[DianaH158]

I so admire quilters but haven’t ventured into that territory yet. Can’t wait to see the final results justsewit!

Mama_Knowles, those suits soune wonderful – can’t wait to see them!

[cybele727]

You quilters scare me. That is hard!!

[Sarvi]

I’m afraid justsewit is mistaken — a slider is a small hamburger, generally served in groups of three.

[Tamara]

Wow that’ll be fun to work with Sarvi! Hehe! Thanks for the translation – I love all the different slang words that crop up to get us all confused!.

No this teflon mat really is called Supreme slider and I have the Queen sized version. The makers also do Magic bobbin genies – little disk things that are supposed to help your bobbin go round smoother or something. I pulled the tube out to get the web address – http://www.supremeslider.com

Cybele727 I am intrigued to know what it is about quilting that you find difficult. Being fairly new to the whole thing myself, I find the piecing easy, applique fiddly and the quilting especially fmq a huge challenge to get the stitching consistent.

I have been attempting to answer this all day but the weather has been playing havoc with my internet connection and it may be due to a snapped power line. I know I keep saying it but I can now see the machines so tomorrow is the day I will be sitting at them doing something at least.

Correction: apparently I will be without power altogether for a period tomorrow thanks to a certain power company wanting to put an extra pole in to not stretch and repeat the snapped power line situation – how I wish we could have underground power. Oh well better to have it fixed than not.

[Sarvi]

Haha, you’ll have the tastiest quilt in town! I also finding quilting tricky, I think because it’s a challenge for me to maintain great precision over many small seams. My points rarely match well as the project grows.

[Tamara]

Oh you are hilarious! Good excuse for a giggle!

Do you not have a quarter inch foot or notch that indicates such on your machine Sarvi? I find the contradiction of the placement of pins to connect squares to make blocks with points laughable – some say 1/8 of inch from the stitching line and other say right on the stitching line – I say as long as the jolly thing matches up who cares?! There have been a few dull points on these quilts too. My piecing is far from perfect but these quilts are hand made with love and that is all that really matters. They certainly aren’t Quilting Convention quality!

Having said that though I still can’t wait to show them off once they are done. Will scan a picture of the example from the magazine too to show the difference. I’m expecting the fabric for the next quilting project to turn up today but I won’t be starting that one until after Christmas.

[meleliza]

I’m not scared of quilts, but all that measuring, tiny cutting and piecing puts me off. It seems time consuming and fiddly and too much like knitting. I got really fed up with knitting a few years ago after getting pretty good at it but realizing that it’s still damn near impossible to knit a sweater that fits me and doesn’t look homemade it that dowdy way. I was sick of all the math and calculations and the fact that it takes for. ev. er! Whereas I can sew a dress in a weekend or a really nice one in a couple of weeks. And, if I make a muslin and all the alterations, I know *before* I start that it will fit rather than knitting for months and *hoping* it will fit. Not that a quilt has fitting issues, I’m just still burned by the whole fitting knits thing. I love knitting. But quilting is like taking the joys of sewing and introducing all the frustrations of knitting: math and slow fiddly stuff. I would like to try it in my retirement though. It seems like a nice thing to do for grand babies. Or maybe once I finally have a wardrobe. I will actually make a little doll quilt for baby girl for Christmas. I made one for my son following a project in Anna Maria Horner’s book and it was just an afternoon type of thing. And probably middle son will want one too when he sees the other two have one, sigh.

[Tamara]

You see some women measure their quilting within an inch of their lives and other who measure to cut them sew and measure once more once the quilt top is completed. I think it all depend on the design as to how much you measure. So choose a simple design and jump in. I’m no expert and haven’t done circles or double wedding ring or even Bargello. They are all great but not for me at the mo,net and probably never will. Quilting for me is a way to provide my family with something to snuggle under at night and look pretty in the day time. I do have this quilt that will be a wall hanging once I do all the appliqué. It is one of these pull it out when you want to quilts and hopefully will be displayed on a wall somewhere when we finally relocate to the farm house. Appliqué doesn’t thrill me but the designs do and I think that is what drive me to do it.

