Early morning quilt show

I woke early again this morning, but this time with cramp in a leg, so the best thing to do, was to get up and walk around. Now I have been sitting here at the computer for an hour, picking out photos to post for you.

First up is a dinosaur quilt made by Vicki, and quilted with an allover pattern with dinosaurs!

This was also made by Vicki, and features penguins and polar bears. As Vicki intended to keep this quilt at her house, for grandchildren when they came, she wanted the quilting to be "more special", so it has been custom quilted.

This puzzle quilt, was made by Lyn, and is quilted allover with a meander pattern.

I know I have shown photos of Helen's quilt, in the recent post, It's all about choices , but I am going back now with some closeups, and showing what the blocks look like after the "bling" has been added.

Now the butterflies have antennas and beads on them.

And how different do these flowers look with some pearls on them.

Above photo is a bit plain, and below is now dressed up.

If you look closely at the photo above, you will see a pencil mark right in the centre, where Helen had marked the centre point of the block. In the photo below, you can't see it anymore. 

The addition of a flower in each corner of the square and a posy on the block just adds that nice touch!

In this block some pearls were stitched on the intersecting lines in the centre.

Just a few more photos to follow for you to look at.

Do you see the fun Helen had using stitches on her machine. Outside the applique is a fancy zig zag, and on the edge a hemstitch. Either side of that she has used the triple stitch which just outlines the hemstitch.

The top left hand corner of the quilt. The wide border only went on both sides and the bottom.

Lots of different stitches were used here, and various thread colours, including a variegated, and all stitched over some pintucked fabric.

Notice the little beads stitched in each flower on the umbrella.

This is the lace that Helen made, using tulle.

I think, I know, Helen spent many hours stitching all these beads on after the quilting was finished. It is certainly easier to stitch them on before, when you don't have so many layers to work with. But then it is harder for the quilter, to stitch close to them, and there is a risk of the machine hitting them.

After Helen had made this block, and when she was laying them out in their positions, it was decided that this one was too bright against the others. To remedy this and still be able to use the block, she added some lace fabric over the top, to "tone down" the pink colour, and now it blends beautifully in with the others. "Fudging" is a word we use a lot in this class!

This is the gorgeous fabric that Helen was gifted, and used as the tree fabric for her centrepiece. It already had the beads stitched on it.

Helen has put a pink binding on the quilt, made up of all the leftover pink fabrics, which just added a nice frame of pink around the plain coloured border. It has been to Adelaide to be valued, and now resides on the bed of Helen's daughter and SIL. I received this photo, after it had been delivered.

I hope you enjoyed the quilt show this morning. It has certainly helped fill in a couple of hours.

The rearranging and sorting continues, and I think I am making progress. The fabric scraps have gone from the table, and "organised" into drawers and containers. There are still lots of bags of scraps and that will take a long time to cut into useable pieces, and I think a long time might mean years! At least there is some sort of order now, that was not there before. As I had cut each Mystery quilt, the leftover bits had just been stored in all sorts of places, and now I have them all in one place. I have colour co-ordinated all the leftover jelly roll strips and they are in the drawers. I did have a thought of spending half an hour each day cutting the scraps, and maybe I will make progress, so will see how, or if, that works out??

Yesterday I spent time taking all the "stuff" off the back shelves, behind Max, and arranging the shelves, as I had purchased more from the hardware store. I just need to get 3 more brackets, and this job is finished. I am now finding "all" my UFO's and storing them in boxes so that I can find them easily, when I get around to working on them. I did load a quilt yesterday morning, but Max did not get switched on. We had a committee meeting here at lunchtime, and then I kept on with the shelves, so by the time late afternoon had arrived, I just sat and watched the news on TV and went to bed early.

As it is now 6.30am, I better go for a shower, and get started on that quilted that I loaded yesterday. The weather looks set to hit 40deg tomorrow and later in the week, so I expect to get the air con turned up, (or should I say down??)

Have a great day, and keep those guesses coming in. I am loving the messages I am getting. And welcome to Gloria from Canada, and I see someone else now following, but don't know how to contact you.

Blessings, From Jude