Quilt finish & this weeks buys

I finished hand sewing the binding on my Greens and Creams Quilt last night. I'm really happy with the result and hope the recipient is too.

I really enjoyed hand stitching the binding on this one, I didn't want it to be too narrow as the quilt is quite large at just over 100cm x 200cm I thought a narrow binding might get lost.

Now during all this busy sewing week I thought I deserved a little retail therapy. So I popped over to Cindy's fab shop Fluffy Sheep Quilting http://www.fluffysheepquilting.com/ and indulged in my favourite way to shop. On the couch, cuppa in hand and away you go. I picked out some fab fabrics.

I'm so so happy with all my buys. I'm especially happy with the thread. I was running into difficulty with getting a wider range of colours in large spools. I usually use Gutermann thread which is great for your basic colours but really expensive for anything else as you can only get them in a smaller spool size. Cindy has a fantastic range of Aurifil colours and at 1300m per spool work out a great deal cheaper. So these 3 are just the beginning of my new collection as I will be adding to them very soon :)

So I'm now going to start on three baby boy quilts, two of them are for twin boys my friend had three weeks ago. They are so gorgeous and I'm very happy to be making quilts for them. My friend is a very creative and talented woman, I know that she will love whatever I make for them. It's so great to be able to give a gift that you make yourself and know it will be appreciated.

The third quilt is for another brand new baby boy that another friend had recently in New York. I've seen photos of these babies and for some reason it makes it easier to create something for them. I guess it's just the fact that you can picture them snuggled up in your quilt that gives you the inspiration.

It's another fabulous sunny day here in Dublin and my hubby is off from work. We couldn't go to the zoo last week so we are going to go today. When my little girl Sophie was asked what animal she wanted to see she said 'Bear' eeerrmm the one animal they don't have. Never mind, she is so happy that 'Dada' is off she doesn't want me to do anything for her. Bliss. My boy Jack is back home around midnight on Saturday. He has really enjoyed his holiday in Portugal and I will be very happy to have him home with me. It's very strange not having the two of them at home.

So I hope you all have a great weekend, chat soon.

Geraldine x

Help Needed in my Creams and Greens Quilt Progress

Hi I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today. I'm in need of some help and opinions from my fellow quilters !!

A good deal of progress has been made on my greens and creams quilt. It's now fully pieced and the back of the quilt has also been done. The back features one large heart with the recipients name and birthday embroidered on it and there are ten other smaller cream hearts randomly around the central one. The idea is that each of the family members write in these 'blank' hearts a message of love for their sister (the recipient). What a lovely  idea.

So now I'll get to my problem. I have quilted around each of the hearts and I have also quilted around the  border. I think it looks good at that because in this case the back of the quilt is as important as the front. I love the look of the back with just the border done but wonder should I do more quilting in the center or just leave it as is? I think is will be secure enough but what do you think?

Any comments will be greatly appreciated, 

Thanks :)

The sun was shining here in Dublin yesterday and it was so lovely to sit outside with a cuppa and the papers. Today not so nice but it's not supposed to rain so I think we will go to the zoo with Sophie. I wonder will she have any interest in the animals this time round. I went with her a couple of years ago and she wouldn't look in the direction of any of the animals. So it will be interesting.

My boy Jack has been on holiday for a week now with my sister in Portugal, he's having a great time with his cousins but I miss him very much. I'm not used to him being away but texting is great and I'm so glad at least one of us is getting a holiday. Slightly jealous too, but mostly pleased for him :)

I'm making steady progress with my cream and greens quilt. I'm really enjoying it and it's coming together nicely. I love the design stage and spend so much time going through various sketches, this photo is about my 4th attempt at a design that I was happy with.

I'm working with a great palette of colours, green being one of my favourite made this quilt extra cool to design. It's for a lovely lady who completely understands the whole process and knows that handmade means a quilt can't be turned out in a week.

It's the first time I've used this particular block and it won't be the last, I love it. I've done this shape before but it is the first time I used it as a single piece and it works great.

This is the halfway stage of the piecing process, it's a large quilt at 2m x 1m so the left side will be replicated on the right and already it's looking nice and balanced.

When this is finished I have 3 baby boy quilts to make and I got some lovely fabric to add to my already great stash of blues and reds. I also had a little flurry of online shopping with Cindy at Fluffy Sheep Quilting. So I'm looking forward to the post coming next week. I also picked up some beautiful pinks and lilacs yesterday.

I'll post up more photos of this green quilt when I'm further along. Have a great Sunday everyone xxx

Mini Quilt received in the Modern Irish/Atlanta mini quilt swap

My laptop is back up and running thank God. Didn't realise how much time I spend on it. But as usual  its the fear of losing photos. I do back up mine to an external hard drive but I had just uploaded photos from my parent's 50th wedding anniversary from the week before and thought I had lost them, thankfully I managed to transfer them using old tricks I thought I had forgotten from my IT days.

So as I have mentioned before I took part in the mini quilt swap with the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild. So here's the mini quilt I made...

Sophie Belle Designs

And yesterday I received my mini quilt from Lynn Rineheart from the Atlanta Guild

Lynn Rineheart

It was my first time to participate in a swap and it was good fun, although I would only do it again if I had a good block of free time. 

I'm piecing today and will sign in again soon with some updates and photos of my current project.

Happy Thursday everyone :)

Well it's shaping up to be a really busy week.  I have a lovely quilt order in for a really nice lady.   She want's a lot of greens and creams and below are the ones I'm going to use.  These are really beautiful fabrics and I'm looking forward to figuring out what design I'm going to settle on.  I will keep it quite modern I think but maybe with a nod to the traditional.  We'll see.

So the beginning of July is supposed to mean that summer days are in full swing but in Ireland it means that it's more than likely pouring with rain and your kids are under your feet.  So I have come up with a great solution, get them working for you !!

Here is my beautiful daughter Sophie trying her hand at my sewing machine. 

I'm also taking part in my first mini quilt swap which was fantastic.  I was paired with a lovely lady in Atlanta,  I really enjoyed working to such a small scale as it allows you to try something that you wouldn't have the patience to do for a full quilt.  I'll post a photo of what I did soon.

I'm also taking part in the Modern Irish Bee which kicks off this month.  This will be my first one and I was very excited to see my fabric bundle arrive in the post.  Sarah from FairyFace Designs is hosting the first one and her choice of fabrics and blocks are gorgeous.  A really great start to what I believe will be a great experience.

Chat soon and I hope that everyone had a great weekend. I was in Sligo celebrating my parents 50th wedding anniversary. It was a fantastic weekend spent with family and neighbours.

July is here and the rain is still here too :( .  The kids are finished with school so my sewing time is limited too.  I'm hoping the weather picks up as we are not going away for a holiday. The stuff I've been working on can't be photographed.  My good friend just had twin boys so I now know what type of quilts I'll be making for her little babies :)  I'll check in soon with some photos.