Pillow talk!

They say that there comes a time in pregnancy when you start making the home more of a home/nest...I think I have just hit this time!

2 new pillowcases!
This one is for Mr Whirlygiggles:

and this one is mine!

I have also spent an hour or so going through my quilts and creating different lists.
My current stats are:

Quilts tops completed and waiting for wadding, backing and binding: 18!!!
Quilts to be completed: 6
Quilts ready for binding: 4
Quilts on the go currently: 3

I would like the quilts finished before the baby arrives...something tells me that when she is here there will be NO time for quilting, especially in the beginning.

Back to the sewing machine to finish a beautiful quilt I am working on which shall remain a mystery for the time being!!!

                                                                                     Amelie x

Amelie's Garden

The time has come to celebrate the completion of this quilt.

The quilt below is a very special quilt to me. I started quilting in May 2009 and this pattern (Leanne's House: Butterfly Garden) was the first quilt I noticed in Carol's shop (Just Between Friends) and I instantly fell in love with it. It was a very large project to tackle as a beginner to sewing (either by hand or by machine) and so this quilt records/tracks my progress block by block.

It is also a quilt that followed the biggest loss in my life. I also wanted to create a 'garden' but for me this garden would belong to the most beautiful little butterfly in my life...this is Amelie's Garden... a labour of all my grief and love...

Here are some pictures of my most favourite blocks:

                                                                           Mummy x

Quilt Police

Some days are just 'bad quilting days'...no matter what I do I cannot get it right. I seem to have had a good quilting day followed by a bad one, followed by another good one...

The good quilting day saw the beiginning of my whirly quilt (yes, another Kaffe Fassett!, not that I am obsessed or anything!) of which the blocks look like this:

I loooooove them!

Then the bad day came and I realised that I had cut up those trapezoid shapes all wrong (did you read the pattern properly I hear you ask? ermmmmm probably not properly properly...)...Ahhh, I should add that this is a kit I treated myself to for Christmas...which means that cutting fabric wrongly results in having NO fabric for the quilt. Obviously my pregnancy took priority over the quilt and tears were not shed!
I then decided to quilt a little person's quilt I have been working on and thought I would be clever and add the binding by machine rather than waste precious time to hand binding....what a disaster...I have never seen a worse binding job since i started quilting....it is all coming off as we speak...awful...
what a day....I should have never got out of bed in the first place...I heard the Quilt Police knocking on my front door all day!

Then today came and this has been a good quilting day!!! First of all, not having the kit fabric meant that I had to pluck the courage to make my own fabric choices from my stack..and I did and they look great!!!! I felt so good! So all blocks of this quilt are finished but need to be squared up and the sewn together. Here is a preview of how the quilt looks halfway through:

It still needs borders and it needs finishing (not my srongest point as you know!)

I also attempted my first pillowcase and I HEART IT LOADS and loads :-) Mr Whirlygiggles was thoroughly impressed!!! I followed a tutorial from the lovely Missouri Star Quilt Company at http://tutorials.missouriquiltco.com/

And finally (I know I should get a life BUT I am on holidays before my maternity leave kicks in and so the whole day is mine) I finished the Safari quilt although I decided not to follow the pattern exactly but to put together something a bit more to my taste:

It is very cute and the elephant in the middle is gorgeous!

Am happy and grateful for the good quilting day (can I please have a few more of these??????)

Amelie x

La la la...and a Happy New Year!

:-(    am not allowed to quilt...
well, there has been so much to do yesterday and today in preparation for a little family & friends party and my sister and her boys coming over from Italy that there has been no time for sewing...

BUT, a couple of days ago I managed to make 6 of the houses for my dollies quilt and all the large dollies have hats now!!!

They are soooooo cute:

 and my favourite large dolly so far (although that seems to change daily!!)

I better go any cook my dish for tonight (Mr Whirlygiggles has already finished all his jobs!!!!!)

                                                             HAPPY NEW YEAR

                                                                          Amelie x

It's a Dolly Holiday!

A belated "Merry Christmas" if you are reading my blog now...hope you have had loads of lovely company, food and pressies!!!

One of my best pressies was a Spa voucher from my best friend :-) thank you thank you thank you
and 4 patchwork rulers from my beloved Mr Whirlygiggles (despite the fact that he thinks I am very sad to get so excited over rulers !!!)
 So exciting!!! all the new quilts that can be made!

Anyway, finally managed to finish my HST quilt...I was so worried about the huge variety of Amy Butler fabrics and colours but it turned out very fresh and lovely. It has not been trimmed yet but could not resist putting a photo up:

I know I said I would NOT start anything new until i finish all my current projects BUT these dollies have been my little sirens for a long time and here they are:

These are from the wonderful Material Obsession book and this is a quilt by Sarah Fielke whose work is always amazing...
There are 13 dollies in total. These are the small ones and they are almost ready. I have also finished the large dollies but they have no hat yet and they are far too shy to show themselves to the world without a hat!!!!

                                                                Amelie x

Winter Wonderland!

The view from our balcony today...yesterday there was a huge snowstorm that went on and on...I felt so sorry for people caught in it...

Whilst the weather has been dreadful and I have a cold which I most definately could do without, the quilting activity has peaked!!!

Our 21 year old got back from university completely skinned...a few quick calculations later and I had him doing some fabric cutting!!! This boy is truly amazing and a very gifted cutter; despite the initial worries about us ending up in hospital with a removed finger, he cut 768 squares which measure 1 3/4 without a moan, a winge or any sign of back problems!!! My hero!!! (well it did cost me a few bob but then again I handed that

 over gladly).

Here are the fruits of his labour (the tiny squares of shot cotton).

I am now ready to progress on my snowball quilt that I started with Kaffe Fassett at the V&A. Well, almost ready to start that one, as soon as I finish my first baby quilt which is made up of these cuties:

The owl fabric is extremely gorgeous and yes..I managed to run out of it before doing my borders!!! at the moment waiting for fabric to arrive is excruciating. The snow means that parcels delivered within the UK take almost the same time as coming from the USA!
Anyway, this is what it looks like so far without the 2 borders:

I have also finally completed the 72 HSTs and they are now pressed and ready to be assembled...cannot wait athough I am a little worried about the variety of colours in it...Let's see!

Best go and check on the dinner before all the boys get back home.

Amelie

I am back!!!

I have missed my blog loads...but up until a couple of weeks ago there was no quilting whatsoever!!!
Even Mr Whirlygiggles was getting worried about what I would do with "ALL THAT FABRIC" as he calls it!!!

The reason for my long absence?

I know that it looks like I had one MacDonalds too many but this is my 19 weeks + 2 days little baby bump!!!
Up to week 15 the sickness was too intense for any quilting to take place...

I have promised myself not to let any new siren projects lull me away from completing as many of my UFOs as possible before the baby arrives...having said that, 4 new quilts are being seriously considered at present together with cushions, tablecloths and pillowcases (this must be linked to hormonal changes no?)!!!
Also, how many baby quilts can a baby have?

My return to quilting started with a bang! The challenge of these Sunburst blocks (attached are 2 out of the 4):

The quilt is now finished and it is huge!!! Poor Mr Whirlygiggles could not hold it wide enough from side to side or high enough despite climbing on the lounge furniture!!
It is absolutely beautiful and worth every hour of cutting and sewing that went into it... This week it will be heading to Ferret to be quilted.

Well, I am off to start my weekend sewing!

Amelie