WOW 25th October Catching up

Hi Everyone,

Missed blogging last week as I was busy playing with my new toy.

A portable quilting frame complete with a Juki machine. First place to set it up was on my sewing table and yes it takes up a lot of space, 72" like this but has an extension that takes it to 108"

Played with the machine firstbefore putting it on the frame and what a fantastic straight sewer it is, already love it but boy is it fast. Lots of practice going to be needed before I attempt one of my quilts.

At the weekend Steve refurbished a desk he had in the garage and the frame has now moved to our 4th bedroom/office and I have got my sewing table back. 

Set up in its new room, won't be able to use the extension in here but least it can stay set up while I practice. Have been told am not having any more rooms two is the limit, garage is out of bounds also.

Gracie very happy as the single bed from that room has moved to the sunroom and is now her favourite place to spend the day. 

Fingers are crossed that she doesn't decide to eat it, as she ate the secondhand couch we got for her last year and we had to dump it as it was beyond repair. Must remind Steve it would be nice to get the walls finished as well, the joys of having a builder husband.

Took Hexit back to the group last week, decided to cut off the zigzag ends and add top and bottom borders to make it more functional for whoever is lucky enough to win it when it is raffled.

The Dargaville ladies throughly enjoyed making it and it looks stunning

 Enjoyed making part 3 of OMW Flowers Bloom as had just bought some batiks that were on sale ot spotlight and knew I wanted to use one in particular for my leaves as it had just the right look. Did concentrate on my vase and flower first though.

Used a lighter fabric for the back of my flower and the cut my petals from the poppy fabric I had tried for block two. Triple stitch for my stamens in a variegated lilac thread and a double blanket stitch in varigated metallic for the little circles. 

Added my leaves and again varigated Mettler threads for the stitching

One done and one to go.

Very happy with how they have turned out.

Inbetween I have been slowly working away on my Red Delicious blocks. very different working with shades of one colour and at times it is a challenge but its also lots of fun.

Cherry Thieves was the next one up, here all the fabrics are in place but nothing stitched.

All stitched, the metallic on the wings and tail make a huge difference

The eye is a real feature on these birds so decided to use reverse applique placing a slightly deeper plain red under the cutout of the eye. Meant I could blanket stitch outwards around the eye giving it better definition. Used a pigma pen for the eye itself and a dot from a metallic silver pen as a highlight.

In place under the Cherry Basket

Next up was Love Apple another smaller block with two Pomegranates and an Apple.

I cut the outside of the pomegranates as one piece and darkened the center with pencils as it didn't show up as much as I wanted, the highlight on the apple is reverse applique.

Finished and sashing added.

With these blocks done it was time to add the small swirly block to the bottom and join the first two panels together

Yay, Had been worried about matching the join between the two swirly blocks but had taken the precaution of leaving the last couple of inches of the vertical one unstitched and unfused.

The edge was out but I was able to trim for a perfect match and then finish my stitching. 

Last of the small blocks in the center panel was Nightshade. Bought another couple of fabrics before starting this one as had use most of my reds and wanted to have different ones rather than reusing the same fabrics

Assembly done and first flower stitched, new fabrics used for the leaves.

Glad I bought the extra fabrics.

Paired with the fan block to complete the bottom of the first two panels.

The last block of all is Peony Bloom though to me I see Carnations and that is the look I went with.

Fabrics all in place with using my second option for the stems. Had cut them first out of a black fabric with a tiny red dot all over but it was just too dark and hard looking. Found this blackberry fabric and though it is still very dark it is dark purple and works much better.

Stitched with a purple, yellow and green variagated thread it has come to life.

Flowers come alive with stitching as well.

The final block finished

Yesterday I joined the completed the third panel and assembled the top, this morning have put on the final sashings so only the outer borders to do once I decide on my fabrics.

Red Delicious.

Love this pattern and have had so much enjoyment making it, now to practice lots on my quilter so that I can do it justice with the quilting.

Linking now to Esther's WOW for 25th October,

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone

Cheers Jenny

Secret Garden Center

Hi everyone,
Loved it on 1st Oct when it was the center block for Secret Garden that Esther gave us.
Having no idea what it would be it was fabulous seeing the so romantic looking block with all its flowers. Dived straight in as it was an easy choice for the stems and little flowers in the corners.

Same fabrics as my triangles 

Love the shape of the stems, a knot celtic look to them although from some angles they do remind me of fish, cute fish though.

For the center decided to use my contrast fabric and also use the dark fabric from my little squares.

Don't have a lot of that so had been keeping it for the right time.

With my contrast fabric a butterfly became perfect choice for the very center.

Next to go one was the leaves below the flowers, are they the sepals am never sure. used fabric that I thought would work but in place it was a little washed out looking, not quite green enough so used pencils to colour them up a little.

In the left photo the top left leaf is the fabric only while the others have been coloured. On the right is the same leaf with extra colour, not a huge change but a big difference overall to how it shows up.

Easy so far but the flowers were next. Knew I wanted to tie in the colours of the blocks especially block one where I used a mix of colours for my flowers while the others are more a single theme and all in shades of pink/purple.

My design wall got a lot of use while putting the flowers together so I could check the balance.

Ended up with two each of four different flowers, Pink, peach, pink/peach and peach/purple.

Stitching I did with variegated thread and again there were different threads for each tone of flower.

Thought for a bit about what to do for the stamens, then tested out my idea and it worked using my favourite gold metallic thread, Maderia No 3 which is a very soft almost antique looking gold.

To stitch them I stitched out with triple stitch right to the end of the stamen then turned and set machine to an oval embroidery stitch  ( #94 on my Bernina 440 ) with the width reduced from 5.5 to 3.5.

Stitching over my triple stitch with it gave fullness to it as well and ensured a good coverage with a fine thread. Changed back to triple stitch and stitched back to the start giving thickness to the stem.

Just how I wanted it to look.

Last decision was to add the butterflies. I have them in every block and while they have filled the open spaces on each side they don't seem to have taken anything away from the block.

I have sewn the little blocks into rows for the border but not attached them yet and my design wall is so full of Secret Garden that not sure where I can add anymore, wish it was big enough to pin it out to the measurement and I could try and guess what else is to come.

Now I can go back to my Red Delicious blocks until the 15th and the 3rd part of On My Window.

Linking to Esther's WOW

Enjoy your stitching Everyone,

Cheers Jenny