A March Finish and Violet Progress

Last night I finished this little tooth fairy pillow for my niece. Which is really good timing as I needed to finish something for the month of March for OPAM.

There are little silver seed beads and a cute little star for the end of her wand give it just enough bling. 

There is a pocket on the back for the tooth and any little surprise the tooth fairy might leave. I know Fairy Floss Stitches will like this one. You should pop over and check out her post from 16th March to see what we got up to on our retreat at Two Rivers. I have been a very slack blogger this month. March has been a particularly busy month for reasons that are way to boring to talk about here. 

Despite the craziness of our household, I have made time to sew my A Legacy From Violet quilt. It has been neglected in the cupboard since July last year waiting to have the final two borders attached. Every time I  try to add a border, I hesitate and procrastinate. I think this is because I am still haunted from the nightmares of this incident. When adding the first border, I realised I had made a HUGE mistake. It just wouldn't fit, and this is just a small section pinned together. Multiply the difference in size by about five and you can imagine how far out I was with my measurements. EPP SHOULD be a fairly exact science!!!

My first border didn't fit and I had more trouble with the second one and had to redesign it and cross my fingers that the rest of the borders would fit. Otherwise it was going to give up and turn it into a very big cushion.

To this day, I do not know where I went wrong. Every time a new border is ready to go on, I freak out and pack it up until I can face the possibility of the nightmares returning.

Anyway, I am pleased to show you progress despite my fears.

Border five has been successfully added and I have one final border to add. 

It now measures 82" x 87".

Border six is my favourite. 

So I am busy making the papers to add this border and then....onto the quilting frame for quilting. I hope to have it on my bed by October, in time for next Summer. Maybe I am being a bit ambitious to have it finished by then. But a girl's got to have a dream...dreams are much better than nightmares.

Enjoy your weekend.

Friday Night With Friends

Last  night I joined in with Friday Night With Friends. I finished the little cross stitch above a while ago. There is a little silver crook to be stitched next to the shepherd's hand after I wash it. It is a set of four small Christmas designs from Shepherd's Bush.

 They each measure just two and a half inches square when finished.

I started this one last night.

If you would like to see what everyone else got up to last night, or to sign up click here.

Toes in the Sand Finished

 Just a quick post to let you know that I finished binding this quilt last week.

This is my very first quilt hand quilted on my Grace quilting frame. I am so pleased I quilted this one first before quilting my Legacy from Violet quilt...which I might add is still not finished. Just two borders to add... so close but yet so far.

There was a lot to learn making this quilt from the very start using a Hex n More ruler that I would highly recommend. Pressing seams open to get a better finish on the points of triangles, not to mention learning how to use the frame.

Lots of experimenting marking the quilt, which needles to use, adjusting the height and angle of the frame, tension on the quilt in the frame and so on.

 Not to mention ordering the correct amount of backing fabric so you don't spend an extra night piecing one so you can start quilting ;) 

I am pleased with how it turned out. It is far from perfect, but I enjoyed the process. About 10 needles were sacrificed along the way when they snapped in two as I tried to quilt the corners of blocks where several layers of fabric met.

But now I do have a finish for February and can add that to my OPAM tally.