too busy to blog, but I have been somewhat productive.

I finished my flannel raw edge quilt:

Just a while before that I had put ALL my UFO’s on the table and took a photo. I think there are over 30 there. The idea was to look at it every time I was tempted to start something new:

Well, I kinda forgot…. and started on a few other things …ooops!

I decided to start on Christmas stuff. I had this bolt of fabric from the souk and made this stocking:

I got a couple of meters of this panel from E - I think she bought the whole bolt at the souk. Again, I made stockings:

Finally, I am teaching a beginners Fence Rail class, following in the footsteps of Evelyn & Siti, and while I was at it I decided to do a Christmas one for myself. I’ve made a start, sewing the strips together and cutting them into 6 1/2 inch squares:

Well, that’s all my news for now. I’ll put up more photos as I get further along on my projects……

The Pinwheels are done!!! Click on the thumbnail and you can see a close up!

Alice taught me this one - I had to have 120 2 1/2″ squares and put them in a paper bag. Then I had to take them out one by one and lay them on an iron-on interfacing grid. I was not allowed to look and at the end I was only allowed to change 5 squares if they looked really bad. So much for my obsessive compulsive behaviour!

After ironing them on I sewed up and down the edges… use your imagination, I am not good at explaining these things! Put borders on, quilted it, and look:

All done! Now what to do with it? As you can see, it is small, so maybe a doll’s quilt?

I am particularly proud of my quilting :)! It was all done freestyle on my beautiful Bernie Bernina. I did a loop in each square in the middle, then hearts on the borders and flowers in the squares. I am learning, slowly, slowly!!!

Elizabeth loved the fabrics for the Purple Heart and wanted to make a quilt for herself out of them. I went and found an easy pattern online which was a combination of fence rail and a feature square. Elizabeth was 9 at the time and her attention span lasted through us cutting the strips so of course I finished it for her.

It took me ages to get around to quilting it and I started one of the same pattern for Daniel around the same time. I managed to do loops on the purple quilt, which turned out ok. Daniel’s, however, was done almost perfectly by Nora on her wonderful quilting machine!

Nora finished it for me over a year after I started it Daniel was very pleased to finally get it because the others already had theirs.

The above quilts I did on my own, not in class. I wanted to have a bit more on the go than what we were currently working on. And what we were working on at the time was our first paper pieced project…… a stained glass quilt. Oh, it was a nightmare! Not just the fact that our teacher gave us one lesson and then had to leave for the States for a while, but I think there was something wrong with the pattern! Still, it was the best thing that we could have done, because now all paper piecing is easy Thanks Evelyn !

Here it is, finished:

Matt was very pleased with it, so that is the main thing! LOL!

I guess we must have all done pretty well with our Fence Rails, because the next project Evelyn taught us was a heart colorwash! It was a tad harder, but just gorgeous! I, of course, chose blue.

Mum and Dad happened to be visiting for a few weeks and I dragged Mum along to class. She chose red colors, not her usual color scheme, but matching the house they were renting in Jordan at the time. Mum can sew well, but doesn’t do it as a hobby She prefers to knit and cross stitch. Anyhow, she came along to a few lessons and made a start. Guess who finished it?????

Dad!!!! He did a great job as well!

Here is my blue heart:

Alice made a purple one and I got the same fabric as she had and made one as well, for Elizabeth:

I thought I might as well slowly get my photos up on here and tell you a bit about my quilting story.

I have been sewing since I was a young girl. When I was a teenager I did a short course on sewing clothes and really got into that. Later on I sewed nearly all Daniel’s clothes when he was little. I attempted a quilt or two before he was born, but really didn’t know what I was doing!

I’d always loved quilts, but never thought I had the patience to make them. Or the money, for that matter. I would go into quilting shops and freak out at the prices! And being able to afford a class… nope, that wasn’t going to happen either.

It wasn’t until we moved to the Middle East for a few years that I actually learned how to quilt! Not your average place to learn quilting, is it?! Two days after I arrived I saw an ad for a quilting class in the local newsletter, and I thought - “Well, if I am going to get to know some people, this might be the way!” I had not brought any of my sewing stuff with me because just before I left Australia I had made my daughter a blouse and everything that could go wrong with it, went wrong. I told hubby that I was never going to sew again!

When I told dh that I was going to go to this class not to sew, just to meet the ladies, he chuckled. The class was run by an American lady, Evelyn, who was charging next to nothing because she loved quilting so much. She was the best teacher and her enthusiasm rubbed off on us. And I found out that fabric in the Middle East was soooo cheap! I came back from the class and told my hubby he had to go and buy me a sewing machine so I could do my homework

Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who went that week and bought me a small Elna which I named Ellie. Thus began my quilting career, addiction, obsession, ummm, yeah, all of those

Our first project was a simple Fence Rail quilt. Evelyn had already put together little bundles of fabric for us to choose from, so we didn’t even have to go to the shop and choose ourselves. This was good because I had no idea of which colors to put together, and I loved her choice of fabrics!

I learned how to use the rotary cutter, rulers, etc. I worried that it was all going to be crooked! Actually, it turned out quite nice:

So nice in fact that I just had to buy another bundle of fabric and make another one:

Actually, I bought more than one bundle…. and thus started my stash

That is the story of how it all began……