It seems that I'm a very slow starter. I still have not put two pieces together in my summer stash challenge quilt, and Eileen will start hand quilting her quilt today! Luckily she will do it by hand, and I'll do mine by machine, so I'm not too much behind. I just wanted to finish my PIF gifts first, and I sent them off on Monday. That was a lot of blue! And I should perhaps inform my new readers that I still miss one name on my list of three! The gift will not necessarily be anything like the ones I have sent, but it will be hand made by me. Check here for the rules, if you are interested!

I have never before had so many of these dark irises! I have brought them from my mother's garden. Two years ago we worked on this flower bed making it a lot smaller and easier for me to take care of, got rid of some flowers and kept these. The yellow ones are from a little start I once dug up at my parent's place. It was growing in the sand on the little "beach" where I learned to swim. I think the waves had brought the first seeds or roots there.

This is another project I have finished, I sewed the last bit of the binding this morning. This is my whirligiggle children's quilt, and I chose the most orange binding. Is this my way of getting ready to be a grandmother someday? This quilt is for no specific child, I just made it because I wanted to try the pattern and recycle the nightgowns!

Next post will show some progress on my challenge quilt, I promise.

My new uniform

When I start working, I usually put my apron on. I work at home, and there are days when I wear my apron all day except when I eat. My youngest child used to say "Put your apron on!" when we came home, it made him feel safe knowing I'm not going anywhere but stay with him. Putting on lipstick on the other hand meant going shopping, which he also enjoyed unlike many more mature men. It is nice to start a new project wearing a new apron, and therefore I finally took some time with the sewing machine and made this ready:







This is my new Brownie uniform. I'm a Faraway member of the Brown Owls in Melbourne, and I embroidered the name panel and the faraway panel they sent me, and that's how I earned my first badge, the stitching badge you can see on my sidebar. For the cooking badge I sent a recipe for a cookbook they are making. I'm excited to hear what comes next.



With my uniform ready I'm full of energy and eager to start my Summer Stash Challenge quilt. By now I have about two hundred pieces cut (I'll need about 300). But before I allow myself this fun project, I will quilt and bind the Whirligiggle quilt. I do the quilting by machine and I have about one third done.

Whirligiggle

Yesterday I was busily sewing on this children's quilt top. It was so welcoming to feel again the joy of making just this block and only this one before I hang up the laundry, and then I'll have ten more minutes before I really must start making us lunch. I had the pieces cut last month, and the sewing was such fun. This used to be two nightgowns. I used the top part of the flowery one (a different fabric) for Flannel Kitty's dress. The narrow border here is the ruff of the flowery one, cut on bias. I cut it lengthwise in half to make this border, and there was a 7 cm piece left over when I finished! The quilt is about 120 x 150 cm. This picture was taken last night, the colours are rather blue, but you can see the whirligiggle pattern. I learnt about it during the Sew, Mama, Sew -quilting month in February.






Now I need to decide which binding would make this quilt look less anaemic. The backing will be a pinkish flannel with a children's print.



Alternative A, tile red/orange:

Alternative B, a warm red:

Alternative C, dark red:

And here they are all lined up, the darkest on the right is the one above and not really so dark as here. Because of the light fabric the dark one didn't get enough light, no matter how many pictures I took, with or without flash.

So please, comment and tell me your favourite. You can also make it D, your own suggestion. I might have it in my stash; and if not and I still love the idea, it will give me the perfect excuse to go shopping!