Gerard's Quilt
I have spent the last couple of months, in amongst other things, making a quilt for the flat in Germany for Gerard to use - I need to make a second one for when I or visitors are visiting but haven't yet started it. Here is the front of the finished quilt - the stars were foundation pieced, then the flowers were machine appliqued before adding the sashing.

For the reverse I decided to make it a bit more 'manly' and used a lot of black, white, cream and red music fabrics left over from Jon's quilt - inevitably I didn't have enough and we had to go searching for more! So I'm still left with a pile of black and white music fabrics! This time I used a much simpler block that I pieced as time was running short, added sashing then quilted it.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the quilting as I found it very difficult to match up the sashing front and back, so I think for mine I will choose an easier backing and possibly do ita as a 'quilt as you go' in smaller sections.

New Bag - April BQL Challenge Bag
Yesterday I finished making this bag which is from the British Quilters List April pattern (slightly adapted). Having treated myself to a new sewing machine a couple of weeks ago I used various features that came with it to create the bag.

I only had a smallish piece of the printed pansy material so decided to team that up with the plain cream and use the new embroidery unit to embroider the pansies onto it. The machine that I have bought is a Bernina and has the Bernina Stitch Regulator that I can attach to it so I used that for doing all of the quilting - good practice to find out how best to use it. I used the walking foot to quilt the handles and one of the inbuilt embroidery patterns to put a stipple pattern along the cream border at the top. And of course used the machine to sew it all together. One of the feet that I got to go with the machine is the edge stitch foot and I used this to top stitch the cream band at the top to the pansy material. I'm quite pleased with the result - it's quite a large bag but far too pretty to use for grocery shopping which was the original idea of the BQL challenge.

So - I love my new sewing machine - now I am getting used to having lots of little (and big) extras that my other machine didn't have - like a thread cutter - sooo useful and cuts down on thread wastage, the needle down position and a knee lift for raising the presser foot to turn corners which you do a lot of with applique. My new machine and I are going to be very happy together I know!

February bag - here is the bag I made for the February bag challenge on British Quilters List. I haven't followed the instructions fully as I was supposed to do the swirls with a thread in the bobbin of machine and I have hand couched it down, also it was supposed to have hearts or leaves on it and I have left them off. I did, however, hand dye the fabric for both the outside and the lining material.


I haven't got a lot of other sewing done recently as a lot of my time has been tied up with organising things to do with my husbands job in Germany - mainly tring to make sure we have enough money in the right place at the right time to pay everything. So far the job seems to be going well and he is enjoying the flat we are renting there - this week he is back working in the UK.

Here are a couple of photos of the flat - it is the top floor of this building complete with a mezzanine - and yes - we do have to climb the stairs in the turret to get up to the flat!

this is one end of the lounge

I would add a couple more pictures but blogger isn't co-operating tonight.

Gosh - it's ages since I posted anything here so time for a quick update. I passed the Module 2 and have started on my Module 3 work. I've done virtually no stitching over the Christmas and New Year period, even though I had high hopes of getting lots done - having a bad cold over New Year didn't help my motivation. However, yesterday I did some weaving - one of the tasks for the Module 3 - here are my first 2 attempts. I may do a bit more as I really quite enjoy it.


This weekend I also made a bag for the BQL bag challenge following the pattern given for January.