OPAM Finish for April

 Today I am linking up with Finish It Up Friday and OPAM as I do the big TADAAAA!!

and show you my Star Flannel Quilt finally finished. I hand quilted this in DMC Perle 8 thread. Please excuse the washing hanging either side. As you can see, its an overcast day and I needed to get the boring jobs done before doing the fun stuff.

 Quilting on the back...

 

I quilted eight pointed stars on the larger blocks.

Here it is on my son's bed. An antique one I purchased at an auction years ago.

 

 

I love the carving at the head and foot. The whole thing was painted fire engine red when I bought it.

 

The carving  reminds me of the Legacy Torch and and the wreaths we lay on ANZAC Day. I must research the significance of this one day as my Uncle thinks it was made back as early as 1920.

Which leads me to my final photos.

 Son No. 3 played euphonium during the ANZAC Day parade yesterday. He took part in three parades. The first one in a small town nearby. It only has about 1500 people and they were very excited to have a band lead the parade for the very first time. Then back on the bus to head down the highway to play during the parade and commemorative services in two more towns.

 

 



 

 Perfect Autumn weather prevailed as we remembered those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Lest we forget.

FNSI and Toes In the Sand catch up

Yesterday was very quiet. Mr Stitch unfortunately working this Easter weekend. Son No. 1 home tonight for Easter break. Son No. 2 spending time with his girlfriend and her family before she heads back to uni and Son No. 3 recovering from birthday sleep over with mates.

 

Nothing to do here but sew.
 

I decided to catch up on my Toes in the Sand BOM. I was  three months behind. But I am all caught up now.

 

Block 10

Block 11

Block 12

 

All blocks are now completed and I have fabric to finish this quilt. Thanks goodness for holidays. It might be a finished flimsy before too long.

 

During the evening I joined in with Friday Night Sew In. Pop over to Wendy's blog if you would like to sign up or take a look at what other people were up to. I kept plugging along with the quilting on my Star Flannel quilt.

 

 I am looking forward to all of my family being home tomorrow and celebrating Easter.

Happy Easter to you and your family.



Phew!!

 

I am so excited, no, make that relieved that the problems I experienced when attaching the star border are resolved and I have finished adding border number four....the hexagons and diamonds. It is SO big now, I have to stand on the dining room table to take a picture!! Over 80 inches in each direction.

 

To jog your memory, here is a photo of me trying to ease the star border on last year. The result was a VERY bumpy quilt. The quilt was banished to the cupboard for a few months until I stopped sulking had a little think about it. Anyone who does EPP knows, there is no point moving on because the rest of the quilt will not fit together.

 

 

Now I have a smooth, flat flimsy. I never really knew until this border was on if it was going to be OK.

PHEW!!!!

So next border is the third and final border stripe. I have the papers ready to cover with fabric....

...and the scallops on the final border are joined and glued onto the background and currently being appliqued.

So, I am going to take a little rest from Violet while I finish the quilting on this WIP. This flannel was almost finished when Summer hit. I just couldn't swelter under it any longer and put it away until Autumn arrived. Now the nights are cooler, I am determined to make it my next OPAM finish.

 

I hope you have time to stitch too.



Star Flannel Pieced

This morning I got up bright and early and finished my Flannel Star Quilt. Now I can link up to Finish It Up Friday.

This quilt measures about 85 inches square, so there should be no complaints from my sons who are over 6 foot tall that:

 

 "It's not long enough, my toes stick out."

I left a few of the layer cake pieces whole so I can quilt some eight pointed stars onto them with perle thread.

 



I am off to spend some time with my parents for a few days. Can't believe I had time to sew, post on my blog AND be packed on time ready to go. I'm usually not that organised.
 

Enjoy the weekend.

 

On Sunday I took an excited car load of teenagers to Sydney. During this school holidays, they are heading off to South Korea with their Principal and one other teacher for ten days. First stop Seoul for some sightseeing, then a flight to Jeju Island. Next a two hour ferry ride to Chuja Island where they will stay with host families from a school of just 37 students for about four nights. Our local high school has been participating in a student exchange program with students from South Korea for about 6 years now. We have hosted three students in our home so far and it has been such a wonderful experience. Yesterday our youngest son flew out on his adventure.

Here he is with a few of the girls..

 

 ...and a few guys. Eight in total.
 

They washed cars to raise money for their team shirts, it was easier to identify each other in a busy airport.

