One Block Wonder is done!

Having seen a few of these finished I thought I had better get my act together and do mine. Two days later and it is complete. I love the overall in your face look and wanted to add the original fabric to the edge. I also wanted straight edges. You can see how that turned out. I did make some half hexies to fill in on the side edges but went with triangles for the top. Of course after it was all together I realised that by doing that I could have used the five remaining ones in the quilt! I then had a brain ?wave?blitz ?thunk and cut down the leftovers and appliqued them on the edge.

I aim to quilt it myself (eeekkkk) but think as it's small I should manage. 

Hope everyone is enjoying today's sunshine in Melbourne.

I have been practising... plus Sept Honour blocks.

I have been doing some free motion quilting and despite still a long way to go I can see some improvement. A foot that doesn't bounce is a big help! This is a panel that I did a bit on for some friend's first grandson...  so Jackson can roll around on Noah's Ark.

On an excursion to Patchwork Tea House I bought the grip and stitch "thingies" you can see here. I thought they were much bigger and harder plastic. Not so... they are very easy to use, comfortable and when you have to re-thread a needle or pull up the thread there is no need to take off gloves so for that alone they are worth it. They are sitting on a Blanket of Love and if you squizz hard enough you can see the feather that I quilted on it. I must admit to a cheat. My lovely quilter, Leanne, lent me  a stencil and I marked that on the top and off I went. I am really pleased with the way it looks. Not so sure I will ever be able to do them without a stencil though!

Now to September's Honour blocks.( TL) Albert Joseph Pattinson, wounded at Paschendaele and died of those wounds in Sept 1917.

(TR) William Foster Cheeswright, proved difficult as there were different spellings of his name.. Cheesewright, Cheeswright and on his mother's tomb as Cheswright.He was killed in action Sept 1917. (Bottom) Francis O'Dwyer was a student at Chateau Tabilk when he enlisted aged 21. He spent time in France and then was sent to Belgium where he was killed in action Oct 1917

(Left) Herbert Thomas Skehan  was killed in Polygon Wood Belgium by a shell and buried by his men in a nearby shell hole. ( note that this sounds like Jim Freyne from last month's blocks. See the comment left by Ed , a relative of Jim's. Thanks for the info Ed)

( Right) James Joseph Cantwell enlisted, went AWOL from Oct 1915 to April 1916. The reason for his absence was later known because he returned home and his parents refused to allow him to return to camp as they had not consented to his enlistment. He later re-enlisted using his first and last name (no middle name) and it was discovered he had enlisted earlier.That stood! He was killed at Monte Brehain in France Oct 1918. I am amazed at the information we are getting about these men and still I am honoured to be making this quilt. I do have a special place for it to go to when it is finished and that will be to honour someone special.

Enjoy the sunshine that is shining over Melbourne at the moment.

Honour Blocks for August

Stand on your heads folks but here are the August blocks for the Honour quilt.The orange one (TL)Francis Patrick Anderson was 23 yrs 8 months old when he was killed by a direct hit from a shell.He was buried in the field.

 (TR) James Joseph Freyne, was reported as missing in action on 3rd May 1917 and was officially deemed to have died on 3rd May 1917 aged 21 yrs. I love this one I am just a purple gal!

( BL) Joseph Crawley Maree has written that she likes to think he was a bit of a lad as he was charged with being drunk on active service and breaking away from his escort.In Dec 1918 he went AWOL while on leave in UK, a court of enquiry declared he was missing in Jan 1919. He obviously reappeared as he was admitted to hospital with influenza which caused his death on 12th Feb 1919.  a bit wishy washy this block but.... 

(BR )Frank Chalmers was killed in action when he was 31 yrs old.

This is a bit brighter in the flesh but the flying geese can just be seen.This is George Weir . he enlisted and then deserted two weeks later. Can see his reasoning but he was found and embarked on the Nestor on 2nd Oct 1916.He was killed in Belgium in 1917.

The more I hear of these brave young men the more I loathe war. It is just a senseless waste of young lives and although they are long dead my heart goes out to the mother's, father's, wives and other relatives that lost these young men. Unfortunately we have other "wars" that cause the loss of young lives nowadays and that breaks my heart. 

My prayers are with my sister-in-law (and niece) as they hope for a good outcome from an accident that has put her son-in-law (and husband) in ICU. If you are that way inclined please add your prayers to mine for Reece.