I have the fabric for my next quilt – one for our bed. Cuzco by KateSpain and a whole lot of squares. But it won’t be made until after Christmas due to the need to make superhero costumes and pretty dresses. I have this great huge pile of cut out things that Is imply have to get on with so I will quilt solidly and then hand stitch the bindings at night – in secret and sew other things during the day. Got it all worked out.

[Lightning McStitch]

I’m not a quilter but have made a couple of machine sewn strip quilts which are a great quilt for babies as a gift. Lovely way to use nice fabrics, dead easy to do, and much appreciated by the recipient, assuming they can’t sew at all. Choose your recipients wisely and your craft always looks amazing to them, that’s my motto.

I’m currently having a go at a 100% hand made quilt. It was purely an exercise in; can I do it? Can I do it entirely out of “free” leftovers, and mostly I wanted to learn a new technique and use some freezer paper. That appealed to the “technique learner” in me.

My only problem with making quilts….. I don’t really have any use or desire for the finished product. I’m just not a quilt on the couch, or on the bed, or, heavens forbid, hanging on the wall kind of person. So, while I like the idea of the challenge of making them and the beautiful combinations of fabrics, I’m only making them for the doll cradle or as baby gifts. 🙂

[with love Heidi]

I’ve still got 4 quilts I finshed the tops for two years ago in my cupboard. They were gifts for a new baby and siblings, the baby is now 18m old and only one is finished! I find the quilting bit frustrating, and I was only doing a tied quilt, but it was harder than I expected. Maybe when I get back to it I’ll use basting spray and the stitch I use to sew on my buttons.

The hot weather has finally hit! 3 days of over 35C (95F), Christmas is coming! So I’m making my friends an Christmas (Advent) calender with pockets based on one my mum made me as a child.

[rastis]

sewing nada, zilch, absolutely nothing at the moment and it’s most annoying 🙁 i’m desperate to sew, but THIS HEAT!!! good grief we have no air conditioning yet and we are BAKING in our house… it is so hot we can barely function… so much humidity (yet no rain) it’s the humidity that makes it so hard to cool down… i can cope with 38 degrees if it’s dry heat!

on the upside the kids are doing just fine without new clothes as they are running around in the nude as it’s too hot put anything on!

[with love Heidi]

Very glad my 35 degrees is a fairly dry heat, the water pistols and beach worked a treat yesterday.

[rastis]

santa baby- i really have been an awful good girl this year… could you please come a little early and sneak in some air conditioning before christmas… this heat is putting my good girl status in serious jeopardy…

please hurry down the chimney this week! 🙂

[Tamara]

Oh you poor things! Be prepared for more of the hot weather though. Apparently Perth will be 37 degrees c on Tuesday. We had that ghastly weather before all the wind and storms. It truly is bizarre. Hopefully though it will calm down and decide to be normal now that it is officially summer! We want a hot summer to bring the cyclones down as they determine the path for winter rain. But I heard that forecasters are predicting La Niña this season. I could be wrong so don’t panick yet.

I guess tying a quilt would be frustrating. I didn’t do any sewing today as we went shopping instead so tomorrow I shall do something useful and sew! I bought some tulle to make some more Fairy tale dresses as I didn’t have any before and I think it would be great to have at least one with tulle in the underskirt.

I also want to get some pairs of shorts made but I can work on that during the week.

[Mama_Knowles]

Oh my, sounds hot! It’s nice and chilly here, there is frost on the ground this morning.

I am almost done with Prince C’s vintage Christmas outfit. I have the knickers, vest dress shirt done. I used the Sketchbook pattern for the shirt, nickers and vest. It even has a binky pocket on it. 🙂 I will have his hat done as soon as make a fabric covered button for the top. So all I have to really is make his bow tie then lots of pictures!! I am hoping to enter the two littles into Project play and run this time.

~Sharon~