Some finishes to post.....finally

Here are the finishes so far....

crochet scarf for Maddy to wear to keep her warm at work

2 crochet scarves for me to keep me warm as I walk

a lined crochet bag to keep my hooks and counters in, photo is by my teacher Karen Prior of Sew Well Maide blog fame

a little bag to keep my camera in

and 3 more little dolls quilts ready, hanging sleeves and labelled ready for the exhibition

and a shopping list holder ready for Christmas from the "Pretty In Patchwork Holidays" Book.

Be sure to check out the other bloggers and their successes in "2013 the year of Finished Projects" at the link below....
http://2hot2knit.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/2013the-year-of-finished-project.html?showComment=1378686464008#c5855223440399885924 

Thanks to Lynne, and best wishes for the month ahead to all,
                                Karen

Martini's, and a catch up

This week has been a delightful catch up with old friends, surprise encounters and meeting like minded people!  I've been busy finishing things too...
   Monday was an afternoon working on my little quilts ready for Ballaraat quilter's exhibition in November.  No pictures as yet. The rest of the week had me catching up with various friends while having coffee, and crocheting.  Culminating in a workshop with Karen Prior at Button Heaven in Buninyong today.

Ayesha busy with her beanie

Yvette making a robot hoodie for her little boy

and something for her Mum ( what a great daughter)

Lorraine has crocheted a rainbow ripple in lovely soft yarn

 and Kim has been spending time with a favorite TV series, so her unfinished work has a working title of " Lost in Downton Abbey.

 As for me I finished the scarf I made for my girl to wear to work to keep her warm.

Maddy's scarf

Finished too, is Doris, my pouch that I made from Karen's pattern.

  Best of all was the time spent with friends.
  We should catch up soon!
   Karen.

Crochet scarf two ways

I've been brushing up on my crochet skills, and taking a break from sewing. This is the result.

The top scarf is the pattern I learnt in class with Karen of Sew Well Maide.  Underneath is the first scarf I started in class, and then realised that I was "doing my own thing!"  I had alot to learn about reading crochet patterns.  I ended up finishing both, but used a different edging on the "creative " scarf.
Love the coral pink colour.

Progress

This morning I thought I would have to tell you that I only managed to applique 2 little pears, and one bird to my Christmas tree block, but with some work today I added 11 more leaves.  So I am aiming to finish putting all of the leaves onto this block this upcoming week.
  I did buy backing and binding fabric for my little quilt, and it is basted and I have even made a start hand quilting. 

But, in doing this I uncovered another UFO, my hand quilting warm up quilt!

I managed to get the center of my TB Lovers quilt together with its cornerstone and sashing, and have added the top and bottom of the first border.  I will have that first border on by next Thursday.  I will decide on the size of the final border, when I dig out my border quilting stencils and see which looks the best!  As for my scrap quilt, I have made little progress, but little bits are adding up on this quilt.

Thanks for listening, karen

On The Design Wall

Since I've said that this project must become finished,  I decided to put the blocks I have already done on the design wall to see what I have done.....

Christmas Trees

I want to check too how the colours were shaping up......most of the greens are in the lime colour family.....
This is the block I am currently working on..

birds in a pear tree

but I was happy with one branch...

so I unpicked!

Love karen

Saturday Stitching.....and shopping

I just had to go to Threadbear in Castlemaine for a friend's birthday present ......and some fabric for myself.

The fat 1/8ths are for my friend.  The cream floral is the backing for my little quilt top, along with the tiny green stripe for its binding.  The blue fabric is for an upcoming project ....once I have finished something!

So, onto my stitching.  Yesterday, my Fool's Gold 3 package arrived.  This is the third round and the block I am working on is for Ruby.  Here is what I have done so far.....I have to have the block finished on Monday, so that I can post it on Tuesday the 15th.

Ruby's naked block

Saturday's stitching.

Love karen

Finishing

Flickr Group for 2013: the Year of The Finished Project

I have chosen  4 UFO's to work on this month.

First is The Christmas Tree quilt, designed by Maria Cook as a BOM to improve applique skills

I have done 4 or 5 blocks so far and I am working on this one at the moment. 
I plan to add 7 elements this week, mainly leaves.

Then I have our exhibition this year and I must finish this project for that.  Nothing like having a deadline is there!  I want to exhibit the other 3 year long project I've been working towards as well.  I fell in love with this book....

 and I have made some of the dolls quilt tops and they are ready to quilt.  I have been dithering over the backing fabric.  At first I wanted to have the same backing fabric for each quilt and the project got stalled while I tried to find "the perfect fabric".  Now I just will choose something I like that will hide my hand quilting stitches!  I want to buy the fabric this upcoming week, and get the quilt basted by next week.  This is the first little quilt top.

So those are the smaller projects....on to the bigger ones.

I won these blocks as part of my internet group TBLovers and have started working on putting them together.

the 10 blocks I won

 The project stalled due to trying to decide what fabrics and setting to best set off these blocks.

This is the first arrangement

But my friend, and mentor, Maria suggested putting cream sashing to give the top a more modern look.

cream sashing and scrappy cornerstones

 I had made 2 extra blocks but used the same background fabric which was very busy...so made yet another with a quieter background.  I started this week to sew the sashing to the blocks and began assembling rows.

this weeks progress

 

 

 

                                                                                         

lastly, using up my scraps started a UFO from this book...

here is what I have done ready to go on the design wall,

I will continue to use those scraps as leaders and enders to make more slabs of fabric to include in this quilt top.

So I will plan each Friday what I will be doing next week and on Thursday 7th of Febuary will report on my overall progress towards a complete FINISH.
love karen

On the Design Wall

TBLovers Lottery blocks

 Last year I finally won the lottery!  The Internet group I belong to, has a monthly lottery block contest and I won so here are the blocks laid out for me to photograph and send the photo to our list mom (she can be such a nag!)( actually she is a darling) and for me to decide how I am going to turn this into a quilt.  I had bought TB fabric to use but then came the news that the designer is retiring so I've been buying as much as I can afford from a shop I know off in Melbourne.  Unfortunately I haven't found all the perfect fabrics.  Today I used 2 of the rejects to make a further 2 album stars to bring the block total to 12.

Craftsy BOM 2013 January

The other thing I did this weekend is sign up for the Crafsty BOM 2013.  This is a photo of the 4 off center log cabin blocks I made. I like the batiks I used but will have to be very careful of value when it comes to making the other blocks, some of the blocks require very strong contrast to work....we will see how it goes.
  Hope you enjoyed, love karen