AJ's Antics

I don't have many photos of the next few steps...sorry...got carried away sewing it together and forgot....so you will have the use the last photo as a guide.... Take the flying geese with wings and sew four together into a row... you will end up with 6 rows of 4...make sure all the flying geese are going the same way when you sew them...I didn't...got carried away with what I was doing and had to unpick...opps! Sew 4 of the pin-wheel/flying geese together in a row...giving you two rows of 4...making diamonds in the middle... Feature Fabric/hourglass blocks sew them in alternating sequence into 3 rows of 3 then on the right hand end of each row sew the feature block/flying geese and on the other end the spare flying geese giving you three rows of FF/hourglass alternating with a flying geese (goose??) on each end. These photos are not the right colours scheme but are of a second quilt I'm making in the same pattern. Then sew the rows together as pictured....so that each feat...

Meg and Mick on the birth of their second son!! Born last night the 25th of February (5 days late by my calculations) at 9:04pm. Weighing in at a perfect 8lb 6oz and measuring 52.5 cm long. He is yet to be named as I think Meg thought she was having a girl and had a girls named picked out. Lucky I started on that 'I spy' quilt...should be finished in time. This is the quilt I made for their first born, Patrick .

I started this quilt ages ago...too long to actually remember when...I'd have to check the bank statements to see when the payments started comming out. It is a Block-of-the-month quilt from The Apple Backet Patchwork Shop in New Zealand. They have some cute kids quilts to make. I saw this one in a magazine and had it sent over. I started the applique by machine as I had already done hand appliques and I wanted to try something new....big mistake...I think it has taken me soooo long to do it becuase I wasn't enjoying the machine applique...and everytime I got it out I wished that it was hand appliqued! Then I ran out of some colours of cotton for the machine and have actually used a poly-cotton for the lime green as I couldn't find a 100%cotton in that colour. And DH whinged every time I worked on it becuase of the noise the machine made zipping back and forth in zig-zag stitch. Anyway all the blocks are now finished and trimmed to size. I just have the cut the shashing and...

This is the final set of sewing instructions before laying out the quilt for its big reveal... Feature Blocks On the right hand side of 9 feaute blocks sew one hourglass block with the B (lighter) triangle against the feature print. On the remaining 3 feature blocks sew a flying geese (goose??), again onto the right, with the B (lighter) triangle against the feature print. Mini Pin-wheel blocks To each side of the pin-wheel block add a flying geese. This time the flying geese are pointing in towards the pin-wheel. A Summery of the pieces you have 24 flying geese with wings (sqaures sewn on either end) 8 pin-wheel blocks with flying geese attached to either side 9 feature/hourglass blocks 3 feature/flying geese blocks 3 flying geese - not attached to anything 4 dark squares - not attached to anything 5 border strips of feautre fabric

We got up early this morning, to beat the heat, to take Jester to the beach....he loves the beach but is not a big fan of swimming yet. We had to wait for another dog to come along to fetch the ball that accidentally got thrown too far out in the water....that was after said rescue-the-ball dog peed on my bag which was sitting on the sand. YUCK!! We haven't had agility training these past two weeks because of the rain so hopefully this week we can go. I'm not sure who enjoys it the most...me or the dog!!

A Quilt Sandwich!! It's been ages since I made one...I hate working out how to back the quilts...I don't mind the quilting part...but the 'finding and making the backing big enough' part makes me hesitate every time. I decided I better do something though cause Meg is due any day....well she has probably already had bub but she is a slacker with the phone call....anyway she didn't find out what she was having in advance so I need to be ready with either a boy or girl quilt... the tops are done for both but still need to be quilted...I will be visiting in about 6 weeks...so I better get a move on!!

from experience!! pulling the fabric to make it work doesn't always help....stretched fabric is harder to work with go S.L.O.W!!! just beause the first one worked out doesn't mean the next one will puckers add character (!!) use small stiches but not too small because there will be unpicking fudge it as best you can don't get cocky - see second point a good iorn will hide a multitude of sins don't do these when you are tired - they look worse when you get up in morning when pinning don't make puckers don'tgive up easily - walk away and then come back and try again when admiring you work stand back form it and don't use a maginifying glass make sure the templates are the right way up!! leaving the needle down and lifting the presser foot to re-arrange the fabric underneath is allowed and it works wonders cheer yourself up with a little 'yessssssss' everytime you get a seam right - it amuses your husband don't get cocky - did I ready mention that!?...