporating them in something that worked for me.  I have not sewn a curve since then, and I'm pretty sure I can't remember how I did them!

The quilting was a challenge.  I wanted to echo quilt around each of the circles, but that was something I never managed, so ended up stippling the background, letting the linked circles pop out

 

I'm so happy with my finished quilt, and I can't help patting it fondly every time I go into the spare room!

Finally, I would like to thank my various animals without whose help, this quilt would never have been finished!!

 Quilt Stats

Name: Mod Pod
Pattern:  Mod Pod by Julie at Distant Pickles
Quilted: by me on my Viking Sapphire 875
Category:  Two colour quilt

Le Challenge - Wait for me

Today is the day I can reveal what I made in this months "Le Challenge".  Now, I know I wrote a teaser post about it, but I managed to delete it completely (don't ask!) and I can't remember what I wrote,  so if I'm repeating myself, I apologise!

The theme this month was wings, and after some cruising through the internet I came up with using flying geese, then I found a tutorial for a slightly different style of flying geese.  Unforunately I cannot find the link back to it anymore, so I have to apologise to the author for not recognising her hard work!  But I did draw up the template for the paper piecing myself!

 

We get a lot of geese flying over our house - I think we must be on the flight path to their summer holidays - and I've sort of copied their formation.

 Although in truth, they are a bit of a raggle taggle bunch.  No where near as orderly as mine!  But there are always stragglers, and I have one little goose who is getting left behind.  Hence it's name "Wait for me"!

I tried piping for the first time, and managed to sew it onto the wrong side of the fabric, so I would have had internal piping!

The back is made from a fabric I bought in the fabric shop in Brno that I have started going to.  It's a Makeower fabric, and I just love it.  The colours are so me!

And finally both of my Le challenge cushions together

I think I might squeeze another one in, but don't tell Gordon!

New Bees and Old

I spent some time at the weekend making my first bee blocks for the second round of Stitch Tease.  Di gave us a very easy block to make but was very specific with what she wanted.  These are Di's first 9 blocks

The blocks should be only Aqua, Teal or Turquoise, with the possibility of one block having  one piece of Essex dyed linen in flax.  Now colours are not one of my strongest points, and although I think I know what colours aqua teal and turqouise are, when faced wit having to choose, I found it quite difficult.  And I really don't know what colour the one piece of linen I have, is.  So Di you will have to let me know if I've got it wrong, and I can start again!  Comparing photos above, my linen looks much greyer than yours, but in real life it looks about the same!

I also had to re-draw my SMS giveaway on Sunday because sadly one of the winners was a no reply blogger.  This time the random  number generator picked out Dee. 

  Dee said...
I am now following you based entirely on your list of things you blog - we have similar interests.

So that's my job for today, pulling out some fabrics and making Dee her custom made bag!

I'm also still trying to get enough ladies together to form a European Siblings Together Bee.  We have 8, and just wanting another 4.   So if you were undecided about joining us, you've still got a chance.

 

Tomorrow I will either be joining in with WIP Wednesday, or showing off my finished Le Challenge cushion.  Either way, watch this space...

SMS Giveaway winner(s)

I'm very happy to be able to announce the winners of my giveaway.    I say winners because I reached and surpassed my target of 100 blogger readers (now 129) therefore I picked a second winner to celebrate.

I did have a certain amount of difficulty with numbering my comments and getting the random number generator onto and working in this post.   So I generated two numbers on the random website, then actually counted the comments!   So the first number was 40 which is

Maroesja said...
You made a lovely bag! I love the colors you choose.My worsdt habit... I tend to sew without pinning, if possible

Congratulations Maroaejs, who I have contacted Maroejsa and she has chosen to take the blue one. 

The second winner is number 174

Jacklynn said...I have quite a mess on my sewing table which bugs my husband 'cuz he's a neat freak - I'm just creative
 
Infortunately Jackie, you are a no-reply blogger, so I am unable to get in touch with you.  Please, if you read this, drop me a line before 10 pm Sunday (Central European Time).   If not, I will pick another winner.

It was very interesting to read about everyone's bad habits.  Apparently, we  quilters/sewers are all untidy, , fabricaholic, obsessive, creative geniuses who are unable to finish what we are working on because we have had "a great idea" for something new!.  So tell me something I didn't know ! 

Thanks to all my loyal followers for entering the giveaway, and all you lovely new followers, I do hope you stay and revisit my little corner of the blogosphere.

European Siblings Together Bee

 

When I read Lynne's idea of starting a Siblings Together quilting bee, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't join, as I don't live in the UK.  Then I had the bright idea of starting up a European branch of the bee, so that we quilters living in Europe could join in too. It would run it along the same lines as Lynne's bee, one large 20" block per month, finishing up in summer 2014.


Is anyone interested in joining me?  If so, please leave me a comment and we'll see how we go. Looking forward to hearing from you.