In a bind? Check this out!

No AHQ sewing here today.  Instead I gave my day over to another good cause -helping a girlfriend and her 15 year old gorgeous daughter make quilts for both grandmothers.  And I got part of my office tidied up and that is a big improvement.  I actually had serious plans to tidy as soon as Christmas was over but then guess what happened - yep, AHQ happened.  Now I am going to be tidying slow time over the next next few weeks!  Has to be done as I work better in a tidy room, and there is going to be lots of work for me to do in coming week - because lots of you are getting on board and sending me quilts and blocks and so on!  Wonderful.

Now, I know a few girls out there are somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of machine sewing binding, and that's okay, but I saw a gorgeous example of just how good it can look with a little practice so I thought I would encourage you to check it out here on Rachel Hauser's blog stitched in colour.  She has just completed the most gorgeous triangle quilt (positively delicious) and there are some great photos of the binding - it has been stitched with a zig zag stitch and I think it really adds to the quilt.  Hope it encourages some of you.  It did me!  

There has been a big jump in the number of laundry bags tally for this year today.  I just found out that my friend, Cynthia, whose son is over there, has posted off 18 laundry bags to her son to distribute to his mates! Excellent - all made by Cynthia!  She is currently away on holidays but I expect there will be a push to complete 18 quilts shortly after her return!  Fine with me.

This is the quilt we made for Hamish.  You might think Cynthia would have made her own quilt for Hamish but she actually found it quite difficult as she was struggling with the idea of him going.  We often forget  that it is not just the guys and gals over there that are making a sacrifice when they go but also their families.  hamsih, being a Gumnut Baby, i.e. the son of one of the Gumnut Quilters, warranted a little special consideration.  For his quilt we used some of our precious Gumnut fabric.  See the green patch under the orange.  And he also got the first quilt with pockets. 

 I managed to get some old air force cadet camo uniforms from my son's unit and I cut up the legs of a pair of trousers and preserved the pockets.

 And we backed the quilt with curtain material from "home", Gumnut fabric and some Aussie fabric.

He hasn't received it yet so i am looking forward to what he says when he gets it!

Till next time......happy stitching!

Quilts and Laundry Bags sent so far this year
Quilts - 4
Laundry bags - 28

Had a great day and then I noticed.....

Two of my quilt group mates turned up this morning and we got stuck into sewing.  Two quilt tops got finished but I can't show you one as it is especially for a certain soldier and if it is seen on the blog it will spoil the surprise.  

Debbie worked on the star quilt that incorporates Celia's stars and some I made.  I had all the rows sewn into groups of threes and Debbie finished the quilt top.

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, my laptop freezes for a few minutes and when that happens i just have to be patient and wait for it to thaw again.  As soon as I downloaded the photos on this post it froze and so I had nothing much to do but sit and wait and admire our work.  Boy am I glad that I did!  Spot the error! My error sadly.  That is all I am saying.  It will probably jump out at you but there were three of us there today and none of us noticed it!  Guess I will be doing some un-sewing tomorrow (too tired tonight).  Nevermind, at least I don't have to unpick the while quilt and I still think it looks great, even if do need to do a little fix.  Anyone see what I mean?

 Sharon worked on the special quilt top that I can't show you yet just in case someone sees it early.  And then she did the sewing on these bindings and a lovely green and white check that I have iron tonight.  These are for three of the quilts tops that are waiting to be layered. 

Mostly we use scrap binding for our quilts but sometimes we think a particular quilt warrants a coordinating binding and that is the case here.

 And while the girls did the sewing I did lots of cutting; the bindings for starters and then the border strips for Sharon and Debbie to sew and finally these dozen laundry bags.  LOVE that one on the top - noone will take that by accident.  I still have to cut the linings for all of them but that is a job for tomorrow.  

We had a fun day.  We worked hard and got so much done.  These days are always fun.

Till next time.....happy stitching.