Winter Trees

We put the Christmas tree up last weekend and to celebrate I made this little wall hanging; Rob had been talking about going out to a farm near his parents house to choose their tree when he was a kid so I like to see this as a field of Christmas Trees just waiting to be taken into the house and decorated.

The tree design was inspired by these trees made by Tanya

Finished!

The top of my Spicy Stars quilt is now officially finished :D

There were a couple of minor repairs after this photo was taken to replace a couple of backing pieces that had frayed ridiculously quickly but other than that this is the finished top :D  I've cut all the backing and wadding now and it's hanging up to air and get the wrinkles out then I'll be already to spray baste and get quilting.  I may put the actual quilting on hold for a week or so and put the cushions together first... it's been a good year or so since I did any free motion and it would probably be best to ease back in gently with a few small pieces before I tackle the whole quilt ;p

Top Completed

C'est Finis :D  I wasn't sure this would get done today but I'm very pleased that it did!  Quite remarkably it's even exactly the size it was supposed to be measuring 41 1/2" by 61 1/2", (41x61 when the seam allowance is taken off).  Now all it needs is a border; if it was going on the bed I'd give it a nice white one and be done with it but it's going to hang on a white wall so that definitely won't work.  I'm thinking some sort of chequerboard using 1" squares of the star colours might be nice but I don't want to rush into it then hate it!

Mug Rug

I'm a little late to the party but my quiet stalkings thorough the blogosphere (Quilt Dad -> Two More Seconds -> In Color Order) have finally led me to the new in-thing that is the Mug Rug.  It's basically a miniature quilt on which one is encouraged to put thing which would usually make a quilter quiver in fear... namely cups of tea and delicious cakes and biscuits.  Being that I love quilts, tea and most especially cake I had to make one right away!  I used some of the teensy scraps from my Spicy Stars quilt to piece a stripy centre on a paper foundation, added a 1 inch border and quilted it all up.  I think I'm a little out of practice as it took a good 2 and a half hours to make but I am very pleased with the result.  I shall take it to work on Monday and brighten up my desk a bit... I predict that within the week there will be no more white in sight!

The Full Mug Rug

The Back

Detail of quilting

Spicy Stars

Continuing the annual tradition of celebrating my birthday with a patchwork course mum & I went to Creative Quilting's class with Anne Baxter at Our Lady of Lourdes to learn to make a Friendship Star quilt.  We had a super day and now that I finally "found" my camera charger (or just maybe bought a new one!) I can take photos and display the awesomeness online.

The course requirements were sent out with a picture which was so helpful as it let me pick my fabrics in advance - I ordered a delicious looking bundle of "Hot Spice" Kona Solids from The Fat Quarter Shop in the USA and their crazy fast shipping got my Friday evening order to me at 10am the following Monday!

Picture from Robert Kaufman.com

The stars were really easy to put together and came out surprisingly accurately, the sashing would have been just as easy if I hadn't decided to make my life difficult.  The design the tutor had used had the same fabric for all of the little sashing squares but I wanted them all different.  It's totally do-able but it does mean laying everything out on the floor and being very, very careful to get all the colours in the right place - no chain piecing for me!

I've made all the stars and cut all the sashing pieces it's just a case of putting it all together - I managed to sneak a few hours in the evenings after work this week so I have the first two rows put together; hopefully I'll get a bit more done this weekend.  I'm conscious that I have an awful habit of starting things and then ignoring them for several years before finally finishing them and I'm determined to get this one completed and hung on the wall.  I'm not quite as good as Mum who had hers finished the day after the course but I shall claim she cheated by making it smaller ;p

That border is actually fairly straight in reality!

Actual Progress!

We had some friends down to stay over the weekend and wound up talking about quilts and it made me want to do some sewing - so I did... about 12 hours worth over Saturday night and Sunday afternoon/evening.

This is the first piece of my Silent Stars quilt to be put together - it has just over 200 pieces in it and is about half a metre square.  I did some math and the final quilt will have about 3,000 pieces in it (depending on how I finish it).  I have about another 40 stars made up and 10 more ready to piece but I still need to prepare and add all of the backing pieces.  Also, I need to track down some more backing fabric... I think I should have thought a bit more about how big this would be; I only bought a meter of it and according to my calculations I need at least two and a half.  Just to make things interesting this has been on the to-do list for so long that the fabric went out of production 2-3 years ago - the internet tells me that some quilt shops in Denmark have some so I think I'm in for some hefty postage charges!