Hand Quilting and growing veggies.

I can't believe September's over already, so here is my final post for the 1 hour a day stitching challenge that Bonnie Hunter here was hosting. 

I didn't make it last week cause I worked a full week, I usually only work 2 days so my routine was out the window.  Needless to say I missed a couple of days of stitching.  I did try to make up the time when I could so I think I did fairly well. 

Because this quilt is so large I hadn't spread it out to check on my progress since I started in the first week of September.  I was surprised today to see that I've got half the blocks quilted.  To tell you the truth I was a tiny bit disappointed as I'd hoped I might have been close the finishing them all. 

I tried to get a close up of the quilting pattern in the hourglass blocks, it doesn't really show up very well though.  I have to mark the rest of the blocks using the quilting template, not my favorite part of the process.

I'm not very happy with some of the quilting, some of the straight lines look like the thread has pulled too tight and there are a few wrinkles in the wrong places but I hope when it is finished and gets washed it should look better.

I'm going to try to keep up the quilting, it will still be a couple of months till the weather heats up so I should by able to get a lot more done.

I decided I wanted to try growing some herbs and vegetables.  I'm no gardener but I really would like to be able to pick some fresh herbs to use when I'm cooking and some salad veggies would be great over summer.  I didn't want to get too carried away to start with so I bought some Coriander and Continental Parsley and a Tomato plant and one Strawberry plant, and some Cat Grass.  I thought the cats can have a special plant of their own, they're supposed to like eating it.

My parents came over yesterday and my Dad helped me plant the seedlings and gave me lots of advice on gardening it was very helpful.  I'm going back to get another couple of plants tomorrow.  We had big discussions about snails and Dad insisted that the sugar straw would keep them away cause they don't like crawling on it.  It worked last night I went out about 4 times during the night and there was no sign of snails but earlier on tonight I went out to find a snail in the middle of the Coriander and a slug in there as well.  There was another slug and a couple of snails on their way over.  I don't want to lose my plants before they've had a chance to grow.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I was very excited, this flower on my Strawberry plant appeared after I brought it home it is very pretty.

I'm hoping I might find time tomorrow to mark the rest of the blocks on my pink lemonade quilt, if I'm not on snail duty.!!

Happy Stitching,

Debra.

Big night out

 No progress photos of my quilting today.  I missed a couple of days in my one hour a day challenge, however I've been doing more than 1 hour most days so I'm sure the time has evened out.

I'm really loving quilting without a frame, so much easier to handle a large quilt this way.

Last week I took Harry to visit Jill his Groomer this was his before photo.  I gave him a valium beforehand but it didn't seem to make any difference.  He was very distressed, he cried and carried on and we decided to leave the clipping and try another day. 

So here is his after photo, he had a bath and he smells lovely and he had the hair around his face clipped back a bit but he's still a shaggy boy.  He even looks fluffier than before cause Jill did manage to get a comb through him.

Just hope we can get him clipped before the weather gets too warm cause he really doesn't like the heat.

On Monday Jack turned 18 years old.  I'm still having trouble working out where all those years went.  It has flown by so quickly and his last year of seconday school is quickly coming to a close.  We had a family night out to celebrate Jack's birthday.  We went to a restaurant on Southbank in the city called The Meat and Wine Company.  

As you can see we had a few cocktails to celebrate, they were really good. 

This was my steak with mushroom sauce and extremely delicious chips.  It was a really lovely meal and everyone enjoyed theirs.

I don't often go into the city especially at night but when I do I love to admire how beautiful it is.  Unfortunately my photos that I took of the buildings and the yarra didn't turn out very well.  I did manage to get this fabulous photo of one of the Mali's that are on display around the city.

 I think they were all decorated to celebrate a special anniversary at the zoo.  I'm just not sure of all the details.  Mali is a baby elephant born at the Melbourne zoo a couple of years ago, she stole everyone's hearts she was so cute.  There were huge queues of people for weeks when she first went on display.  There is 50 Mali and they were decorated by 50 different Artists and put on display all around the city.  They were to be auctioned off, wouldn't they be fun in the garden?

We saw a few around southbank but I liked this one best it is so bright and happy

I must tell you I grumped and groaned about going into the city but it really was a great night out.  I was pushed well out of my comfort zone which probably needs to happen more often.

With Jack on holidays I might manage to get some more stitching done this week.

Bye for now.

Debra.

Hand quilting challenge

 I've just been reading Bonnie Hunter's post on doing an hour of handwork during September to coincide with it being Sewing month.  Bonnie has challenged her readers to join her in working on an old project you might have hanging around.

This quilt has been waiting many years to be finished, I've had it sitting in my bedroom all winter waiting for me to do some more hand quilting on it.  As I've missed winter and we've moved onto spring maybe I better get a move on.

I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it, bought the book and knew straight away that I had to make it.  The book is called Pink Lemonade and Other Delights by Linda Johnson and this quilt on the cover was called Pink Lemonade.  At the time I'd made special quilts that I hand quilted for my Mums 60th Birthday and my Brother In Laws wedding present.  I decided that as I was 38 I could start a special quilt for my own 40th birthday.  I felt 2 years was a  reasonable amount of time to finish it.  Hahaha.  I think I'd started the quilting by the time I turned 40 and now as I edge towards 50 it is definitely time to try finish it.

There have been quite a few obstacles along the way and I think I've learnt some very valuable lessons as well.  One important lesson is don't leave anything you're working on folded up in the corner of the lounge room when your teenage daughter has a sleepover with 10 of her closest friends.  I discovered after the sleepover that someone had spilt coca cola on the back of my quilt!!  It was such a dilema I wasn't sure what to do, it was partly quilted but the stained part was only basted.  The fabric wasn't prewashed or the cotton batting either.  I decided  to leave it in the too hard basket and now that its well and truly set I'm going to cut stained piece of backing off and applique a new piece on.  Luckily stain didn't get to the front of the quilt.

 My other important lesson was don't mark quilting lines on quilts late at night.  I was trying to mark lines for cross hatching in middle applique block, never realised before I started how tricky that could be.  I came close to ruining the centre block because I was using pencil and realised my lines were going to be crooked.  I was determined it wouldn't beat me but after 2am is not a good time to be doing it!!

 This is such a large quilt 87 3/4" x 87 3/4" that I found it very challenging to quilt by hand.  Don't think I want to make quilts this big again.  It seems to be a pet magnet too, they all want to sit on it when I work on it.

I still love it though so I would really love to get it finished.  I found the hour glass blocks were a bit tedious to quilt, I'm looking forward to getting to the borders and doing them.  More cross hatching though, does anyone have a fool proof way of marking cross hatching??

Maybe by the end of September I'll be well on the way to finishing!!

Happy Stitching

Debra.