Works In Progress

I've had a very busy weekend with my son's 16th birthday party, but I did a get a chance to work on some designs for up coming magazines.

The rose design will be applique and done in the fabrics you can see behind the blackline designs. They are teh colours requested by Patchwork and Stitching magazine, but it won't be published until 2013. It's not dues until mid October, but I like to get ahead on these things.

The butterfly is for a cross stitch ... finally!!! Of course I still have to colour it, but I'm thinking the magical swirl behind the butterfly will be a rainbow.

There are four more weeks until the school holidays, and after that my work load at the child care center should slow down with the return of one of their regular staff members. I'll be able to get more design work done. But the money has been so welcome. It's almost as if the universe knew our finances would be stretched the past few months and sent us a boon. So thankyou very much divine workings of the powers that be!

Today I need to finish the green quilt for my son. I would have had it done yesterday, but I ran out of the black mateial I'm using for the binding. Today is his actual birthday, so I'll get it done and give it to him tonight. I"ll post a picture of course!

Thanks again for reading
Jennidee

Bare With Me

Excuse me for not posting in a little while. Life has been crazy busy. My job at the child care centre hadn't slowed down yet. I'm still working more hours than I wanted to. It might just be that way for another 6 weeks until one of the long term staff members comes back from her extnded absence.

I did get my quilting frame ... and here you see it set up with my first full sized quilt. I did some practice sandwiches to get the tension right and to get used to the movement of the carriage. This quilt is for my son's 16th birthday. His favourite colour is green and the backing is some Mickey mouse and Minnie mouse fabric that my mum donated. James likes Mickey Mouse mostly because of the Kingdomw Hearts game. It's a nice simple quilt which took only a day to put the quilt top together and it's a great way to practice while still doing something useful. I'm using invisibile thread because of all the different fabrics and the contrqast of the backing. It's comign up really well.

The frame sits nicely in our Playroom, and I can turn it sideways to extend and do larger quilts (no need to move it into the family room at all, yay!).

I haven't had nearly as much time as I need to do this quilt and all the other projects I have backed up as our hot water system packed it in on the weekend. So I've spent the last three days running around getting a new one organised. We switched from electricity to gas so it was a bit to organise. I had to do it all as my hubby was away in Darwin and Alice Springs for work. I'm proud to say I had it all fixed by the time he came back. But I'm VERY tired.

This weekend we are holding a birthday party in the palyroom for James and his friends. I have to move the quilt frame out to the family room as they plan to tunr the room into a movie lounge with projector, bean bags, mattresses and the couch. So i need to get the quilt doen by tomorrow at the latest.

Well ... I guess I'd better get back to it then!!!

Jennidee

My Monster

So this is the monstrous frame I am goign to order for machine quilting. But it's actually adjustable to two sizes. See the leg in the middle? Most of the time, my frame will sit at that width to fit in my room. But if I need to do a king size, double or queen quilt, I can bring it out to the larger size in my family room (where hubby says it is NOT to stay).

I can't wait.

Quilt Accepted (a quick one)

Well I was going to try and sell patterns of the French Butterfly myself, but on ebay there were no takers, so I offered it to Patchwork and Stitching Magazine and they were happy to accept it.

I'm not very good at selling my own designs to the public yet. Maybe I'll get better as I gain more experience. There is still the web site to be made. The problem is, I keep selling the patterns I'm making up to magazines LOL.

Developments

Hi there everyone ... welcome to the new followers. I hope I manage to post something of interest to you.

Yesterday I was hunting down a fabric that I had run out of. I had already used a lot of it in the quilt I was doing and needed more for it to look right. The first shop I visited didn't have it. But I spoke to the owner at length. I mentioned I had sent him some images of art quilts and assumed he didn't like them as he hadn't replied. He told me he'd been really sick with pneumonia for 3 months and hadn't looked at his email in that time and could I please bring them in for him to see. We also talked about the quilt I'm currently working on - a mermaid quilt with an abstract landscape (colourwash style). Jeff (the owner) was quite pleased to hear about it as they had had good success with those kinds of workshops in the past, but the teacher had moved to Queensland.

So I'll be going back down to the shop (Folklore, Penrith Patchwork) next week to talk to them about workshops (and the massive quilting frame that I want to buy).

And the good news was that in the third shop I went to they had the fabric I needed and I can finish the quilt the way I wanted to. I've nearly pieced together the top, but I won't post pictures until it's finished as some of the fine work on the applique image will be done in the quilting stage.

I'm sorry to say I'm having a little trouble getting motivated to design my next cross stitch. My new job is manageable. It's no where near as stressful as my last job, but unfortunately my body is still letting me down. Even that little bit of work out of the home (with early mornings) is wearing me down. And when I'm tired I find it difficult to design. The creative juices just don't flow that well. It's been a bit of a struggle to motivate myself with the quilting too. And with paying opportunities coming up, I really need to keep cracking on.

Luckily hubby is being very supportive and even entertaining ideas of a a little machine quilting business. He's listened to my ideas about the quilting frame I'd like; with interest. Though the money needs to drop out of the sky pretty soon I think (or maybe I'll take out my own credit card or something).

Sorry this a boring one - no photos. If you've read this far, you are adored. :)
Jennidee

Butterfly Applique

A few days ago I finished this lovely little wall hanging that I've called French Butterfly. I've called it that because the fabrics used are from the French General series, the Pom pom de Paris collection. But you could use any lovely florals. The butterfly uses a store bought marbled collection. Again, you could use anythigng from your stash.

I used the iron on interface method and then satin stitched around the edges. It's really quick and easy to do.

The pattern and instructions are available on ebay

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/200801313165?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Today I'll be working on a mermaid quilt until I go to work at Pinaroo (the child care center) by 3pm.

Jennidee