 

A few of the mums are of a quilting disposition. I suggested that as the children were catching an early flight, we could 'patchwork shop hop' our way home. After all, we would be at least a little sad to wave our children good bye and perhaps some retail therapy would cheer us up.

 

I just have to digress here and say that getting him packed up to go was much more stressful than actually waving him off to visit another country far, far away from his mother. An example of what I mean? Well, I could sworn I spoke English when I said "Go and pack your bag, you fly out tomorrow." Some how was interpreted as "Go to you room, sit on your bed with you iPad and chat to your  friends on Facebook for AT LEAST an hour." While the girls in the photo have sent their mothers detailed messages and photos of the trip so far. I  discovered he had unfriended my on Facebook AGAIN. The message I finally received when accepting my friend request?...'Hi Mum'. That's it. Mothers of boys out there, I know you feel my pain.

 

Anyway...back to the shopping.

 

With TomTom securely attached to my windscreen, we navigated our way through the city on our own adventure.

First stop...Quiltsmith. They have SO much fabric!! My friends Sandra and Mandy (no blogs for these ladies) made some lovely fabric purchases. Just a new thimble for me.

Next stop...and this is where Kevin will be jealous...Material Obsession. (Check out Kevin's blog as he starts his own Soul Searching journey.)

 

When we pulled up out the front of the shop, we were greated with this wonderful sign !!!

 

 

I purchased wadding for my current Star Flannel Quilt project. Backing for my next flannel project. Yes, there will be another one after the Star Quilt...not sure what it will be and not untill next Winter. But I couldn't resist the lovely Woolies flannel MO stock when it is half price. I am becoming a bit addicted to flannel fabric.

 



I'm not sure why I needed this fabric other than it caught my eye on my last visit and it was now half price.

Finally...

 

 ...bags of scraps were just $3. So I got one of those.

On my to do list this holidays...sort my fabric into one central location so I can start making some scrappy projects from this book...

 

 

...and another I am anxiously waiting to arrive in my letter box any day now. I am in my collecting phase at the moment.

 

It was very inspiring to see the quilts hanging downstairs in this shop and those made by the peope who were attending a class while we were there. You can see them on the Material Obsession blog here.

 

All of this shopping made us a bit hungry so back in the car. 'Sat Nav' programmed and we headed for Killara where there is a lovely cafe next door to the Crewel Gobelin.

This store is under new ownership. The lovely helpful ladies who used to own it have been replaced by equally lovely helpful staff. No patchwork fabric here. Just lots and lots of embroidery thread, linen, aida, embroidery and cross stitch patterns.

A couple of new (little) projects and some linen for projects already on my to do list.

Even though I was weary from my big day, I couldn't resist starting this one last night. Forty count linen, definitley need my glasses for this one.

 

To finish off (sorry, should have warned you this post was long) an update on my Star Flannel Quilt. Hopefully finished tonight and ready to quilt tomorrow now that I have wadding.

 

Bye for now.



Cassilis Quilter's Get Together. (Plus the lengths a blogger will go to)

 We had a lovely day at Cassilis yesterday. There was lots of 'Show and Tell'. Above you can see Julie (no blog...still!! ) with gifts she has made for her new born niece. Will definitely address to 'no blog' status she has this school holidays.

This is one of Lea's new projects. Lea had more to show, but I was a slack photographer....sorry.



Susan had LOTS to show.

I worked on my Legacy From Violet Quilt. STILL working on that large hexagon border..this one will take a while.

It was a lovely day out with good food at the Plough Inn and good company. Unfortunately poor Kylie was unable to attend due to illness.

The countryside was just lovely on the journey over. The canola fields were such a vibrant shade of yellow that we just had to stop and take a picture of the little 'fixer-upper' we saw barely standing in the paddock amongst the canola.

It was interesting to see the lengths a blogger will got to if they want to get the perfect shot with their camera. First a drive down the track.

Here is Lea, wading through long grass, risking snake bite, possible broken ankle falling down a rabbit warren and torn clothing to get to the highest fence post to get the ideal shot of the house.

Once strategically balanced...she could take the photo she was longing for.

  And what was is that she was trying to capture?

This was the shot taken in the morning. Once we were back on the road, we realised that the best shot could be taken from the main road. Can you believe it??  So....of course we had to stop on the way back in the afternoon to see how it would look in a different light.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend. I stayed up till something (?) past midnight on a new project. Here's a sneak peak.

I just love how you can do that during the holidays. Hope to finish it tonight and quilt it while the evenings are still cool enough to require a quilt on your lap.