One Block Wonder

On Saturday morning about 21 of us descended on Kilmore Memorial hall and had a One Block Wonder workshop with Annika and Karin. They took us through the lining up of fabric, picking the repeats and then the cutting of the pieces for each block. Here are some of my blocks... I managed 19 cuts in 2 strips so have 38 blocks to play with.I have done kaleidescope quilts before and my DD1 reminded me that I vowed never to do another. Ah well I can always change my mind! This was actually very easy so I aim to do at least one more. The blocks are pinned together so they do look a bit off but I think they are going to look great.

 Would you believe that this is the original fabric that I used to get the above blocks? The funny thing is that some of the hexies screamed" this is the way I need to be sewn" and others went either... all 3 ways looked great  or hmmm not sure I like any way. Thanks to A and K for a great day. I think we all had a wonderful day.

Stayed tuned for the finished product, may be a while away. Off now to look at the next 5 blocks of my Honour quilt.

Honour blocks for July

Wednesday night we were given the next 4 blocks for the Honour quilt. The red one is for William Arthur Munro, he died aged 30 in France and is buried at Rouen. The green one is Herbert Valentine Shaw originally from England also died in France in March 1917. The yellow one is William Charles James Stute died aged 27 and is a great uncle of the person who is the designer of this quilt. Last but not least the purple one is Richard Thomas Randall who enlisted when he was only 17 yrs old.

Maree hopes that we will have these done by Anzac day next year so they can be on show at that time. This means that we will in future be given 5 blocks each month! I worked out that I have a lot of green and purple blocks to make ( I'm doing a rainbow) so need to check that I have lots of scraps in those colours. Can't wait to start putting it together, I just don't know what colour to make the sashings and cornerstones. Any ideas??

A flutter of butterflies?? and a couple of finishes

A Christmas Tale featuring Miss Mistlemouse all finished and ready to go. This is such a sweet quilt and all in all I am very happy with the way it has turned out.

Christmas Bakeshop also finished and ready to go. These are going to be donated to hopefully go in a Christmas raffle.Thanks Michelle, I love both of these patterns and they both turned out well. I altered my Gingies a bit so hope you forgive the poetic license.

After seeing a review of the Gail Pan book Patchwork love embroidery I decided to buy it at the quilt show. Yeah I even got Gail to put her name in the front page. Very happy little bunny walking around the show with it tucked in my bag. Hmmm after swapping shoulders I realised that I had spilt water on my beautiful new book. Home again and I dried the pages with the iron. Okay so it's not as pristine anymore but still useable. Last Friday had a great sewing day with Rosalie at Marina's and while showing off my book ... oops there goes the coffee, all over my book. I took it home with every page separated by paper towels. This book is just not meant to be in pristine condition! I can still use it, have done lots of the stitcheries already and it is being replaced.(thanks )Accidents happen and it is just a book. Despite everything the day spent with the girls was wonderful.

A month ago I told someone that I could crochet. Hmm better just check that I can remember how. As you can see, I remembered. A group I attend has the butterfly as a symbol so I googled patterns and the result is 12 big ones,1 thinner so smaller one and one that is slightly different. I also tried a snowflake but that is a one off, far too hard and not sure what to do with it.What do you call a lot of butterflies? a flutter, a horde or...?

More Honour blocks and a butterfly or two!

After making a 1/2" hexie butterfly I wanted to go smaller.. so the yellow one is a 3/8" double sided one. Still have to try one with 1/4" hexies. Think I might get very sore fingers!

These are the May Honour quilt blocks.top left William Bernard Biene (18 yrs old) top rightEdward John Rule, bottom left Charles Wyndham Thomas (27yrs old) and  bottom right Thomas de Courcy Meade. 3 out of the four died on 25th July which is a memorable day for us as DD1 was born on that date.

Here are the ones we were given last Wednesday. I spent all weekend sewing these, although easy the bottom right was very time consuming. Like it though. Top left John Clifford Bowers , top right William Brown. His brother Ernest has a block that has already been made. There was another brother, Frank that also enlisted but I don't know if he survived or not. Bottom left Albert Edward Knight and bottom right James Noble Robinson. A circular filled in by his brother in the early 1920's it was noted that James was 33 yrs 364 days old so he died the day before his 34th birthday.

This makes 20 blocks so far out of 49 so it is almost half way done.

Happy Monday everyone.(It is Monday in Australia)