Monday, May 30, 2011

The half-way to Christmas quilt

Well howdy. It's been a lean and mean quilting year to date. Sadly work is all-consuming and whatever little energy I have at the end of the day is exhausted on the children. I'm giving my job till the end of the year to see if there's any improvement; if not, I'll start looking at other options. The job would be great if I had twice the staff numbers, who were trained and experienced! Never mind, can't have it all - I have a great team and a supportive boss, so I guess that's a lot.

Anway, I forced myself this weekend to add the borders to my 'Christmas Baubles' quilt (from a pattern by Audrey & Maude), before making the backing and sandwiching the sucker last night - it's huge! Larger than a lap quilt, it's the biggest quilt I've made to date (and I even put on smaller borders than the pattern stipulated!). And now it's my handwork project - I plan to do all the quilting by hand, using perle cotton and a largish needle - in the 'naive' or 'folk' style, which I think really suits this quilt. I have seven months to Christmas - hopefully I'll have finished it by then - if not, I'll hange it on the wall unfinished!

I did do a little bit of pieceing recently, making five tiny 'wonky houses' for a collaborative quilt for my Western Australian friend Helen, who had a 'significant birthday' recently :) A group of us was invited by her sister Andrea to contribute and then Ads (as she is known) put the whole thing together, quilted it and bound it. Helen was gobsmacked - she had no idea we were doing it and was suitably chuffed. The quilty community really is so generous!

Well that's it for me. I hope you're all well out there in virtual quilt land! What's under your needle these days?

5 comments:

Helen said...

Gobsmacked is an understatement Lily! Sorry to hear work is getting in the way of quilt related stuff. :( 7 months till Christmas, you CAN finish this!

Chookyblue...... said...

love the christmas tree......great design by Audrey and Maude........

dutchcomfort said...

Sorry to hear about the stressful job Lily! I hope things work out for the better.

Your Christmas tree is adorable. I’ve always been eyeing (?) this project, but had no idead it was so big!
It will be ready for Christmas in time, I’m sure!

Hugs for you and your little family!!

AJ said...

Looks Great Lily! Plently of time to finish it!

Tracey @ozcountryquiltingmum said...

Loving the christmas quilt...adn impressed that you are finding any sewing time with full time work and mum!! Though a little sewing downtime in that madness is therepeutic for the soul! love Tracey